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Writing Love

For me, the most common is familial love.

I don't write much romance, per se, although I think that admiration, appreciation, and friendship, and the very first buds of potential love are common for me also.

My current WIP presents a challenge for me because romance/love plays an important role. Three characters, all male. Two fall in love with the same person, but these are two different "types" of love—maybe, because I'm not sure the actual feeling is greatly different. One of the characters is in his mid-teens, so it's the kind of intense, crush-like love, that develops into a sort of absolute dedication toward the beloved. The other is a more adult love from someone in his early twenties, hesitant, surprising, because he starts out hunting the eventual beloved for the purposes of imprisonment and punishment. BUT the common beloved of these two is not someone who can reciprocate. Well, the story on the whole is meant to be a tragedy.
 
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Chessie

Guest
It sometimes feels like there's not enough girl/girl or boy/boy relationships in fantasy. It's mostly just school/slice of life related.

[I'm a romantic, too, but I'm oddly picky about the types of romance I read.
You should totally be picky about the romance you read. There's a lot of variation within the genre and being that it's so intimate, it definitely sucks when you've picked the wrong one (had that happen a few times and I threw the book across the room once. The reasons here shall go unsaid *cough* don't shove religion down my throat and say it's a romance *cough* cough*).
 
I'm sick of love triangles, so there aren't any in my books. They either annoy me or give me headaches. :p

Ah, hah, I hate the way love triangles are played up to increase tension and in order to have a lot of internalized emotion vomited onto the page. But I'm not working mine as a love triangle. Love happens, and occasionally more than one person falls in love with the same person.
 
Even if two characters have 'agape' love in my books, there's many reasons why [such as, they are linked together in some way, or are connected through what they were sent to do, or are part of the same being].

The only love triangle that kind of worked for me was Will/Tessa/Jem in The Infernal Devices, but that's mainly because Will and Jem pretty much in love with each other, too. :p Or am I just seeing homosexual subtext where there is none? :p
 
I dislike books that have too much religious symbolism/allegory. *cough Narnia cough*

I wonder if people will get upset about how free-spirited and open-minded my books are [almost all characters frequently walk around naked, tri-pairings and same gender pairings are common...] ;)
 
I dislike books that have too much religious symbolism/allegory. *cough Narnia cough*

I wonder if people will get upset about how free-spirited and open-minded my books are [almost all characters frequently walk around naked, tri-pairings and same gender pairings are common...] ;)

I liked the Narnia books, but in general I hate allegory.
 

TheKillerBs

Maester
I also like to write friendship, which I think is downplayed in modern stories. I especially like close, platonic male/female friendship that never turns into anything romantic. (Since I have a lot of guy friends, and since I just get along with guys more, I wish it was more clearly exhibited in books that a guy and girl CAN be just friends.) Older stories have a lot of very compelling friendships in them (Frodo and Sam immediately springs to mind, and I think Sam is my favorite literary character ever) but in newer stories almost all relationships that close are made out to be romantic. I think its lost on the modern audience that a friendship can be EXTREMELY close without being sexual.

I agree with this so flipping hard. I think part of why I care so much about writing friendships, especially deep ones, is how little one can find them nowadays (in Western fiction, at least). I don't think I've written many deep boy/girl friendships though. Not outside of Harry Potter fanfiction, anyway.
 
I agree with this so flipping hard. I think part of why I care so much about writing friendships, especially deep ones, is how little one can find them nowadays (in Western fiction, at least). I don't think I've written many deep boy/girl friendships though. Not outside of Harry Potter fanfiction, anyway.

I wonder why it is that deep friendships are rarely written or discussed?
 
As for romance...for all my love of relationship stories, I have never been able to interest myself in a romance. They just don't pique my curiosity. I want to branch out and try new things but in this case I don't even have the motivation.

All my favorite books tend to have the romance subplot, but as a SUBplot. secondary to the main story.
 
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Chessie

Guest
I think it's a product of how sex-obsessed we, as a society, are. We turn everything sexual. Everything. Even what had nothing to do with sex, like friendship.

Romance doesn't need to have sex. And there are plenty of books about friendships.
 

TheKillerBs

Maester
Romance doesn't need to have sex. And there are plenty of books about friendships.

No, romance doesn't need to have sex but it often does, especially where the romance genre is concerned (also sexualisation doesn't need to have sex either). As far as friendship is concerned, perhaps I am looking in the wrong places, but I haven't seen much in recent stuff. Not in Western works, anyhow.
 
Romance is included in some of my stories but it's not a focal point, so it's not really driving the plot in any significant way. I like using it as a way of showing more of the character's personality and of course as a dynamic between characters.
 
Okay a video first to dragon of the aerie you are correct every story is a love story. [video=youtube_share;ubI1vKCCmlU]https://youtu.be/ubI1vKCCmlU[/video]

As for the love in my stories I have one mentor mentee love like father and son. Another that centers on a father finding his son that was kidnap led in chapter 1. And a few side plots of romantic relationships but ones that are internally stable while facing extraordinary outside pressure.
 
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