what's up my friend Abby here and welcome back to writers life Wednesdays where we come together to help you make your story matter and make your author dreams come true are you struggling to write romantic chemistry that feels believable realistic and makes your readers fall head over heels in love with your characters do you feel like maybe your characters are missing that magic spark that makes a fictional couple insanely shippable you don't even know what is you can't even necessarily put your finger on it but you know that there are some fictional couples that just
have that M magic chemistry and you're afraid that your characters don't in this video I'm going to be revealing the top seven deadly mistakes of writing romantic chemistry these mistakes will ruin your characters chemistry and do the exact opposite and not make your readers root for them and want to see them together okay you want to avoid these things these things will kill romantic chemistry even faster than one poor sonnet but if it is only a vague inclination I'm convinced one poor sonnet will kill its Stone dead so what do you recommend to encourage affection
so if you commit any of these chemistry crimes stop that right now just stop why does your story matter good question What if I told you that there's a science behind every great story I don't just teach you how to write I teach you how to change the world with your story and make your author dreams come true before we get into our list of deadly romance mistakes that kill chemistry hit the Subscribe button below this video only take a sec and it helps me so much and it helps you to get more videos like
this in your feed and never miss any of my videos live streams or live trainings lots of amazing stuff happens on this channel every week for writers so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it okay let's get right into it mistake number one they never or rarely ever have time alone together this mistake can destroy couples who even have great chemistry to start with but then as The Story Goes On they spend less and less time together or they're off on their own agendas and their own missions and we start to forget what
it was even like to see them together we start to forget the whole mood and the atmosphere and the tension and the juicy wonderful conflict that happened between these characters because they don't have enough alone time together the less proximity the less intimacy and intimacy is what you want to go for with these characters even if they don't have particularly positive feelings towards each other at first maybe you're writing enemies to lovers romance you still need that forced proximity to get them alone together to start creating these situations for them to rely upon each other
and that would be my flip side advice is instead of doing this mistake get your characters alone together force them to be together force them to problem solve together and bonus points if they have to rely upon each other in a moment of Crisis and learn to trust each other I have an idea so why I'll listen to yours if you listen to mine we employ a pins move each approaching from opposite directions if he wakes and sees one of us the other cause is a distraction and when he turns to take Aim the person
not in the firing line rushes from behind now you're ready you stay here I go punch you in the face bonus bonus points if they didn't trust each other before this but now going through this experience together they are building this layer of wonderful chemistry and trust and affection for each other mistake number two they fall in love too quickly love at First Sight might seem like a golden opportunity for some instant chemistry but believe it or not this is actually the shest way to kill any tension that we could have felt between this couple
when characters fall in love too quickly it feels unearned and we have just a hard time believing that they have particularly deep feelings for each other because they just you know made eye contact across the room at a party and suddenly they're like like love maybe it's not even in the same scene but if you don't have enough tension and enough buildup the love confession when they're suddenly burst out and they're like I love you can feel so unearned because we didn't have that buildup over time now I know what you're thinking my book takes
place in a short period of time what if it takes place in like 3 days or something and I need my characters to fall in love in that time is it just doomed to feel unrealistic no not necessarily I have been there and done that I have made characters fall in love over the course of a very short period of time but the way to execute on this is to still find those opportunities for the Romantic buildup so you can make something feel like slowburn even if it's happening rather quickly in real time it's all
about finding those little moments to build up the Romantic tension and desire and affection and attraction between these two characters the heroine of Pride and Prejudice is Elizabeth Bennett she is one of the greatest and most complex characters ever written not that you would know as a matter of fact I've read it oh well good for you you can't just jump from strangers to passionate lovers and expect your reader to be along for that extreme up and down roller coaster ride we need to feel like we've been on an emotional Journey with these characters even
if that emotional Journey happened over the course of a day you can still have buildup just find those opportunities to build up the tension mistake number three they tease each other about other potential love interests nothing screams I'm just your friend more than teasing somebody about other potential love interests it's basically like saying if you go out with this person if you get together with this other person I will be happy for you I will not be bothered at all it won't even cross my mind that this is a problem and that's not what you
want if you want to build up this desire and attraction and romance between these two characters if you want to play with subtext here you can do that by letting the character be thinking something other than what they're saying so on the surface I'm teasing you about other potential love and Trust like hey you know I think you're really interested in that girl she really likes you she's always flirting with you you don't notice that she's always flirting with you oh come on and really deep down I'm like I do not want you to like
this girl I don't want you to be with any one but me subtext is wonderful especially in a romantic story and buildup between these two characters so you can play with that absolutely but make sure that your characters deep down have a emotional reaction to the idea of their love interest being interested in another person and that that reaction feels realistic and aligns with how they feel about this person so instead let let the idea of another love interest get under their skin and bother them this is a fantastic way to turn up the heat
on the chemistry burner and give your main character a taste of what it would be like to lose this person to someone else mistake number four they never touch unless in combat with each other touch isn't just a nice way to show that your characters have affection for each other it also actually does something to your brain it releases oxy kosin in your brain and that's like the love hormone it's like the chemical that makes you feel trust and love and affection and drawn in to be more interested in this person that's why it's kind
of difficult to feel this love and this spark and this romantic chemistry between these two characters that they're never touching never even interested in an accidental touch but it's worth noting that a little bit of those accidental touches can go a long way okay you don't have to go overboard here but having a moment where maybe one character has to care for another character's injury or help them out or even take their hand when helping them into a carriage Jane Austin was a master of doing this giving us those little accidental touches that build up
the Romantic tension slowly over time time and make us feel this physical spark between these two characters even Beyond just the emotional what's going on here now if you've made it this far into the video and you're like man I really wish there was like a cheat sheet Ultimate Guide to writing wonderful romantic chemistry that makes my readers fall in love with my fictional couple then you're in luck because I taught an entire live training on this topic diving deep into writing Swoon worthy romantic chemistry and making your characters feel more layered realistic believable and
making us root for and cheer on their relationship in this training we cover the number one Golden Rule for creating emotional passionate relationships between characters how to use your character's existing personalities to clash and complement each other powerful ways to bring your characters together using the events of the plot how to use the weapon weakness want rule to make your characters super shippable the importance of relationship arcs and how to friendzone characters that you don't want to be together so if you want to take your romance to that next level and craft an unforgettable relationship
that your readers will be obsessed with you definitely want to check out this training you can watch the replay on Demand right now by clicking the link below this video so check that out and when you sign up to watch that training you also get my entire Archive of of previous live trainings diving deep into topics on writing editing publishing and more so check that out link below okay let's get back to our list of deadly romance mistakes that kill chemistry number five they get sick of each other after a while when two characters are
in love with each other they don't get sick of each other they want to be by each other's side as much as possible now maybe your relationship gets off to a rocky start okay maybe you're writing enemies to lovers and at first they do not like each other they hate each other they want to watch the other person fall off a cliff I get that but as they grow closer together and they start to fall in love and their relationship starts to change their feelings towards each other should start to change and evolve as well
they actually start to like being with this person they don't get sick of being with them and they're like in this weird transitional phase where they're thinking why am I being so tolerant of this person I used to hate them and now I don't even mind hanging out with them in fact I look forward to hanging out with them what is this sorcery also let them be on each other's minds all the time even if even in the negative stage of their relationship if at first they don't like each other they could still be on
each other's minds they can still be thinking I won't give him the satisfaction or I wonder what she'll think about this or he's so annoying how he's always like you get the point mistake number six they don't challenge each other's faults and weaknesses nothing is quite as saltin cracker Bland as a couple who never challenges each other's faults and weaknesses cuz they are just perfect and Flawless and boring see this is what makes a romance interesting in the first place is because these two characters are growing together they need each other in order to change
in order to have that transformative Journey that character Arc and what is a character Arc brought out of out of being challenged having our faults and weaknesses put to the test being shoved into the ring with some sort of conflict your characters have to stretch each other they have to help each other to become better people through challenging each other in sometimes infuriating ways and here's some advice for you Eliza I'm warning you one more word and you will find yourself in cor you might find your focus shraer your workload lighter if you tone down
your drinking gambling and womanizing you are charged with obstructing Police business see none of that juicy heated conflict ridden character change can happen between two characters who are both like oatmealy and sweet and Flawless and just great people all around they have nothing to nothing to change about themselves they're perfect the heat of conflict is where delicious chemistry is created right even as we're using this term chemistry I'm thinking of like mixing chemicals that don't belong together and creating some sort of reaction from it right why would that happen if we're mixing the same thing
with the same thing and there's no Clash whatsoever then there's no bubbly chemistry and finally mistake number seven they have romantic chemistry with other characters I've seen this so many times with stories that clearly they're shipping the main character with a love interest character and they want you to root for these two characters being together but there's also a third character or maybe even a fourth character that the protagonist actually has better chemistry with and you secretly want them to be with that character but the author clearly has no intention of doing that please for
all our sakes if you're not even going to let this character be in the running for love interest to our MC friends on them don't fake us out with this amazing Chemistry Between the MC and this other character and then shut it down like you thought she was going to end up with that guy no he's just a friend he's nobody come on how do you friends own a character you might ask easy just take this entire list of mistakes and do that do the mistakes with this character that you don't want to have chemistry
with nip it in the bud before it grows into something more and fakes us all out and makes us want to ship this character with that character and you have no intention of doing that or just do that let your characters run wild let them be with who they want to be with take a step back and look at all your characters and see which ones actually naturally are starting to have the best chemistry with each other and see if you can actually roll with that can we work with this can we make this shippable
okay boom that's it those are the seven deadly mistakes of romantic chemistry that will kill your romance before it even starts so don't commit any of these sins unless you are going to friendzone your characters on purpose in which case this is a good guide cheat sheet to do that if you want to take your romance to the next level and build insanely wonderful lovable Swoon worthy Chemistry Between Your characters check out that training that I mentioned earlier you can watch the replay right now with the link below this video comment below this video and
tell me what is the number one thing you've observed that kills romantic chemistry in fiction or film I want to hear your thoughts on this so join the discussion below this video and smash that like button while you're down there subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post writing videos every single Wednesday and I would love to have you here in the community until next time my friend Rock on [Music] [Applause] [Music]
