This is about writing romantic scenes, so do not apply this advice to your dating life or to your marriage. Spare room with Karen Terry. Hey y'all and welcome to Spare Room. I'm Karen Terry and today we're going to talk about writing romance scenes. Also a new set. Well y'all think, let me know down below. Last week we talked about romance plots and I do recommend watching that video first so that you have all of the plotting information before we go into the individual scene information. Now even if your story isn't explicitly a romance story, you likely have romantic scenes. Romance works great for a B plot and we're mostly talking about role play here, so let's be honest, even if it's not a romance role play, there's likely shipping going on somewhere. So what makes a scene romantic? When it comes to making a scene heartfelt or even steamy, it's all about the characters that are involved. There's a reason why the Jerry McGuire quote, you complete me, resonates so well for romance. When creating a romance between two characters, it's all about how those two characters affect each other. They should be affecting each other's character arcs in some way. The easiest way to do this is to create your characters like puzzle pieces. What is character A missing and how does character B fit into that element? How does character A likewise fit into character B's element? The two characters should easily compare and contrast to one another. The characters should complete each other in the narrative. Now let's take a moment to have an aside. This video has nothing to do with real life romances. This is about writing romantic scenes so do not apply this advice to your dating life or to your marriage. We're talking about characters not real people. However, of course just because these are characters doesn't mean we throw realism completely out the window. What I mean is nobody likes an insta ship. Remember from our plotting video last week, the rising conflict is all of those little dates, those little moments, their conflicts together, all of those sorts of things, and it's not until the climax that we know if the characters are really going to be together. So do not skimp on your rising action. Your romance should not be resolved in one scene. Stretch it out. Let your characters have a fight where one storms out of the house and doesn't come back until the next morning. Let there be a perfect moment for a kiss but then it's robbed by some action. This anticipation is what makes the romance satisfying. When setting up your particular romantic scene, use your setting. Your setting is your stage. These are all of the things that are going to clue your partner into this is a romantic scene. Soft lighting tends to make people look more beautiful so set your romance at dawn or at dusk or at night using candles for lighting. Celestial objects are often seen as romantic. Mention what the sky looks like. Where is the moon, the sun, the stars, all of the things that are in the sky, and perhaps compare things that are going onto the scene or the characters to those Celestial objects. Romantic things are often soft and vulnerable. Babies, prey animals like dears and bunnies, and flowers are all romantic because they have these qualities. Again, either have them appear in your scene or reference them in comparison. And don't forget your senses other than sight. Soft music or bird singing in the distance are very romantic sounds. Are the candles that your character lit, scented, or maybe they're soft incense somewhere in the scene? Keep in mind, many people find strong smells offensive but light perfume or cologne is considered romantic. When someone is experiencing romantic feelings, their senses are often heightened. So every touch between your two characters should be at least a little bit exaggerated. Slow down your pros and describe the way her hair feels when he tucks a strand of it behind her ear or describe how surprisingly soft his hands are. When you're doing this though, don't over exaggerate. Every date can't be the absolute perfect date. Every kiss can't be completely mind blowing. So don't have your characters exaggerate in every scene. Remember from our romance plotting video, we also want to be playing out those little bumps in the road that are happening between our two characters. If you're going to write that earth-shattering kiss, build up the tension. If you haven't seen my building tension video, this is absolutely critical for romance so I'm going to link that up in the card as well and I do recommend definitely giving that a watch before tackling more romantic scenes. Romance is incredibly common in roleplay so my next tip is actually something that you won't hear me say super often. Avoid cliches, overused tropes, and overused phrases. I know if you've heard my advice before, I typically say the opposite. However, when it comes to romance, people have done it so often and so many times before in roleplay circles that they can actually be bored by those things. You'll know what things are overused if you've been roleplaying for a while and if you haven't and don't worry, you will catch on so this isn't one to super stress it out. If you want to improve your pros when it comes to overused phrases, I recommend reading more romance novels. The best way to find out what sounds good to your reading ear and what might sound good to your partner's reading ear is to read more and to use those phrases that really resonate with you in your own writing. In contrast to that, don't be scared to have a little bit of cheese in your romance. Giving flowers is common but it's also really nice. Surprise dinners are romantic for a reason. Having your characters lay on a few extra compliments is super romantic. In roleplay, we have the benefit of only trying to impress one person, your partner. Find out where their line of two cheesy is and go with that and it might be farther than you think. In my experience, people like cheese. And my last tip, don't stress about every little detail. Focus on how the characters are feeling as opposed to where her hand actually landed. Sure, describe enough so that you're both picturing the same thing in your minds. But don't get so hung up on where this body part goes or that body part goes that you forget about what makes a romance scene actually fun and that's what's going on in the character's hearts. So those are my romance scene writing tips. You'll leave your own tips down below as roleplayers, I know we're all writing this stuff so you'll have some probably really great things to. Happy Valentine's Day and don't forget to make it a great day.