Write an article based on this "Figure out if your love story will be your main story. Pick the genre in which you want to set your story. Decide what kind of emotional ending you want for your story. Consider whether you want your story to have a larger message."
A love story can be your main focus or it can be part of a larger tale. Decide whether you want your love story to be the main focus of your writing, or if you want it to enhance your main story. Framing a love story as part of a larger story can create a more realistic, relatable feeling to your writing. Focusing primarily on romance can be sweeping, epic, and more escapist. Neither is inherently better or worse, they're just different styles. For example, Love in the Time of Cholera is driven by its love story, but it also deals with themes of social strife, warfare, disease, aging, and death. It's also defined not just by its love story but by its magical realism, making it part of a strong Latino literary tradition. Love stories don't have to be romance novels. They play out across the daily lives of your characters and can work in any type of genre. Decide whether you want to write a more traditional romance or if you want to frame your story in another genre. To get an idea of how love stories are framed across genres, read books and short stories from the genres in which you're interested. Noir, sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, and comedic writing are some good genres to explore. Pay attention to how different authors in these genres develop different conventions of a love story. Do you want your characters to get their happily-ever-after? Will they learn that love isn't enough? Do you want something vague and open-ended? Deciding what kind of emotional resolution you want at the end of your story helps sculpt your plot and narrative. You can change this as you progress with your story if find that a different ending fits how your plot and characters develop. This should be a guide, but it doesn't need to be a rule. A love story for the sake of a love story can be a beautiful thing if that's what you want to write. However, many modern romance authors are considering the social contexts of what they are putting out, such as race, gender, and class. Think about whether you want your story to have a larger message. There is no right or wrong answer to this, but it is important to consider the message you're putting out. Love stories commonly deal with topics like social inequity, body image, gender equality, sexual orientation, class difference, and ethnic identity.