Romance in young adult fantasy novels

Source: Buccaneer.com

Writing romance in young adult fantasy novels is a subjective art. Obviously different readers like different stories and since plots and characters are never going to be identical, the romance will also be unique.

Young adult fiction books are smoking hot right now, so if you’ve always wanted to write one, now is the perfect time. If your dream is to write one of the best fantasy novels of our era, then you’ll need a strong romance element. Here are some tips for creating the love story that will drive and sustain the romantic tension of your future masterpiece.

Make the romance as unique as your characters. Every single love story is unique, with its own individual back story and history. If you truly want to write one of the best fantasy novels of this year, then you don’t want to resort to a cliché romantic storyline. Think about every relationship you’ve ever had—while some patterns may have repeated themselves, they were probably also different in many ways.

Create realistic interactions. In real life, we have different relationships with all of our friends, family and lovers. We have arguments, resolve conflicts and may experience some push and pull and ups and downs. Even though you want to write young adult fantasy novels, they still need to have realistic human interaction or they will be boring and trite—and worst of all, readers won’t care about or be invested in their fate.

Even if the characters are soul mates, they should be different from each other. Some of the best young adult fiction books and love stories are about two people from different backgrounds, cultures or families that are polar opposites, if not enemies. Romeo and Juliet is a perfect example. It’s also something that we’re seeing a lot of right now because of the surge in popularity in dystopian literature. When new societies or class systems are formed due to an apocalyptic event, it’s easy to create characters who might be from a completely different race, class or background fall in love with each other. Then the difficulties of trying to make this impossible or doomed love affair work is what creates tension and makes young adult fantasy novels interesting. Readers become very invested in the fate of the character’s love—it gives them something to root and hope for. The more realistic the better when it comes to romance!