Q&A for How to Write a Love Story

Introduce your character and talk about how you met him/her. If you want to make it more interesting, maybe change the scene, or the reason you met.

Fictionpress.com is a great place to post a love story. If it's a love story shipping characters from a favorite book/tv show/etc., you can use Fanfiction.net.

Consider having the characters being forced to spend time together so that they grow closer. For example, if they go to school together, they might have to work on a partner project. If they go to work together, they may have the same shift.

Make the characters have obstacles. Make the person reading your story want to cry. Make the characters desirable. Maybe there's a misunderstanding where one character thinks the other has been unfaithful, but they really haven't. Maybe a chance meeting or some kind of cosmic force brings them back together.

Start with the characters, and the setting around them.

Didn't you ever have a childhood crush? Think of it just like that, except make their love more mutual and real. Also, "in love" doesn't always mean romantically, they could be platonically in love, i.e. best friends that have known each other forever and couldn't imagine being apart from one another. Maybe they grow up and fall in love when they're adults!

Of course. The person could be experiencing the love from the other.

Give your protagonist a dramatic start. Maybe he loses a parent or gets sent to a new school and he meets the love interest in a way that he would not have without the dramatic event.

You can write it in either point of view. Just remember the pros and cons to each point of view, which apply to all story writing.

They don't have to, but this is a pretty common conflict for a love story. It's fine if you want to go that route, but you could also try to come up with a more original conflict for your protagonists.

Start by introducing the characters. Once the reader gets to know the love interests, make a dramatic obstacle appear. For example, John is nice and caring and calm, and his love interest Shelly is rebellious and mean. John still loves her. One day he sees her crying and goes to comfort her. She confesses a big secret and they became friends. He helps her solve her problem and they become lovers. This is just an example, but you get the idea.

Queer love stories don't need to be any different than heterosexual love stories. You may choose to explore topics like discovering sexual identity or facing the social pressures of being a queer couple, but the fundamental story-telling process is the same: develop your characters, introduce your lovers, create conflict, bring them to a sense of resolution.

Of course. Writing classes are helpful; they will teach you a lot of the basics on what not to do, as well as how to handle certain problems that new authors are often faced with. If nothing else, they give you practice. But they aren't required.

The historical detail is important here. That's what will make your story feel more real to your writers. Try starting by building up your world. Talk about how the war is impacting your characters. Do some research on WWII and bring that into your introduction.

Yes, it is. Just don't put in too many or it could be overwhelming.

When coming across clichés, give them a twist. For example, instead of having a bad boy and a good girl, turn it the other way around.

You may choose to have the love interest actively working to undermine their love (think How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days). You can choose to have your protagonist develop feelings for someone working against them (think Jack Donaghy and Senator Cunningham in 30 Rock). You can also choose not to have an antagonist and instead have difficult circumstances or personality conflicts create the drama between your characters (think Sweet Home Alabama).

Put it away for awhile and return to it when you have further inspiration.

It could be a story where the author is the antagonist, the reader is the love interest, and the main character has to find a way to get past the 4th wall.

Make them run into each other in the hallways at school, outside of school or at the friend's house.

Yes! Write whatever kind of love story you like! There are many gay love stories out there.

Love stories can start like normal stories; they don't have to have dramatic tension from the get-go. One of my preferences when starting a love story is to bring in feelings hidden to even the reader and slowly unfold so my climax has a bigger effect. If you're still stuck, write from the middle of your story and hopefully your beginning should come to you. Remember, you don't have to write in order.

Focus on your feelings and those of the other person. Also you have two ways to do it, either you write your story and just keep it like it is in real life (most of the time), or you change names, events or places so people can't see it's your love life.

You can go online and look up some romance title generators. Most of them are helpful, however, some are more specific. You can also ask family and friends for some help since they've probably got some ideas as well.

Different people find various things humorous. Write about the things that make you laugh. It's likely that if it makes you laugh, it'll make at least some of your readers laugh as well. Make sure your jokes and one-liners aren't cruel or offensive. Each scene must accomplish at least two goals: it must advance the plot, introduce a new character, develop an existing character, introduce a new setting, or foreshadow an event that will occur later. If it doesn't do any of those things and is only there to fill in the laughs, it's probably best left out. But don't throw it away. Save the jokes for another scene, or even another book. (A good joke should never be thrown away!)