ALLISON MARTIN

This was something my editor told me after a developmental edit of a book of mine.

Why the heck do they even like each other, Allie? They spend over half the book being pissed at the other.

A lightbulb moment for me happened because it highlighted why I was struggling with the story in the first place. One thing I pride myself on when creating characters is compatibility. I put a lot of work into each character and their personalities in order to create real connection between them.

But for this book, I was sucked into this obsession with banter and enemies to lovers. I wanted to make their conflict juicier but in turn destroyed their compatibility. I ended up throwing it all out the window and rewrote the last half of the book three weeks before release.

It’s now my very best reviewed book.

My frustration with this lack of compatibility also crosses over into books that I read, too. When a romance focuses solely on the conflict their HEA becomes underwhelming and unconvincing.

Here’s how I fixed the issue in my own book and the prep work I do for new books. If you are an aspiring author these questions might help you as you craft your romantic plotlines.

How do they compliment each other?

For people to be compatible they have to have something in common. Even opposites will compliment each other in some way. Often times in a story, the ways they compliment each other will start out as a source of conflict, leading us to question two.

How do they challenge each other?

Books revolve around growth and conflict. Over the course of a story, especially one with a romance in it, the love interest often exposes and highlights the main character’s insecurities/obstacles. The source of conflict then becomes the very thing that will unite them, if they just stopped being so dang stubborn…

The beloved Grumpy/Sunshine trope is a prime example. The grump may be someone who is closed off and untrusting. They will be challenged by their bubbly love interest and encouraged to open up a bit. On the other hand, the cautious one will help the naïve one hold better boundaries. The interesting thing is that BOTH of them are avoidant, just in opposite ways. This becomes really fun to work with as they move through their story.

What personal obstacles do they need to overcome to ensure their HEA?

In real life, chaos reigns. Weird things happen. Coincidences pop up all over the place. Life is not linear, but a readable story has to be. You maybe can get away with one or two coincidences in the beginning of a book but for the most part, everything in a story is there on purpose. Each character has a desire/goal and must go through a personal growth arc to either succeed or fail in their journey. Their love interest is there by design to make sure they succeed in reaching their potential (even if they save themselves in the end).

Using the above grumpy/sunshine example of being trusting. The grump may be untrusting because of something that happened in the past and in order to make sure that they can get their HEA, they have to process that event and realize that the sunshine character isn’t going to hurt them.

Flipping to the sunshine character, they maybe were ridiculed or bullied into becoming a people pleaser and need to learn to stand up for themselves even to the grump character, so that their HEA is them stepping into their own power and being an equal partner to the grump.

When going through the exercises of compatibility as well as conflict, your character arcs will be so strong and compelling, you’ll have readers throwing their book, screaming at the characters, and kicking their feet in glee when they finally get together.

The beauty of a great romantic plotline is to keep them apart while simultaneously showing the reader why they belong together.

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