Reality sets in and you start to really see the person. The mad, crazy, passionate time when you are truly obsessed with another sentient being, or at least obsessed with getting in their pants and scoring a DNA exchange.ДЄfter a short period of time the original chemical lust wears off. Yesterday we talked about the science behind Lust. Writing Realistic Relationships (the basics) Stages of Love: Commitment and Happily Ever After Stages of Love: Lost and Rough-Hewn Spears In Fake Engagement you start with Shared Interest, move to Reliability and Loyalty, Trust, then Physical Interest, Chemistry, and Enhancement. In Friend-to-Lovers you start with common interests and trust, and then wind up at physical attraction. In Enemies-To-Lovers the characters start with chemistry or physical interest, then common ground, and trust is last. The trope youвЂ™re writing determines how these stages developвЂ¦ The characters may trust each other and be attracted, but they are worse being in the relationship than they would be alone. If you want to write an abusive relationship, enhancement is the thing thatвЂ™s missing. ItвЂ™s the idea that being in this relationship makes everyone involved better & happier. Physical interest and chemistry change a platonic bond into a romantic one.Д®nhancement is what sells the romance. Trust, loyalty, and reliability develop with friendship.Д¬ompatibility covers religion, ideologies, future goals, ectвЂ¦ you need these to make a couple look like theyвЂ™ll work out. Shared interests get a couple to pay attention to each other. One, вЂњI canвЂ™t stop myself!вЂќ is a self-control issue and, two, no one wants to finish a book and think to themself, вЂњTheyвЂ™re not going to survive the first flu together let alone stay married happily ever after.вЂќ Physical Interest:В Do we find each other attractive?Д®nhancement:В Do we make each other better people when we are together?ДЄ lot of authors try to get by with physical interest (HeвЂ™s so sexy I canвЂ™t keep my hands off him!) and it tends to fall flat. Loyalty:В If we run into trouble, will you side with me or them?Д¬ompatibility:В Are we on the same page, working towards the same goals, and do we have the same values? Reliability:В If I trust you, will you be there when I need you? Trust:В Do I trust you with my secrets, my life, and my body? Shared Interest:В What do we have in common? Realistic relationships are built on a couple of things: shared interests, trust, reliability, loyalty, compatibility, physical interest, chemistry, and enhancement (in which being together makes each person stronger). Unless you are using the Fated Mate trope you need to build a realistic relationship.Anything less than that, and you will eaten alive by romance readers. Anything market as Romance must have a Happily Ever After/Happy For Now ending.There are a couple of hard and fast rules for writing romance genre that you need to keep in mind if you want to write category Romance.

What is a trope in writing