BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
Do you ever wonder why a ship so good and pure in your eyes never becomes canon? Does it always irritate you that whenever there’s a show with two characters who are obviously meant for each other never kiss? Well, I have the answer for you!
Sometimes, we as writers just don’t want to.
Despite how we love to spite our readers, there are many reasons why we will not make a ship canon and why some of us aren’t meant to write romance at all.
First, you can’t actually write something that is purely a romance. It’s why most romances are written with comedy in it because it is literally impossible to write a hundred episodes of slow burn. That means when writing romance you will most likely make it a subplot in a different story.
Even if you do make a romantic subplot, sometimes it just doesn’t feel right for some reason. For me, it feels like an unnecessary annoyance to add to the main story, plus I have no idea how to write slow burning romance.
It’s also why I’m extremely disappointed that I can’t use this one ship that I think was written very well in an actual story I will publish because it only works in the story that they are in which will never be revealed to the public because it was something I wrote for fun.
So when trying to write something like a romantic subplot in a bigger story, I would highly suggest that you stay in a comfort zone you are good at. I could really ruin a character if their only goal was to be a love interest (cough cough Sakura cough).
Despite how I don’t write romance often, a ship I made once was easily integrated into the story, and it played a pretty important role.
First off, it’s important to think about the process of them getting together and instead focus on their relationship. The reason for this is because their relationship is much more important than the process of the two of them coming together. Relationships can also aid in character development.
It’s also much easier for me to write an actual relationship because I can easily make them go through events, while the slow burn feels awkward and maybe too quick.It’s important to be aware of tropes that make the relationship unrealistic too.
Though you can always jump out of your comfort zone if you want to, romance is a subject that many people care about, so you could probably kill the reputation of your story by making an unnecessary and annoying romantic subplot.
Obviously, fiction is very unrealistic compared to reality especially with relationships, platonic and romantic. Of course, depending on your style and the genre, you can go absolutely buck wild when it comes to romance. Kaguya-Sama Love Is War is a romance turned up to 100 and it is absolutely hilarious and amazing. We aren’t meant to take anything really seriously since it is comedy, and we love it for teasing typical romance tropes.
But I will be talking about romantic subplots in more serious stories where a romantic subplot is an option.
First, you need to consider the circumstances you set. If the characters are trying to stop an evil empire, I would doubt that they would be immature enough to let a love triangle get in their way. If the relationship is essential to the plot, then I will go for it, but I will avoid writing romance since it feels like an unnecessary annoyance. That’s why I will usually make teenagers get together in these kinds of circumstances instead of adults because they aren’t as mature.
Your circumstances that you set for the characters help shape your characters into who they are, so despite how two characters might have a good dynamic, they would most likely hold off dating until after the conflict is resolved.
Then there is also whether or not it actually makes sense for two characters to get together.
There are plenty of ships out there that people like, but it would not make sense in the canon story, even if there was room for romance. Osamu Dazai and Atsushi Nakajima from Bungou Stray Dogs wouldn’t get together because Dazai is more of a mentor figure to Atsushi. Despite how they have a good dynamic, a good overall relationship, and the two of them are old enough to be together it would not make sense in the canon story.
I was always getting rid of love interests for a character of mine, because she basically hates all people and she would most likely adopt a child and be a single mother if she had to start a family. She likes to pull her own weight and wouldn’t pay attention to dating because of her job and the fact that she didn’t even have time to date anyone in the canon storyline.
I also want to say something about ships and how they should be ethically healthy.
Now, I can hear all the people who make the argument that it’s just fiction coming at me when I say that your ship should be healthy. If you are that kind of person then please, take this dunce cap, sit in the corner, and think about your actions.
Fiction has an effect on reality, and it is not as noticeable as you might think. Media can easily spread stereotypes, especially if it is directed at impressionable young children, and stories mean more than just works of fiction to most people. People usually consume media as a form of entertainment and an escape from reality, so it is why we care about proper representation. When people aren’t represented in a healthy and normalized way in your story, it can hurt the represented groups, and that goes for relationships, too.
Sure, you can make a story about a character who is trapped in a toxic relationship as long as you do the proper research. That is good, but when you make a toxic relationship seem like a good thing you are promoting toxic relationships. Even if you don’t advocate for toxic relationships yourself, that does not matter because how you portrayed it was glorifying these relationships.
And it is not fake that the media easily spreads stereotypes – where do you think we got all of our stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community, neurodivergent people, the mentally ill, and so on come from? There are many examples of people misrepresenting autistic people as either smart geniuses that don’t know how to socialize or just as the stereotypical supporting role to help the bad main character become a better person. As an asexual person myself, I find it very annoying that we don’t get so much representation and that we’re usually reduced to being a person who isn’t interested in sex and someone who doesn’t feel romantic attraction. First of all, asexuality is a spectrum and many people experience asexuality differently, and just because we are asexual that doesn’t mean we still don’t feel romantic attraction.
And where did we all get this from? The media that we’ve been consuming for the last decade.
Of course, there is also the intent behind the media.
Most yaoi and yuri content in anime or manga is made solely for the consumer’s wish fulfillment. It is not meant to be conceived any other way because that was the purpose of the story, and that is completely fine. But if you’re making a story that anyone can view, that is when you need to pay attention to how you represent these kinds of things.
So if you are writing a story for anyone to view as entertainment, then avoid making your story problematic by both doing the proper research and making healthy ships. This is mainly for characters getting into relationships, so making a character in a toxic relationship at first and you give them a subplot about that relationship is fine but don’t make the relationship out to be a good thing.
Now, I want to talk about romance tropes.
I am very picky when it comes to a lot of things, and romance is one of them. That is why a lot of the time I hate romance tropes. I’m not the person to tell you which tropes you should use, but I feel that with romance there is a certain absurdity that I can’t wrap my head around.
The main problem I have with most romance tropes is that they seem pretty unrealistic. The childhood friends to lovers is an adorable trope, but I don’t think a relationship like that would be able to grow into a romance. People drift apart with time, and despite it being fiction, the sad reality is that not all of your relationships, romantic and platonic, are going to last forever.
There are also some tropes that are particularly harmful and don’t make sense. The aromantic or asexual character finding “their one true love” is a trope that extremely annoys me because it feels like erasure. You can give an asexual or aromantic a love interest, just make it accurate and don’t erase the fact that they don’t feel sexual or romantic attraction. Better yet, make an aro ace character never fall in love because their orientation matters too.
There’s also enemies to lovers, which I feel is very unrealistic. It also honestly sucks when it’s a non-canon ship for me because the show especially hyped up the characters to be enemies.
As said before, you need to set a particular tone to your story, so we know what to expect. If you seriously hype up characters as absolute nemeses, then making there be a change of heart all of a sudden is the equivalent of closing a slow tab right when it was finished loading.
It’s usually my biggest problems with enemies to lovers ships such as BakuDeku (Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku “Deku” Midoriya). Despite how BakuDeku is not canon the way it could integrate into the story is completely unrealistic to the actual plot.
They were always hyped up to be enemies, and Bakugou was quite the hateable character before season three. When we actually had the fight between them, that’s when people started to like Bakugou, but the story clearly doesn’t tell you that Bakugou and Deku are going to fix their relationship. There is no apology exchanged between Bakugou and Deku, which is something that needs to happen when you are mending a toxic relationship. The two of them have negatively affected each other their entire lives, and even if they had to reunify they need to start the actual healing process. Bakugou still acts the same way around all of the characters and barely anyone even knows what their fight was about. That is a very established rivalry between two characters.
The most recent manga chapters show that their relationship is healing, but the establishment of their rivalry was so serious it would feel out of character for them to go as far to become a couple. Adding the fact that Deku and Bakugou have people who are much more suited to being a healthier significant other, the chances of BakuDeku becoming canon are quite low.
But this is the MHA fandom we’re talking about, so I’m sure none of us are surprised that this arguably problematic and unrealistic ship exists.
Then how do you actually write a romantic subplot by not relying on tropes and actually thinking about the interactions between the characters?
One of the biggest things that should happen is the establishment of the subplot. Despite how annoying the love at first sight tropes are, it is necessary to make the audience believe that these people are supposed to get together.
Then, there is actually showing it. This is when “show not tell” comes into play.
I know that it seems weird at first, but the difference between showing and telling is actually a lot more easy to understand than you think. First, you need to convince your audience of these claims that you make. It’s why I like to use a lot of examples when talking about writing to make it much more believable – actions speak louder than words.
Media such as Disney’s adaptation of Artemis Fowl suffered from telling and not showing, and this is seen in the backlash directed towards it..
Okay, let’s say that there was a proper confession and the characters are officially in a relationship. You did the build up and all of that jazz, so what do you do now?
A thing that annoys most people is when a season ends and a relationship is established, but in the next season a few years have passed and our love birds are either broken up or their relationship is suffering.
Well, most people can agree that writing the actual relationship is hard, though for me it is actually in reverse. I’ve said this earlier, but if you haven’t caught on by now I prefer to write about the actual relationship than do the build up. I feel like a lot of the time when writers don’t actually write the relationship, it is because it wasn’t relevant to the overarching plot of the story. Subplots are usually not connected to the main story which is why I like to make ships canon if it affects the plot.
It’s a lot easier to manage something if it is actually important to the plot, so you could even use the plot to determine the direction of the relationship.
If this is for a grand overarching story then it can show that the characters still care about the main problem, but an easier and more useful alternative is to make them officially become a couple at the very end of the series.
Though if you can’t do that or don’t want to, then you actually have to write a relationship for this subtle subplot. What I found that works best for me is to make the relationship just as subtle as it was before, so that we still have the same flow. Of course, you could write a small chapter about them going on a date when they finally have a break, and drop subtle hints like that time on and time again so we don’t forget that they are a couple.
A lot of this depends on your pacing which is crucial. The pacing can make us either really excited that the characters are finally together, or we might skip the part because it’s so annoying.
An example that I can think of is Hanako and Yashiro from Toilet-bound Hanako-kun. I’ve talked about how much I liked how their relationship was handled in my analysis of Yashiro, but I want to talk about how it was pulled off well with the method I have been talking about.
First, it’s the subtle but obvious hinting that they like each other, and they are a good twist to the normal heteronormative couple. Hanako is more of Yashiro’s love interest, since he’s the one infatuated with her. And despite how their relationship didn’t originally start out that way, it didn’t change when romantic tension was added. They are still the funny duo that we love, while not making Kou a third wheel.
The subtle portrayal of their relationship was able to make room for the trio’s dynamic. The story could’ve easily made it a love triangle between the three of them, but it’s more like a joking relationship that we don’t even notice.
That’s why when Hanako “confessed” to Yashiro we were excited because our ship has finally been confirmed. Of course, the confession was fake, and I really like how the situation is handled a bit more seriously than the usual style.
Yashiro cries, and it’s not because she just wanted someone to fall in love with her, but because she is embarrassed when he accidentally mislead her. All that she says goes to show that her original character development wasn’t ignored. Yashiro stopped being selfish and didn’t try to make people get with her, but she still wants a boyfriend. She has been heart broken by people and has had the worst of luck with romance, so it makes sense for her to be upset.
And I was honestly surprised by how well this scene was handled, but it gets better.
Before Yashiro can leave and their relationship is scarred, Hanako decides to get serious and properly apologize to her.
We see progression in their relationship as Hanako gives a sincere apology and even takes off his hat which has never happened before. We are shown that he cares about Yashiro and her feelings and didn’t mean to make her cry.
That on Hanako’s part for being Yashiro’s love interest is a clear indication that he loves her, and we get a great display of Yashiro’s character and how it has progressed from a hopeless romantic to a realistic high school student.
It’s moments like this that show us the progression in relationships, and it wasn’t shoved in our faces. We got so much from a single exchange between the characters, and I honestly can’t wait what Aidalro has in store for us.
The writing for the relationship hit a lot of points that I found helpful when writing my own relationships.
There was plenty of showing and not telling and we could easily believe everything that was going on. Showing and not telling was a helpful method when I was writing two relationships in a story because I could be a lot more subtle about it, but still have a small romantic subplot. A lot of the time it will help it not seem so forced, and you can show the developing relationship as the main plot progresses.
And once the characters do get together it can be a bit of a big banger moment for the two of them. As said before, we got a lot from a single scene with Hanako and Yashiro, and it’s moments like these that make it flow well. A way to not make it seem like it’s butting at an unnecessary time is to make it more of a private confession or the closing scene to your season.
Of course, you don’t have any control over how your audience takes the hints and such because that’s how they are, but if you can hit all of the points then it’ll work a lot better.
Romance is a complicated subject and honestly annoying sometimes, but studying how to portray a relationship by looking at other media is a good way to improve your writing on any kind of topic.
So thanks for reading!