Posted: June 18, 2024
With romance, you typically find two types: slow burn and fast burn (which I personally call flashfire romance). Fast burn comes out of a nowhere and often spirals out of control, while slow burn starts slow and builds gradually. I prefer slow burn.
I’m not a big reader of Romance to begin with, but I’ll always welcome well-written relationships in the books I’m reading. I find that it enhances an already great story if it’s done right, whereas in Romance-forward books, I find myself getting distracted because I feel like something else should be going on besides the relationship.
Yes, I think there is. This is more often a problem in TV shows than in books, as books have a set ending, whereas two characters in a TV show can dance around each other eternally to get the show to keep going. Rarely, it can happen in books too.
Miscommunication is what drives them apart, and a story without conflict makes for a boring one. Readers don’t want it to be easy, but sometimes it feels like the author is just making up new scenarios for why the characters can’t be together (also to extend the story).
Don’t get me wrong, though. Some people like when slow burns are super long. They like dancing at the edge of the cliff between friends/acquaintances and lovers. Those books are just not for me. I am a firm believer of the ability of going too far, and I just don’t like it. I appreciate good set up (in everything, not just relationships) but eventually there needs to be a pay off. There needs to be satisfaction—even if it’s negative.
On the other hand, if there is enough going on plot wise for the story to still be interesting despite the slowness of the slow burn, then that changes things.
The biggest thing, though, is what’s used to keep them apart. Are the reasons realistic? Organic? Believable? If they’re just manufactured by the writer as an excuse, it kills the mood quickly. It becomes a story that readers don’t want to read, let alone watch succeed. The characters must be actively working to surpass these obstacles as well. Pages and pages of internal struggles with self-doubt with no progress may be possible in real life, but in a book, sometimes too much is too much. It’s aggravating to the characters and aggravating to the readers.
Jane Austen is an excellent writer of slow burn (I’ve heard). As of writing this, I’ve only read Emma, but I’ve reread this book twice because I just love it. It’s one of the few Romance-centric books I’ve enjoyed, which I think is mostly because the plot focuses on other people’s love lives rather than the one of the main character, Emma. She thinks herself a matchmaker, though it’s because of her lack of understanding that the romances don’t often turn out—it was a comedy of errors that somehow turned out alright. Though not quite a slow burn in the typical sense, there are hints of Emma’s eventual relationship in there.
More obviously, though, is Jane Eyre. I read this book in high school and reread it again recently. The slow burn in this book is a big focus, though there is enough going on in the rest of the book (as a coming-of-age novel) that even when things don’t work out right away, it’s still interesting. There are quite natural reasons that Jane and her love interest can’t be together, and there are things we know about Jane and her childhood that explain some internal reasons she can’t put herself out there. Still, we get a somewhat happy ending, which I loved.
As for books that aren’t romance focused—I loved the slow burn of Percy and Annabeth in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It’s a children’s series, so romance is definitely not the focus, which means we get to see Percy and Annabeth as enemies, as sort-of friends, as rivals (especially when Annabeth is jealous of Percy being with other girls), and finally as boyfriend and girlfriend. Their relationship spans five books before they finally kiss and get together, so instead of being something that I was chomping at the bit for, it was the icing on the cake after their final battles.
When I write, I focus mainly on the mystery or adventure plot of my books. What is the action driving the story forward? Sometimes I’ll plan for characters to be in relationships, but often times I’ll fall into it—if two characters have natural chemistry.
I always write with my characters’ personalities in mind, which means each scene progresses their relationships, positively or negatively. It’s woven into every scene (sometimes more in focus and sometimes less), rather than being something that comes in hard once, then disappears, then comes in again.
I aim to do the same thing with character building. I don’t like adding meaningless fluff to my writing, and because of that, my writing is often short and succinct. Each scene has a purpose, and never is that purpose “to get to know the characters better”. It must be something to move the plot along, and if the readers get to know more of the characters at the same time, it’s a win-win.
My current novel is a supernatural mystery, and while there are hints of romance in the background, I don’t put a heavy focus on it. Mostly, it’s highlighted in the dialogue of the tertiary characters, and by the end, I’m prepping for a big plot twist to lead the reader into book two. The romance aspect is a good way to enhance the continued interest between two characters, but my main focus is their chemistry and the mystery that’s being solved. The romance is the background.
How about you? Are you a fan of Romance, or do you like to keep it on the sidelines? Do you prefer slow burn or flashfire romances?
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Elves in Fiction
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Prophecies in Fiction
Romance in Fiction
Shapeshifters in Fiction
Slow Burn in Fiction
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Vampires in Fiction II
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Emma by Jane Austen
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