This week: The Tragic Side of Romance Edited by: Lilli 🧿 ☕  
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Sweet love stories are great and all, but sometimes, a person just needs a good crying fit. If all of the general positivity and romantic mushiness in your reading material is getting to you, grab a heartbreaking book about love. Not all love stories often are rainbows and butterflies. That's just not realistic.
Exactly what makes a story good, after all, is a matter of opinion. Some people prefer tales where the heroes win, the lovers reunite, and everyone lives happily ever after in the end. While others would rather read about the darker side of life. When it comes to stories about love, there are plenty on both sides of the spectrum to keep every reader happy — even if that means the characters in the book might not be; from forbidden affairs to tragic deaths, to fairy tales with less-than-happy endings.
One of the main goals of the tragic romance is to evoke emotion. But it’s very difficult to make readers feel much of anything if they don’t care about the characters. Characters should not feel like pawns who only function as plot devices. When this is the case, readers become detached and the tragic twist loses its impact. When this is the case, readers become detached and the tragic twist loses its impact. Therefore, for a tragic romance to have the desired emotional impact, its characters must be sympathetic and relatable.
To create these kinds of characters, a writer might:
 Highlight the characters’ insecurities. Most people can relate to feeling not good enough, especially in the context of a relationship.
Give the characters a backstory that elicits sympathy from the viewer.
Give the characters flaws, but also explain – or at least hint at – the reasons they might have those flaws. When people understand why a character is behaving a certain way, they are more likely to relate to them.
Focus as much on the characters’ individual personalities as you do on their relationship dynamic.
Both central characters (there are typically two in a tragic romance) should have a place in the story outside of the romance.
A romance that doesn’t conclude in suffering is just a love story. Notice, however, that the word suffering doesn’t necessarily imply death. While many of the most well-known tragic love stories do end in the death of the main character, it is not a prerequisite for success with a tragic romance.
Tragedy can be described as “an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress.” Death is not the only outcome that causes despair and suffering, nor is it always the worst.
Here are some possible tragic endings:
A young woman is forced to raise her son on her own while her husband serves jail time for a crime he didn’t commit.
A tale of marital strife ends with the husband walking away from his wife and their child.
A couple breaks up in the hospital after the volatility of their relationship reaches its peak.
A woman sits across from her lost love at a concert, crying as she recalls their short-lived romance.
In fact, tragic romances that don’t rely on the main character's death can pack an even stronger emotional punch. It’s especially painful when characters choose not to be together, and it’s a more relatable outcome to those who have never experienced the death of a significant other.
Have you written a tragic romance? Drop me an email with the link! I'd love to read it!
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Romance/Love: August 25, 2021 Issue [#10891]
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