: Re: How do I write romance if I've never been in love? I've been trying to write a good romance but it's falling a little flat. I think it might be because I've never been in love before. My

@Kristi637

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While it's certainly easier to write about things you've had personal experience of ("write what you know" and all that) it's certainly not impossible so I wouldn't call this an unfixable problem, rather it's a difficult one.

You mention that romance is your favorite genre to read - so you've probably got a decent amount of experience as to what works in a romance story even if you don't realise it.

My advice would be to build on that strength and work on using it to improve your own writing, read as much romance as you can both good examples of the genre but just as cruicially bad examples. Use the contrast to illustrate what works, what doesn't and why.

Take pivotal scenes of the sort you're looking to work on in a good example and break them down, take notes about what the author is doing to provoke emotional responses in the reader and then do the same analysis on a "bad" example, you should start to be able to see what's missing.

I'm not going to sugar coat it - this isn't a particularly enjoyable process, and worse it can end up ruining your ability to enjoy consuming a genre. Like when you understand how a magic trick is done it loses it's ability to impress you. But put the work in and you will get better at it.

Another key thing is that if you don't have them already you need some reliable beta readers - find some folks you trust to give you honest feedback and appreciate the genre and have them read your stuff. You're never going to have the same emotional responses to something as the author as a reader will as you know the work too well to be properly swept along in it.

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