Roses are red, violets are blue

[author_by_night]

 Good morning, afternoon, whatever time it is for you when you find this post!

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought we might talk about writing relationships. A few questions:

• Is there anything you find challenging about writing relationships?

 

• What do you love about writing relationships?

 

• Have you ever tried writing for a ship (or even just a trope) you normally don't? What was the outcome?*

 

• Favorite tropes/tags/themes to write?

 

• Any other observations?

 

*In case it needs to be said, this isn't about yucking anyone else's yum. It's about our own experiences trying to write particular things, without judgment towards others. 

I've provided my own answers in the comments.

Comments

[mific]

Is there anything you find challenging about writing relationships?
I started out in fanfiction with high-rated short fics, always about my OTP. Then I gradually moved to longer, plottier stories, often in AU settings, and into some genfics. I seem to have become less romantic as I've gotten older, and am not sure if that's a common thing or just a me thing! But in my current fandom (based on a romance) I'm back into high-rated romance again, so who knows - it may be driven as much by the fandom. I think writing romance as such is always a bit of a challenge for me - I dislike heavy angst and tend to smack my characters together with less preamble than many writers, so the eventual relationship might not always feel fully earned. Sometimes I manage that with plot - glimpses of the relationship developing with a moderate amount of plot in between, rather than pages of emotional navel-gazing (which I'm not good at and have less patience with).

What do you love about writing relationships?
I do enjoy figuring out how to get my characters together, especially in unusual settings or AUs, or where (as so often) there are barriers between them. I also enjoy writing sex scenes and kissing, and I think I've become better at integrating those properly into the story, rather than the older expectation in some of my earlier fandoms that the writer owed the reader at least one culminating sex scene. (or a sex scene per chapter!) I also love writing dialogue and humour, which may be one reason I struggle a little with pure romance - can't always take it seriously!

Have you ever tried writing for a ship (or even just a trope) you normally don't? What was the outcome?I started out very OTP about it, but have since written a lot of other secondary pairings in all my fandoms. I usually enjoy it, but have occasionally had difficulties in very small fandoms, for example for Yuletide, trying to write a pairing that I had no real feelings for.
Tropes are fine - I love the writing challenge of trying out a new trope, or putting a twist on a well-known one. One of my faves is crack-taken-seriously, so yeah, once again, not very romantic!

Favorite tropes/tags/themes to write?
In relationships tropes, I like amnesia where they have to discover or rediscover each other, established relationships - with tenderness and affection more than pure romance, apocafic where they find each other in the ruins of the former world, quests and road trips where the relationship gradually develops, complete AU settings where they're still drawn to each other no matter how different the setting, and complex relationships like foursomes and other poly relationships. Often more than one of the above, combined. :)

Any other observations?
In a new fandom I almost always start off being excited by the main OTP, then gradually explore other ships (and gen) after getting that out of my system.