How to handle writing a romantic subplot when the main plot is very different?

Avoid killing/raping/otherwise injuring the love interest (particularly a female love interest) just to create manpain in your anti-hero.

Avoid making the love interest a plot device with no other background, characterization, or purpose than being a Love Interest.

Avoid making the love interest a helpless pawn who has to be rescued all the time.

posted about 8 years ago

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Lauren Ipsum‭

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What you need to do is define the relationship between the subplot and the primary plot. In other words, you need to know what role the romance subplot is playing in your story.

Almost any relationship will do (and you can use more than one), but knowing what you're aiming for will help you write the right thing, and put the focus on the right places.

Some simple examples:

• The romance is a complication. The romance is important to your anti-hero, but it keeps getting in the way of Important Things (and/or, Important Things keep getting in the way of the romance). Think of Peter Parker and Mary Jane - Spider-Man isn't a romance story, but the romance and the primary action arc keep interfering with one another.
• The romance is a counterpoint. In the primary plot your anti-hero is doing awful things to awful people; in the romance plot, we can see other sides of his personality. We can see what he wants for his future, his society, his world. We can see how he interacts with regular people, how he deals with regular, everyday problems. (If he's enough of an anti-hero, the answer may be: Not Well. An extreme example is Watchmen's Rorschach, who's insane and paranoid.)
• The romance is a haven. The primary plot is tense and full of action; the romance is where your protagonist (and your story!) goes to relax, to wind down a little.
• The romance is part of the plot. The romance is intrinsically linked with the primary plot; the progression of one affects the other. Imagine a detective dating the crime boss's daughter - there's going to be constant back-and-forth between the romance and the investigation.
• The romance is a link to a character with her own subplot. A lot of these position the romance as supporting your protagonist and his story, in one way or another. But that doesn't have to be the case. If the romantic interest has her own dramatic arc, and the romance is mostly used to link the two together, that's awesome too.

These are only a few options. You can think up a dozen more.

All you're trying to avoid is having the subplot be there purely for romance, and feel mostly disconnected from the primary plot. That seems to be your failure mode here - that's the point where readers go "Well, the main story is great, but what's this mushy love story doing mixed in?" (I'm assuming you're not going deliberately for Romance+Suspense, which surely has its fans as well.)

As long as your readers understand why the romance subplot isn't out of place in your book, you're absolutely fine.

How can you tell what the relationship should be? Look at what you've already got planned, and ask yourself, "OK, why is that interesting and important to this story?". Whatever you answer is the germ of the relationship. Work on it until you've got a full answer, until you know exactly what relationship it is you want to focus on.

How do I focus my romance subplot on the particular relationship I've chosen? This can vary wildly, so I can't really answer this except in very broad terms: You know what you're after, so check that your writing is achieving it. Ask yourself how you'll get across your focus to your reader. Ask what will keep the reader from thinking you've chosen some other relationship you didn't intend. Ask beta readers what they thought of the subplot, what their reactions to it where; see if they were looking where you wanted them to look. Adjust accordingly.

All the best! :)

posted about 8 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

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