B Plot
I love plotting romances. I love the ways you can writes twists, the conflict and the ways you can stack plots. In this article, I’ll write about the common romance beats.
I’ll start with a basic romance’s plot arc in a three-act structure. MC1 meets MC2. The first time romantic characters meet is called a meet-cute and establishes the interpersonal conflict that needs to be resolve for the couple to have their happily ever after. Depending on the pacing of your romance, it can be in the first paragraph, the first page, or the end (hook) of the first chapter. Modern reader tastes lean heavily towards a meet-cute coming early in the book.
In the first third of the book, the characters engage with the romance and non-romance arc. They leave their normal world and get a sense of the conflict that will drive the plot. The second third of the book starts with the decision to engage the plot or problem. The characters face individual obstacles and challenges and increasingly work together to address the plot.
The climax occurs at the beginning of the book’s last third, after the black moment. The black moment is where the possibility of a romance breaks down due to conflict, and obtaining the non-romance plot/goal appears to be out of reach. There is a rallying call, sometimes a grand romantic gesture, and the characters work together to resolve the plot.
If you use a four-part plot, then the meet-cute’s beats occur before the 25% mark. The decision to engage the non-romance plot occurs around the 25% mark. In the first quarter of the book, each MC views their plot as separate with occasional interactions with the romantic interest. During the second quarter of the book, the MCs interact more frequently and begin to see themselves as a couple or at least as a potential couple. At the 75% mark, a crisis occurs (black moment) that significantly hampers both characters’ ability to resolve the non-romance plot and stay together as a couple. The book’s last quarter is spent resolving the plot, experiencing a new normal, and finding a way to make their happily ever after work.
If you’re adding another genre to your romance, you’ll need to stack those beats with the romance ones. The more layers there are to a scene, the richer the writing and the more engaged the reader. One of the best pieces of advice an editor gave me was that it’s okay (in fact desirable) to stack romance and non-romance plot elements into every scene. It seems like simple advice, but it was an eye-opener for me.
Prior to that, I wrote romantic conflict and beats in one chapter and the next chapter, I wrote the non-romance arc. As an aside, I strive to write novels that are 50% romance and 50% non-romance arcs. My short stories have a different balance because I don’t have the word count to flesh out both plots.
The more I wrote, the better I got at adding tension and conflict of both non-romance and romance plots in all scenes. People think about home when they are at work and vice versa. We are whole beings, and it’s very hard for people to separate the different aspects of themselves. Your characters can’t always do that either. Sure, they’ll focus more on work-related things at work (especially if they are in a high-concentration profession such as doctor, soldier, bomb squad agent), but if they fought with their significant other before going to work, it would impact them.
That was a bit of a tangent, but it’s to say that each scene has the potential to add elements of both romance and non-romance beats. Romances are driven by conflict, and there is ample opportunity to explore the tension between internal conflict, interpersonal conflict (between the romantic leads and between other characters), the antagonist or villain, and the other plot.
In addition to the common romance beats, each romance trope has its beats. Let’s say you’re writing an enemies to lovers trope. The conflict that keeps the romance leads apart must be strong enough to drive a wedge between them throughout the book. If you’re writing a historical novel, a common enemies to lovers setup is an arranged marriage between noble houses to end a war. This trope can manifest in a marriage between rival clans, merchant families, or two kingdoms. The beats for the trope include: a deep hurt that fuelled the war is manifested in the romantic lead. Perhaps he led troops in the battle that killed her brother. Perhaps she was a healer and is perceived not to have healed wounded soldiers on his side (leading to needless suffering, or perhaps a physical injury on his part that leaves him limping, or unable to fight, or scarred).
The beats for an enemies to lovers: meet-cute, high-intensity conflict/avoidance of the other romantic lead, something compels them to work together, get to know one another, attitude change, black moment causes people to revert to old ideas or patterns of behaviour, try to resolve the plot alone, failure or catastrophe, work together to resolve, new normal with happily ever after.
There are many romance tropes to play around with. Nothing is stopping you from stacking romance tropes and then layering multiple genres. It’s fun to do and create rich and engaging stories. Make sure that the beats align. By that, I mean, if you’re writing an enemies to lovers trope that involves amnesia, make sure that the MC recovers flashes of memory throughout the entire book to build up the tension and have the reveal that the MC remembers (the war, the conflict, the role of the other MC in the war) comes as part of the black moment to tear the lovers apart. If you have the reveal of memory too soon in the book, it’s not a full amnesia trope, and it can cheat your character’s development and reduce your readers’ enjoyment of the book.
TV Tropes.org, Gwen Hayes’ Romancing the Beat, Write your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell, and The Last Fifty Pages by James Scott Bell are terrific resources to identify the beats of your book.
If you would like to be on the advance reader list for James' and Mirabelle's story (contemporary mystery romance, 90k-word), please contact me. I have also have a contemporary sports romance novella being relased in late Fall 2021/Winter 2022.
I was interviewed by Writers Bloc on the matter of tropes. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @reneegendron to continue the conversation. You can listen to the podcast here.
Thank you, @DavidJSinter, for the topic suggestion.
