r/Pirr

Not necessarily the big dramatic confessions.

It’s:

• him wordlessly bringing her favourite drink
• her noticing he stopped sleeping properly after they fought
• sharing food without asking
• fixing her dress strap in the middle of a crowded room
• “you can have mine.”
• the moment someone says their full name softly for the first time
• one character memorising routines they pretend not to care about

Half the time the tension in romance isn’t even about sex (but when it is, it so is!), it’s about being deeply noticed by someone. What do you want to have noticed?

https://preview.redd.it/nsf1abj7aa2h1.jpg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ece674e8f74afcdf64420bcad18e39b0fc35435

There are so many stories built around male possessiveness, male want. And the heroine exists inside that — desired and chosen.

But what happens when she's the one who wants more? When her curiosity and desire are something neither of them can outrun?

This week's snippet: The Manor 3 by Tenpug, a story where the female character holds the reins.

Choose your MMC ❤️‍🔥 🩷 💋

We’ve realised the characters people get attached to most in romance usually aren’t the “perfect” ones. They’re the ones that feel very specific. Some of our favourites lately are:

• the emotionally unavailable character who is secretly ridiculously observant
• the confident flirt who completely falls apart around one person
• the grumpy character who keeps doing thoughtful things while insisting they “don’t care”
• morally grey characters with one extremely soft spot (shadow daddy love)
• the exhausted leader who only relaxes around their love interest
• the chaos character masking actual loneliness
• characters who are competent at everything except communication
• the intimidating one who is weirdly gentle in private
• the sarcastic one who accidentally becomes fiercely protective
• characters carrying old heartbreak that quietly shapes how they love

Half the fun of interactive storytelling is being able to shape why a character became that way in the first place. The backstory changes everything. We think that a trait stops feeling like a trope once it has emotional context behind it.

We know how important characters are to the story and have spent so much time creating back stories to go with our characters that you can choose from on Pirr, but we also know people have their own ideas, so you can create and save your own characters too. Options are important!

It's not even the romance part, but the logistics. Trying to keep track of:

• kingdoms
• alliances
• magical systems
• side characters
• family bloodlines
• who betrayed who three chapters ago

…while also trying to maintain emotional tension between characters and the bigger the world gets, the easier it is for continuity to completely collapse. While both the emotional continuity and the lore continuity are super important and reach different readers differently, do we think that readers will forgive complicated politics but they will not forgive characters suddenly acting emotionally out of character?

Is one more important than the other when you are combining two genres of writing? I love a dual storyline, but I need both to be on point - if one slips it affects my view of the other. It becomes less easy to give myself completely to the story.

How do you organise your worlds when writing longer fantasy romance stories?
(Please note I am envisioning a desk covered in fluro post it notes!)