The Turning Point: How to Write a Romantic Spark

Fingers brushing, gazes holding, or inside joking… however it starts, it’s the moment when a romance takes a turn, when the reader feels a little jolt of excitement, like they know exactly where this is going. The reader is able to spot the beginning of a romance even before your characters do. And it’s this feeling, this shift and shared knowledge between writer and reader, that I live for in Romance stories. Because no gaze, hand hold, or joke is ever accidental when a writer is behind it. In this article, I’ll teach you some ways to create that spark and keep readers invested.

But the verb create is a misnomer. You can’t really “create” romantic feelings on the page. For a genuine romantic arc, it should read like the author has no hand in it at all. Like the tension between the two characters was inevitable. This is the hardest part of writing a Romance story—convincing the reader that the feelings are real.

It all starts with a moment. A beat on the page, a pause, some new attention to something, usually with underlying intimate or romantic undertones. Romantic moments we think of often involve hands and eyes because they are mostly how we experience the world. Let’s start with the obvious one: the eyes.

1. The eyes. I’m talking about eye contact. Not the kind of quick glance that we give to everyone, I’m talking about prolonged eye contact. I find it most effective when characters are in a normal, crowded environment, like a coffee shop or classroom, though this can work in private spaces too. Consider these questions. What does my main character notice about the other? What is their gaze like? What feelings does eye contact cause? Can they see the other’s eye color? Most importantly, how long is the eye contact?
2. The hands. There are lots of ways for hands to accidentally meet. It’s the moment when, suddenly, your character knows the temperature or roughness of the other’s skin. That moment. Maybe your character passes something to another, or they both reach for the door. And I’m not giving these examples to be cliche, I’m actually saying you should use a setup to your advantage. Small acts of intimacy act as if they are part of a secret language in the Romance genre. It’s like a secret code we don’t know we know, but we know it when we see it. There is often eye contact immediately after an accidental touch, so you know what to do. 
3. The mouth. Lots of people are understandably attracted to mouths and like looking at them. At the risk of sounding like an alien, we humans use this kind of glance to communicate our feelings, so your characters should, too. Glancing at a mouth is less ambiguous at hinting a romantic arc and shifting the energy between characters. If you use this type of glance, ask yourself these questions. What does your character think about while looking at the other character’s lips? What feeling do they have? Are they embarrassed, something else?
4. The body. Beyond the way a character’s body is built, things also worth noticing are clothes, how they hold themselves, the way they walk—and I bet you can think of more. A character simply noticing these things can be a signal to the reader that something romantic is brewing, but an even stronger signal is when they make figurative comparisons. Does your character romanticize the other’s hair as blonde like the fading yellow of a sunset? Or hazel eyes like rain-washed wood? Anything beyond “blonde” or “brown” can be a sign of feelings. It’s all about the attention one character pays for another.
5. The joke. This one is my favorite. One character makes a joke and they both laugh, when inexplicably the moment turns, and the happiness feels different, tighter. It feels like someone has turned the air sideways. A line from the movie Tangled: “it’s warm and real and bright, and the world has somehow shifted.” There’s just something about turning a moment of humor into desire that really butters my croissant. 
6. The surprise. Surprise can go a lot of ways. It can be two characters bumping into each other around a corner, an unexpected a gift, new information revealed, etc. Surprise can also have the hint of fear if a character suspects something is up. It’s said that fear can actually translate into attraction. The reason? The brain is kind of dumb when it feels heightened arousal like fear or, you know—the other one, and can misinterpret physical reactions like heart pounding and sweating (fun fact: this is called the misattribution of arousal).

​Romance doesn’t happen from one moment to the next. It’s a series of little moments stacked on top of each other, so I hope you’ll use these examples as ways to begin your romantic arcs. You might use multiple of them in your story!

​Romance also doesn’t have to be formulaic. If none of these six ways to write a spark fit in your plot, write whatever feels natural to you! Can you think of any other ways to write the turning point? Let me know in the comments below, and happy writing from JUVEN Press.

Grayson Yount

is a writer based in North Carolina. She attends writing classes of all kinds at UNC Chapel Hill and has a particular fondness for sharp imagery. In her free time, she drafts her own novels.

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