The Balance Between Romance and Plot
Updated: 2 hours ago
In romantasy, desire and plot are often discussed as though they are two separate creatures competing for space on the same page.
Too much plot, and readers may stop feeling the romance.
Too much desire, and the story risks becoming a sequence of intimate scenes occasionally interrupted by somebody saving the realm.
But when the balance is right, desire does not interrupt the plot.
It changes it.
The Less Technical Part
This is not supposed to be another lecture for writers.
Or at least, it is not meant to be.
I grew up reading fantasy. German fantasy, to be precise.
There may not be a vast difference between German and English fantasy, but the books I found tended to be a little darker. Perhaps that should not be surprising. These writers grew up with the original Grimm fairy tales, after all, and those stories have very little in common with the child-safe Disney versions many of us know today.
They were often bloody. Cruel. Unforgiving.
A happy ending was never guaranteed simply because the story had reached its final page.
That darkness found its way into the fantasy I loved. Those books felt less restrained by reality and less concerned with protecting their characters from the consequences of the worlds they inhabited.
I could escape into places where magic was real and anything was possible.
I loved them.
But there was always something missing.
The heroes might fall in love, but that love remained buried between the lines. A glance held for a moment too long. A hand reaching for another before the characters went off to face whatever monster, army or darkness awaited them.
Then the door closed.
The story moved on.
And I remained outside it, craving the part I was not being allowed to see.
I did not necessarily need every detail. What I wanted was the emotional truth of it. The longing. The vulnerability. The moment when two people who might die tomorrow finally admitted that they wanted something from life today.
So I occasionally reached for romance instead.
And then, almost immediately, I missed the fantasy.
I missed the impossible worlds. The danger. The magic. The feeling that something far greater than one couple’s happiness was at stake.
Fantasy gave me the world but hid the love.
Romance gave me the love but took away the world.
I wanted both.
The Puzzle Appeared to Be Solved
Somewhere along the way — and I cannot remember exactly when — romantasy became a thing.
Yes, I thought.
Someone had finally solved the puzzle.
My perfect reading experience had been born.
And there are true masters of that balance out there. Writers who can make me fear for an entire kingdom while also making one accidental touch feel equally dangerous. Writers who understand that the fate of the world and the fate of a relationship do not have to compete.
They can make each other matter more.
Yet the longer romantasy existed, the more those lines began to blur.
Some books leaned heavily towards fantasy, allowing the romance to become little more than a decorative thread. Others aimed primarily for the juicy romance, with the plot quietly waiting for its turn in the background.
Neither extreme gives me quite what I am looking for.
For me, a beautifully written intimate scene cannot carry an epic fantasy if the world beyond the bedroom feels empty. But the most intricate world-building cannot create a convincing romance if I stop feeling why these characters need one another.
Then there is the rise of what readers often call the filler book: the additional book that stretches a story further than it was originally meant to go.
How do you turn a single-book story or a duology into three books — or more?
Sometimes, you write a book in which very little changes.
But that is a different subject, even if it is related. I shall return to that particular danger in another post.
Apparently, I have opinions.
For now, I want to talk about balance.
Or rather, my version of it.
There will always be readers who care little about the plot as long as the romance — and the smut — holds up.
And that is entirely fair.
Each to their own. We do not all enter a book hoping to find the same thing inside it.
I wanted something different.
I wanted a book that had both.
When Desire Becomes Part of the Plot
I wanted stories that gave the plot room to grow alongside the love story.
Stories in which side characters could become as real as the central couple. Worlds that continued to move, threaten and change even while two people were falling in love.
And I wanted a series in which the measure of desire could change with the story being told.
Because if the stakes are high, there is not always time to get cosy.
If the love is forbidden, there will be forces constantly trying to pull the couple apart — and sometimes those forces will succeed.
Relationships fracture under pressure.
Even the most devoted couple can fight. They can hurt one another. They can break apart for a while or be dragged into opposite corners by responsibilities neither of them can abandon.
Love does not make people immune to fear, grief, anger or terrible decisions.
Sometimes, it makes all of those things worse.
That is where desire becomes part of the plot.
It alters judgement.
It changes loyalties.
It creates vulnerability in characters who believed themselves untouchable. It gives them something to protect, something to lose and, occasionally, something dangerous enough to destroy the rest of the world for.
An intimate scene should not leave the story exactly where it found it.
Something should have changed.
Perhaps trust has deepened. Perhaps a boundary has fallen. Perhaps one character has revealed a weakness that can never be hidden again.
Or perhaps the moment makes everything considerably worse.
I am rather fond of that option.
What Happens After the Slow Burn
Slow burn is built upon anticipation.
The almost-touch. The interrupted kiss. The argument that is clearly about something else. The thousand reasons two characters cannot be together — and the one reason neither of them can stay away.
But what happens after they finally give in?
Does the desire disappear because the reader has already witnessed the moment they were waiting for?
It should not.
It changes.
Once the characters know what it feels like to have one another, separation carries a different kind of ache. Desire becomes memory as well as imagination. They no longer crave something unknown. They know exactly what has been taken from them.
The first intimate scene should not be the end of the longing unless physical intimacy was the only destination.
For me, the more interesting question is whether that desire can survive everything that follows.
Can we still feel it in book three?
Can it remain alive after more than a thousand pages, when the first forbidden touch lies far behind them and the final battle is drawing close?
Can two characters who have already shared everything still reach for one another as though something vital remains at stake?
Because in a final book, the story has to be told.
All of it.
Not only that one part.
The worlds, wars, friendships, betrayals and promises built across the series need their endings too. The side characters cannot simply vanish because the central couple has found a bed. And the villains are generally inconsiderate enough not to delay their plans until everyone has finished reconnecting.
The desire may have less space on the page.
But it should never stop being felt.
Walking the Tightrope
To me, finding that balance is like walking a tightrope.
Mostly, it means rereading the entire book for what feels like the twelfth time simply to ask myself:
Can I still feel it?
The longing.
The desire.
The frustration.
The want.
But also the fear, grief, friendship, hope and desperation an epic story needs if it is going to earn that name.
As a discovery writer, I often allow the story and the characters to choose the moment when desire can no longer be refused.
Sometimes that happens on page ninety.
Sometimes it happens on page three hundred and forty-five.
Sometimes the characters give in, only for life to pull them apart and force them to find their way back to one another.
And sometimes the moment has to be earned.
Not because I am following a formula or counting the number of intimate scenes a romantasy is expected to contain, but because the characters are not ready before then.
If I force them into bed simply because enough pages have passed, I will feel it.
And I believe the reader will too.
The scene may contain all the right physical details, yet still feel strangely empty because nothing inside the characters brought them there.
By forcing the desire, I would pay for that scene with the power of the story.
That price is too high.
The Balance I Am Searching For
I do not believe desire weakens a fantasy story.
Nor do I believe plot is an inconvenience we must hurry through to reach the next intimate scene.
At their best, they work upon one another.
Plot places pressure on desire.
Desire changes the choices that shape the plot.
The battle matters more because we know who might be lost. The separation hurts because the world has made reunion impossible. The touch matters because it comes after fear, sacrifice, restraint and a hundred pages of pretending it was not wanted.
That is the balance I search for in the books I read and the books I write.
I want the world to feel real enough that it could continue without the lovers.
And I want the love to feel powerful enough that the world would never be the same because they found one another within it.
Plot tells us what the characters are willing to fight for.
Desire reveals what they are willing to risk themselves for.
When both belong to the same story, neither weakens the other.
They make each other matter.
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