80 + Barriers to Love: A List of Ideas to Keep Romantic Tension High
June 27, 2014
Keeping Romantic Tension Alive
One thing that every romance writer faces especially when writing a series, is how to keep a couple apart. It’s a difficult thing to accomplish and readers hate it, but it’s a necessary thing. Otherwise the tension is gone and your readers walk away disappointed.
I am a huge fan of a television show called Moonlighting with Bruce Willis and Cybill Sheperd. I loved, loved, loved watching every week to see if they were finally going to be together. For years they dangled the relationship and tantalized viewers until we finally got what we wanted and the couple got married. Then, guess what happened? The ratings fell and the show was cancelled.
This is something nobody wants. I love Happily Ever After endings as much as the next person but to get there too early is to kill the romance. For me, this happened in Twilight. When Edward and Bella got married in the beginning of Breaking Dawn, I felt like Edward disappeared and mainly became a tortured man wringing his hands on the couch.
Thankfully Jacob was still around.
You see where I’m going with this right?
So, without further ado, here is the list I’ve compiled from various internet searches and from my own experience, not personal experience. At least not all of them. I meant my experience as a writer. I’ve basically divided the list into two categories-Physical Barriers and Emotional Barriers.
EMOTIONAL BARRIERS
- Dishonesty
- Problem with Touch
- Instability
- Distrust
- Grief
- Social or Business Rivalry
- Fear of Intimacy
- Sacrifice Love for Something Else
- Not Self Actualized
- The Friend Zone
- Feelings of Unworthiness
- History of Abuse
- Unforgiving
- Disappointment
- Inability to Communicate
- Forbidden Relationship
- Competition
- Value Conflict
- Control
- Comparison
- Misunderstanding
- Unpopularity
- Secrets
- Fear of Being in Public
- Evil Ex
- Inability to Forgive
- Disapproving Parents
- Age Difference
- Fear of Abandonment
- Cultural Conflict
- Religious Conflict
- Arranged Relationship
- Mistaken Identity
- Class Differences
- Pretend Relationship
- Hubris
- Fear of Commitment
- Fear of Rejection
- Taming of the Shrew Syndrome
- Poor vs Rich
- Inflexibility
- Overdependency
- Guilt
- Prejudice
- Grudge
- Anxiety
- Jealousy
- Denial
- Stubbornness
- Mistrust
- Influence of Friends or Family
- Biological Clock is Ticking
- Romance Not a Priority
- Work Conflict
- Inability to Choose
- Feelings for Another Person
- Fighting or Arguing
- Depression
- Disloyalty
- Race Differences
- Stonewalling
- Unfaithfulness
- Self-Sabotage
PHYSICAL BARRIERS
- Disfigurement
- Physical Separation
- Death
- Injury
- Transformation
- Illness
- Coma
- Mental Lapse
- Kidnapping
- Doppelganger
- Inability to Cross Boundaries
- One or Both People Doesn’t Have a Physical Body
- Different Species (Alien, Shifter, Vampire, Mermaid, etc.)
- Cannot Survive/Thrive Where Their Love Interest Lives
- Contagion/Disease
- Pain/Discomfort
- Chemical Dependency
- Issues with Intimacy
- Cognitive Disorders
I hope this lists helps. I know I often wrack my brain trying to come up with yet another way to torture my star-crossed lovers. This list is a work in progress so if you have thought of something I’ve missed, please leave a comment and let me know what it is.
I think it’s time to head back to my book now to throw another problem at my heroine and see how she deals. =)
This entry was posted in Writing Advice, Writing Tools.
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Author Bio
Colleen Houck
New York Times Bestselling author Colleen Houck is a lifelong reader whose literary interests include action, adventure, paranormal, science fiction, and romance. When she's not busy writing, she likes to spend time chatting on the phone with one of her six siblings, watching plays, and shopping online. Colleen has lived in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, California, and North Carolina and is now permanently settled in Salem, Oregon with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.
Great lists! You’ve pulled this together in such a handy, user-friendly way. Thanks!
Awesome list!!
Thanks this list is really really helpful! I’ll be using this to create a high tension love between my characters.
Hey, girl! Fantastic list. I am glad I’m using romantic tension. My first couple kept hitting the “you’re a liar” and “circumstances” wall, then the big one where I completely separate them due to external conflict. My second couple have numerous emotional issues. One is a woman-hater the other has history of abuse and makes romance lowest priority. They’re driven apart through internal and external conflicts, death included, as well as a jealous antagonist. Bwahahaha. Fun stuff. Romance definitely helps the reader care about the characters more, and keeps them turning pages for that glimmer of hope through the turmoil. Love this article. Thanks!
As someone who knows nothing about writing romance, thank you! I’ll definitely be saving this as a resource.
Great list! Would self-sabotage be a good one to add to the top half?
Great idea! I’ll add it now.
Thank you for made this post! Its really helping 🙂
Great! Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for this list! It is super helpful. Another physical barrier can be difficulties with immigration to a new country.
Helpful, But, I’m pretty sure once someone dies THEY DIE. FOR GOOD
In the real world. Yes. In the book world? Things can happen 😉
I actually laughed when I saw ‘doppelganger’. Reminded me of The Vampire Diaries.
=)
Love this list! Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the wonderful list, Colleen! I just got a Revise and Resubmit from my editor, and one of the reasons was a lack of romantic tension. I have the hero’s locked in, but the heroine needs to talk to me about why she isn’t letting herself fall for the hero! I’ll go through the list with my heroine’s characteristics and see what best fits! 🙂
Awesome!
Amazing list, thank you so much for sharing!
Maybe memory loss is another one?
Colleen,
Thanks so much for your list! It’s exactly what I need—very timely too. I submitted my last novel, and the reply was that I depended too much on misunderstandings and secondary characters to keep my hero and heroine apart, and to put them in competition with each other. With your list, I now have a great reference. Many thanks!
Feel free to add to it. I’m sure there’s a lot more out there.
I read though this list and was thinking, yeap that sounds like Kelsey’s love story, and that’s Lilly’s or even a little hint of Ember’s. Thank you for sharing this list, it is full of inspirational ideas. Also reincarnation could be one as well. It plays into the memory lapse a bit because the soul can remember the love but not the details. When one or both is reborn into a new life their soul is drawn to the other but they may not have the memories of past lives to know why.
I also want to say thank you for your amazing series. Growing up I never liked reading much but several years ago I picked up Tiger’s Curse and fell in love. I actually went to Walmart at midnight when Tigers Voyage was due to be released and complained about not having a midnight release in books as they did with video games from time to time. A manager went back and found the shipment to get me one lol. Since then I have been reading constantly and now I am playing with writing myself. Thank you for inspiring me to be a reader and maybe one day a somewhat decent writer!
Hi Jennifer. I never thought to go up to a manager and ask for a midnight release of a book. We should do that more often. =) You’ll have to let me know when you finish your first book!
If you re like me, you ve struggled with ways to keep your romantic couple apart and increasing the romantic tension alive in your stories. I also face this when editing for authors. Why is romantic tension so important? It s those barriers to love that keep the two love birds apart. It s the thing that they must overcome before a happily ever after is realized. If the romantic tension is resolved too soon in the story, the remainder of the book will feel flat, tacked on, or anticlimactic. If it happens too late in the story, the ending will feel rushed or unsatisfying.