Episode 60: What if the central romance isn't working?

Episode Description

In this episode of What If? For Authors, Claire addresses a common problem for writers: what if the central romance just isn't working?

Whether you're writing a romance, mystery, fantasy, women's fiction, romantic suspense, or another genre with a romantic subplot, a weak central romance can leave an entire story falling flat. Claire walks us through troubleshooting the relationship using the Enneagram, looking at the characters' personalities, points of connection, and their different approaches to conflict.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

  • Why both characters need to be fully developed, rather than treating one as a stock love interest

  • How assigning Enneagram types can reveal unexpected character inconsistencies

  • How similarities and differences between Enneagram types create connection and conflict

  • What Enneagram "polarity" can teach you about romantic tension

  • The three Enneagram conflict styles: avoidant, methodical, and reactive

  • Why pairing two avoidant characters can make an enemies-to-lovers romance especially difficult

  • Why reactive types can bring explosive chemistry, but potentially too much heat

  • How your characters' conflict styles can help you anticipate breakups, reunions, and apologies

  • How your own conflict style as an author might be influencing the way you're troubleshooting your romance

Resources Mentioned

Support the Show

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Happy writing!

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of "What If for Authors?" I'm so glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor, and I'm an Enneagram certified coach for authors, as well as a humor and mystery writer. If you're curious about how you can build a more sustainable author career in uncertain times, you can find my services at liberatedwriter.com.

I have books, courses, individual coaching, all kinds of free and paid resources for you to dig into. We are talking storytelling again today. Sometimes I'm just struck by how lucky I am that this is my job, you know? I get to talk nerdy about story with other story nerds. It rules. Before we dive into the topic, though, I want to update you on my big fun project for story nerds like you. As I'm recording this, I'm in the midst of the Write Iconic Relationships Kickstarter campaign. The project has funded and then some, but it's not done [00:01:00] yet. If you're listening to this before September 10th of 2026, there's still time to jump in and get that e-book and all the goodies that go along with it.

There are also paperback options for those of you who like to have a physical copy to mark up. Write Iconic Relationships is your map into the dynamics between Enneagram types to help you pick the right pair of lovers, friends, or enemies to light up your story and keep your readers absolutely obsessed

If you wanna write stories so alive that fans write fan fiction about it, then relationship dynamics is your next skill to master

In the book, I explain the theory behind creating these dynamics, what the Enneagram, which is at its heart a relational tool, tells us about friendship, s- sexual attraction, and mutual hatred. Then I'll lay out the 45 type dynamics of the Enneagram, how they show up as friends, enemies, and lovers, so you can troubleshoot your current work in progress [00:02:00] or brainstorm your next one.

Some dynamics just don't work for the tropes that you're trying to use, and this book will help you understand why and show you which pairs to consider instead. It would mean a lot to me if you'd go check out the project on Kickstarter before it ends on September 10th. The easy redirect link for that is liberatedwriter.com/relationships.

And if you're listening to this after the campaign ends, you can still visit that page and read more, and I'll have an order link for the book there. Okay, now let's talk about romance. In today's episode, we ask the question, what if the central romance isn't working? At least half of the story alignment calls that people book with me are related to the topic of the central romance of the story.

These are largely romance authors, but sometimes it's other genres, like mystery or women's fiction or fantasy, where there's more of a slow burn romance over multiple books in the [00:03:00] series. If you're writing romance, your story hinges entirely on the central romance. Now, this might be a, a heterosexual romance, a homosexual one, or otherwise.

Like, I don't know what gender your sexy aliens are, so I don't want to assume. Even if you are writing a reverse harem series, there's usually one pairing focused on per book, which would be your central romance. Now, back in the day when I was editing in-house, we had the ménage romance, where a single book had the hero or heroine matching up with anywhere from, like, two to 17 men, and that was a lot of dynamics to develop, and they usually weren't.

So I like that reverse harem has stopped splitting the attention so much in each book. I think that works, and you know, it's always more profitable to write in series anyway.

So how do we know if something is off with the central romance? Oftentimes, we [00:04:00] experience this as the characters not doing what we have them outlined to do. They won't follow our beats, and when we can get them to, it just seems inconsistent for who they are. Sometimes there's just no chemistry between the characters, or we don't know where the chemistry can be located with these two.

On a rare occasion, we can't even get them to like each other, or they fall in love too quickly and we can't get them to have any sort of conflict. It's also not uncommon for the romance to end up taking a backseat to everything else happening, which is to be expected for genres outside of romance sometimes, but doesn't have to be the case.

For instance, the romance in your mystery can be harnessed to enhance the suspense and conflict rather than, you know, having it feel more like an unnecessary decoration. A lot of romantic suspense authors struggle to keep the external plot from overtaking the romance, too.

So these are some signs that you may [00:05:00] encounter that the central romance isn't firing on all cylinders yet. If you find yourself in any of the situations I just described or your gut is just saying something's off, then let's talk troubleshooting.

The first question I'd ask is, do I know both of these characters well? It's super common to know one of the romantic pair really well, maybe you were inspired by them for your story, and then the other one can kind of fall to the wayside as a stock character or a foil to the other without being fully developed.

I've certainly found myself in this position before when writing the love interests in my mysteries. So I suggest you start by asking if you know each of the characters' Enneagram type. This is how you can get a real quick foot in the door with them. If you haven't assigned them a type, give it a shot.

You can read up on the nine types in my book, Write Iconic Characters, and that may help you settle on a type and also help you unlock [00:06:00] some core parts of that type that may shake a revelation free for your story

As strange as it sounds, I sometimes forget to assign Enneagram types to my main characters in my fiction, uh, even those in the central romance. I was a fiction writer a long time before I was an Enneagram practitioner, and I tend to write from the gut. So these characters arise from my intuition, and it can honestly be a minute before I remember to add that intentional layer of asking what type they are.

Sometimes I'll start from the type, but not always. So once you know the Enneagram type of your central romantic pair, you may have some moments stand out to you as inconsistent with one character or the other. It's okay to spend a little time reworking those places in your story, aligning them with your characters to see if that fixes whatever felt off.

If you still have some work to do, here's where I'd look next. How are these types alike [00:07:00] and how are they different? That sounds really simple, I know, but if you haven't intentionally considered it, you may be missing something obvious. The Enneagram directs us really well here. It gives us some similarities and some differences to look for, and in those places is where you find the connection and the conflict.

For instance, if your two types are connected by a line on the Enneagram, that's usually quite useful because it means they will be on opposite ends of what it-- we call a polarity, multiple polarities actually. So a couple of terms to explain here, obviously. , , what line are you talking about, Claire?

What... Connected by what line? Okay, so you'll need to pull up a diagram of the Enneagram for this. If you do an internet search, you can find it. It's also in all of my Enneagram For Authors books. You see how the Enneagram is arranged in a circle? See that each type is connected to two other [00:08:00] types by a line?

Those lines are the ones that I'm talking about. For instance, the type one, the reformer, is connected by a line to seven, the enthusiast, and four, the individualist. That means that there are specific identified polarities between these types. Okay, what is a polarity, right? A polarity is just a set of assumed opposites.

For instance, the one and the seven are connected by a line, and along that line, you have the polarity of structure to freedom. So ones love structure and sevens love freedom. You can see how those two things, structure and freedom, can be at odds with each other. So these two types will cramp each other's style in this way.

The seven's resistance to structure will frustrate the shit out of the one, and the one's desire for structure will make the seven feel really [00:09:00] boxed in. So there's instant conflict baked into this pair around structure and freedom. Also, there's conflict baked in around detail, which the one likes, versus big picture, which the seven likes, and discipline, which the one likes, versus permissiveness, which the seven likes.

There are a lot of these little polarities hiding along each of the lines on the Enneagram. So your couple will likely struggle against each other in these ways, but guess what? They can also meet in the middle and learn how to stop holding so tight to their side of the polarity and grow, transform with the power of love. So for instance, the one can learn that they've been using structure, say, as a way of trying to prevent any mistakes because they're so terrified of mistakes, and then they can start to see with the help of the seven what they've been missing out on as a result of over-structuring everything.

[00:10:00] Then the seven can learn how they've been using freedom, as they call it, as a way of avoiding committing to anything that might make them feel trapped, and with the help of the one, they can start to see that need for complete freedom, as in not being responsible to anyone, how it's been causing them extra pain by depriving them of a committed relationship that anchors them in something meaningful.

The polarity between the one and the four along that line versus the one and the seven, which I just described, it would require an entirely different character arc for the one in your story because a different set of polarities is at work. So a one learns something different from being in a relationship with a seven than they do from being in a relationship with a four, or any other type really

So that's what it looks like to have your couple be two types that are connected by a line. It tends to be a pretty good bet because [00:11:00] the strongest polarities are gonna lie along those lines. There are polarities between any two types, which I will describe in right iconic relationships, but the strongest ones are found along the lines.

And that also includes, sorry to overload you, but that also includes what's called the invisible line. So you see the lines connecting the types. There are also two invisible lines on the Enneagram. One, I don't know why they're invisible, but one is between, , connecting two and five, and one is connecting four and seven.

So those are also options for strong polarities It's perfectly fine if your pair doesn't share a line. You don't need to rewrite the whole thing. Don't worry. There are other similarities and differences that you can pull from. So wings have a natural tension, too. Those are types that are next to each other on the Enneagram, with one and nine being wings of each other.

I'm not gonna go into all the possible scenarios here [00:12:00] because it's a lot. It's at bare minimum 45, and I'm gonna do that for you in Write Iconic Relationships. So yeah, you gotta buy the book, which will be a reference guide for finding the points of connection and conflict. Okay, so the next question I'd ask if your sensual romance still feels off is, what are the conflict styles of my types?

So I have a basic breakdown of the conflict styles for each of the, uh, Enneagram types on my Liberated Writer Substack, so use that as a reference for sure. It's free. , and this is gonna go into each of the nine types. So see if you've gone and picked two avoidant types for your enemies to lovers trope, say.

You can guess why this wouldn't work. It's hard to get two people who avoid engaging in conflict to be sexy enemies. Now briefly, the [00:13:00] Enneagram has three conflict styles: avoidant, reactive, and methodical. There are three types in each of these categories, and the way they appear is slightly different. But as a general overview, avoidant types are twos, sevens, and nines.

They avoid conflict by placating the other person, distracting themselves from the conflict, and tuning it out completely, respectively Now, pairing up avoidant types is totally possible. There can be a romance there, but it tends to lead to a sweeter romance, and it requires them to have a lot of friends around to encourage them to engage with the conflict rather than run from it, tune it out, or pretend they don't have needs.

Or, you know, you can force them into a hotel room with only one bed, and they can't avoid the conflict anymore. So methodical types are ones, threes, and fives. They try to solve the conflict by being more perfect, more effective, and more [00:14:00] knowledgeable respectively. You usually see one of these types in romances within mysteries because mysteries thrive on methodical types.

If you pair up two of these, you're likely to see both parties trying to solve the conflict independently, forgetting that conflict resolution is a team sport. Then you have the reactive types, which are fours, sixes, and eights. They try to solve the conflict by overwhelming it with emotion, obedience/defiance, sixes, or power respectively.

You want a big blowup? Grab one of these types for your central romance. They make it hard for the avoidant types to pretend everything's fine and for the methodical types to present as rational, which they like to do. They like to come with an argument. But the reactive types may also bring too much heat to the romance, depending on what you're looking for So you can see how the conflict styles [00:15:00] really affect the dynamic.

You don't have to throw your couple into conflict completely, but it can help to know what sort of a breakup you might expect before they get back together again. And you can see what they need to apologize for when that happens Okay, so we've asked these three questions so far. Do I know the Enneagram types of the central romance characters?

Do I know where they connect and where they clash? And do I understand their conflict styles? In my experience, these three questions are enough to offer a light bulb moment for, like, 90% of the issues one is encountering in the central romance. So take a minute to go through those questions, spend some time thinking about them after you finish this episode, and see if something comes up for you.

If you still need help, like maybe you see why the romance isn't working, but you're not sure what your options are for fixing it because you're maybe not that familiar with the Enneagram, Book a story alignment call with me at [00:16:00] liberatedwriter.com/story-alignment. Or grab a copy of "Write Iconic Characters," either through your favorite online bookstore, because that book has been released, or through the Write Iconic Relationships Kickstarter. It's there too

For the self-study folks, right iconic characters might be enough to sleuth out the situation. And if you're a methodical one, three, or five, I would bet that that is what you opt for first because struggling with your central romance is, after all, conflict You don't have to be an Enneagram expert to problem solve here.

You're an author, you know people, even if it's just intuitively that you understand people. Trust yourself on this if you sense something's wrong, and then trust yourself to know what level of help and support you need getting started in solving the issue. Also, notice how your own conflict style might be playing into this situation.

Are you trying to pretend the issue isn't [00:17:00] there in your story? Are you trying to solve it all on your own? Or are you trying to overpower it with emotion or power maybe? , hey, maybe it's time to try a new approach. There are three conflict styles. You can try them all out. So if you're wondering, what if the central romance isn't working?

Pause and start asking questions about the individuals involved in that romance. Who are they? Where do they connect? Where do they clash? Are their personalities, specifically their conflict styles, making the romance too spicy or too tame? These questions are so valuable that I actually considered not giving them away in a free podcast episode.

But I do try not to be too precious with my knowledge, because I like for authors to feel empowered when it comes to their storytelling skills. Honestly, I just want there to be more amazing romances out in the world. [00:18:00] We need that. I don't think there's any genre, honestly, that isn't improved with a little bit of romance, because it appeals to that sexual instinct in everyone.

Now, maybe the romance needs to be more of a spice than a main course or even a side dish, but it can add so, so much to the stakes, the reader's connection to the story, and your protagonist's conflict if you handle the dynamic well So please don't forget to check out my Kickstarter for "Write Iconic Relationships."

This episode is just a taste of what's in that book. If you've enjoyed the "What If for Authors?" podcast in general, backing the Kickstarter is one way you can support the work I do. Leaving a review wherever you listen to this podcast is another, and thank you for everyone who's already done that. And you can also follow me on the Liberated Writer Substack, so that's just liberatedwriter.substack.com.

I keep all of those posts free to read, but it's a place where [00:19:00] folks can throw me five bucks a month to show support for my work on those posts, this podcast, my email list, or whatever else. And I am not an accountant, but depending on where you live, that might be a tax write-off for your business. Uh, speaking of taxes, this is your friendly reminder that if you're expecting a payout from the Anthropic lawsuit, sock some of that away for taxes.

Again, I'm not a CPA, just an author who suggests you talk to your tax person about what you may owe on the payout before you blow all of that sweet, sweet settlement money on, I don't know, pre-made covers. Not to call anyone out. So that's it for this episode. I'm Claire Taylor, and I'm glad to be in this special parasocial relationship with you.

Yes, you. Not everyone else listening, just you. It's always been only [00:20:00] you. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me next time on "What If for Authors?" Happy writing.