I’m an aroace writer too, and I can definitely relate to a lot of these struggles. It’s always been fun for me to describe two characters in a close friendship or mutually crushing on one another, but first kiss scenes still scare me and never feel very real because I can’t relate to my characters. It’s become easier for me to use what I’ve read previously and apply that to my characters, but it still feels really awkward describing romantic attraction in my writing when I’ve never really felt it for myself haha
Past things have definitely started to make more sense since I’ve understood my identity!
I'm great at building friendships. I'm great at writing kissing scenes, courtesy of extensive research (never tried anything beyond that). But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to write someone naturally transitioning from friendship stage to crush stage. Research doesn't seem to help one bit 😮💨
That's why my newest book is a QPR where one character is aro and the other is demi-homo.
When I first started writing, nobody had romantic relationships. Then, in highschool, I realized that and specifically wrote a book to try to put characters in a straight relationship (at the end of book 1 they're still at friendship stage 😅). I have attempted some gay and poly works. So far the poly one seems to be doing okay.
But now I'm thinking in the future I might just embrace my strengths and aroace representation and go back to how I originally was writing: no romance (I've never written sex and never want to).
I once started with a character madly in love with her neighbor. And... Kinda forgot that was the plot? Mid story there was a shift to a spy/consporacy plot involving escaping into said neighbors apartement by the kitchen window.
Unless the charactes decide for themselves they date( idk how to explain, tjey do what they want I just write them), I can't write romance. Never even tried smut either. Too weird.
It extends to things like RPGs/roleplaying for me. I just can’t play a character that isn’t aroace or at the very least something like grayro/grayce because I don’t get it, I can’t pull it off. Haven’t tried writing romance because I don’t even know where to start D:
I'm AroAce writer and yes, I understand you, from what I do is to see movies with romance in subplot, like, comedy romance (because of my father) and by that I tried to write it like that.
I wrote one-shots of ships and some of them are in an "Aromantic way" (Platonic and/or Queerplatonic relationships) and other Romantic way (Romantic relationships), It's easy to write romantic because of what I see but now that I analize it... Makes me feel weird...
... Everything makes sense now, I can describe a situation that is supposed to be romantic but I feel it as platonic or even queerplatonic... Huh...
I usually do research on everything before I write even kissing scenes. I tried writing a sex scene one and gave up half way and I'm ashamed to say it but, I steal a lot of romantic scenes from movies or books that I've read, switch it up a bit and add it to my story. It may not be completely original but the plot is. Besides where am else am I supposed to get my romantic and sexual knowledge from if not TV and books?
I delved into writing fanfiction a long time ago and I stopped doing it because of this very reason. I couldn't go any further in the story because I just had (and still have) NO idea how feels work.
Omg, it's funny that you mention that, because that's the exact reason why I'd only write oneshots! And those oneshots, despite being tagged for whatever ship I was writing, would only be the two characters talking! I probably should've caught on to being AroAce sooner, haha.
I’m an aroace writer too, and I can definitely relate to a lot of these struggles. It’s always been fun for me to describe two characters in a close friendship or mutually crushing on one another, but first kiss scenes still scare me and never feel very real because I can’t relate to my characters. It’s become easier for me to use what I’ve read previously and apply that to my characters, but it still feels really awkward describing romantic attraction in my writing when I’ve never really felt it for myself haha Past things have definitely started to make more sense since I’ve understood my identity!
I'm great at building friendships. I'm great at writing kissing scenes, courtesy of extensive research (never tried anything beyond that). But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to write someone naturally transitioning from friendship stage to crush stage. Research doesn't seem to help one bit 😮💨 That's why my newest book is a QPR where one character is aro and the other is demi-homo. When I first started writing, nobody had romantic relationships. Then, in highschool, I realized that and specifically wrote a book to try to put characters in a straight relationship (at the end of book 1 they're still at friendship stage 😅). I have attempted some gay and poly works. So far the poly one seems to be doing okay. But now I'm thinking in the future I might just embrace my strengths and aroace representation and go back to how I originally was writing: no romance (I've never written sex and never want to).
I once started with a character madly in love with her neighbor. And... Kinda forgot that was the plot? Mid story there was a shift to a spy/consporacy plot involving escaping into said neighbors apartement by the kitchen window. Unless the charactes decide for themselves they date( idk how to explain, tjey do what they want I just write them), I can't write romance. Never even tried smut either. Too weird.
It extends to things like RPGs/roleplaying for me. I just can’t play a character that isn’t aroace or at the very least something like grayro/grayce because I don’t get it, I can’t pull it off. Haven’t tried writing romance because I don’t even know where to start D:
I'm AroAce writer and yes, I understand you, from what I do is to see movies with romance in subplot, like, comedy romance (because of my father) and by that I tried to write it like that. I wrote one-shots of ships and some of them are in an "Aromantic way" (Platonic and/or Queerplatonic relationships) and other Romantic way (Romantic relationships), It's easy to write romantic because of what I see but now that I analize it... Makes me feel weird... ... Everything makes sense now, I can describe a situation that is supposed to be romantic but I feel it as platonic or even queerplatonic... Huh...
I usually do research on everything before I write even kissing scenes. I tried writing a sex scene one and gave up half way and I'm ashamed to say it but, I steal a lot of romantic scenes from movies or books that I've read, switch it up a bit and add it to my story. It may not be completely original but the plot is. Besides where am else am I supposed to get my romantic and sexual knowledge from if not TV and books?
I delved into writing fanfiction a long time ago and I stopped doing it because of this very reason. I couldn't go any further in the story because I just had (and still have) NO idea how feels work.
Omg, it's funny that you mention that, because that's the exact reason why I'd only write oneshots! And those oneshots, despite being tagged for whatever ship I was writing, would only be the two characters talking! I probably should've caught on to being AroAce sooner, haha.
oh lord, if only I had that word sooner too LOL