How To Write Love In Your Screenplay

People love to read or watch love stories. It’s exciting, they can relate, and even some elements of a love story makes the whole story more real. But what to do if you don’t know how to write about love?

There are different types of love, and many of us have experienced this feeling. But even if you were madly in love, it does not necessarily mean that you can express this feeling on paper. Luckily, you can use several ideas to learn how to write about love properly.

Ways To Write About Love

The vision and point of view of the writer impact how they write about love and feelings of love. Several factors affect how the person writes about love, for instance:

• The age of the writer
• The life experience
• The type of love experienced
• Happy or tragic love
• Conflicts

The age of the writer has always an impact on the plot and characters. Usually, younger writers can be full of expectations even if they’ve had negative experiences in the past. Older, more experienced individuals may be more likely to ask themselves whether they like where they are at the moment, whether their choices related to love were correct, whether the people around them are good for them, etc.

The older generation expresses various feelings - from gratitude to those they loved and whom they loved, to regrets. It’s essential to consider what message you want to send to your audience considering your age, what do you want to warn about your audience, etc.

Life experience and the type of love experience are two factors that are also very important to consider. There are different types of love, and they should be expressed in different ways on the page. For example, the love of a mother towards a child is different from love between two friends or lovers, etc.

Think about your characters and decide whether they will be happy in love or it will be a tragic love. Are your characters capable of change? Would they be willing to compromise to achieve harmony in their romantic relationships? Your characters should feel like real people, readers have to believe that they exist. So, can they have a happy ending? Do they deserve a chance or they can’t change and miss it?

There are also internal and external conflicts that you may depict in your story. An internal conflict usually means that someone is in love with another person, and this person is vulnerable. You can use this vulnerability to explain some actions and behavioral patterns of your characters.

An external conflict is when there is an external threat. For example, if a couple is in love, but one of the individuals is endangered. Or there is another man or a woman who may ruin what the couple has, etc.

Consider Body Language

To make sure your characters are believable, you should make them real. When people experience the feeling of love, passion, sympathy, they like someone, etc., their body language changes when the person of interest is around. Even the voice changes, especially when people are flirting.

When someone is interested in another person, they reveal the following signs:

• leaning forward
• maintaining eye-contact
• crossing or uncrossing legs
• arching

If a person is happy, then they reveal these signs:

• smiling or laughing
• singing or rather humming
• dancing
• hugging

There are lots of other signs of love to consider. For example, when one person desires another person, they may be parting lips, licking lips, winking, looking through lashes, etc. When experiencing pleasure, the person could have wide or closed eyes, arch their back, tilt their head backward, etc. In other words, love is often expressed in a script through action, as opposed to dialogue.

Love In Plot

The story doesn’t even have to be centered around love. It could be a detective story, science fiction, fantasy, etc. Love doesn’t necessarily have to be only in love stories. Love can be very important in the plot. It can explain characters’ actions and behavior, their motivation, create conflicts, etc.

For example, your character may be experiencing a difficult situation, but you can show the support of a loving character. Love interest might be the very reason why people do certain actions. For example, some characters may kill for love, or they may make certain decisions that even affect their whole lives, or even the lives of their friends, etc.

You can even put the love interest of your character in danger if you don’t know how to move your plot forward. Or you could create plot twists related to the love feelings or love interests of your characters.

Love towards a person or a certain object, or even to an animal can help you reveal the personality of your character. When you are describing a character, the love of this character towards someone or something may reveal other traits that readers haven’t yet figured out about the character.

Tips And Exercises To Start Writing About Love

If you have an idea, but still can't decide where to start or how to write about love, consider several exercises:

• Imagine the protagonist of your story, and the personality of this character. Then make your protagonist write a letter to the person they love the most. It could be any person and any type of love.
• Imagine the antagonist of your story and make them write a love letter to a person they love more than anyone else.
• Think about your main characters and create a playlist for each of these characters. Add love songs that you associate with these characters.
• Think about the ways the romantic relationships between your characters may occur. Write down these ideas.
• When creating characters, think at least about 5 things your characters love the most. It could be anything, from power to another person, or a pet, etc.

These little tips should help you master your ways of depicting the love and love interests of your characters. It may feel weird and unusual at the beginning, but when you practice more, it makes more sense. You start believing that your characters are real people, that they live somewhere, they love someone, have interests, etc.

When you start believing in your characters, they become real. That’s why it’s important to imagine more and more details about your character, especially those details that have something to do with the feeling of love.

Final Thoughts

Writing about love when it’s not your thing is a tricky task, but accomplishable. Love is important in creating characters since that’s how they become real and people believe in them. If you use the simple ideas mentioned in the article, they could be helpful for you when writing about love.

If you have a great romantic comedy script, be sure to enter it into the 2nd Annual Romantic Comedy Screenwriting Contest! You can also check out what last year's winners are up to by clicking here. And if you're working on your romantic comedy script, you can find great tips by joining executive Matt Bierman's webinar on Writing and Producing a Romantic Comedy That Sells! 

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