6 Tips for Writing a Magical Rom-Com

So, you've decided that you're writing a rom-com. And maybe that rom-com needs a hint of the otherworldly.

(5 Tips for Writing a Young Adult Romance To Make Your Readers Swoon)

Maybe you're on a witchy kick after watching “A Discovery of Witches” and need to channel all your feelings. Maybe you recently watched Star Wars and thought the space magic needed to happen here on Earth and the heroine needed to hook up with the bad guy (just me?).

Whatever the reason, you need to weave magic and romance together. Here are my suggestions for how to make your magical rom-com the best it can be.

Before you start writing, stop and think about what kind of magic system you're going to have. How does the magic in your world work? Do characters channel through magical devices like brooms and magic wands, or is it all done with a wave of the hand? How does one learn magic or are they born with the ability? Try to think through how your magic system is going to work, and what it's based off.

I knew when I started writing the Hex series that I wanted to base my characters' magic off of Roman witchcraft. I'd read an article online about curse tablets found in ancient Roman wells in Britain and read some fascinating books about how Roman witchcraft worked. I wanted to play with those aspects, so I had to stop and think about how Roman witchcraft would have carried forward into the modern day, and how people would be taught that magic, and how the gods responded.

The fun thing about research is that it can provide answers and fun ideas for your story. If you decide you want to stick to an established magic system, there are plenty to choose from. There's Roman witchcraft, Norse rune magic, Wicca, and even more obscure magic rituals that can be found with a little bit of research.

That being said, some writers find that too much information can be a cage instead of an idea mine. This is fiction, which means it exists only in your head. It's all right to twist and warp things to suit your purposes. When writing Go Hex Yourself, I researched spells and spell components that the Romans used to give my magic system authenticity, but I also crafted my own spells and additional components to add a bit of richness to the story.

Don't be afraid to break the rules in order to provide a richer experience. Picasso was classically trained as a painter before he decided to start breaking the rules of perspective and anatomy in his art, all because he wanted to tell a richer story.

Now that we're thinking about magic systems, let's consider just how readily available our magic is. Does everyone know about it? Can you get a love potion at the corner bodega as you pick up your favorite soda? Or is magic forbidden and sold furtively on the corner like party drugs? Or do average people even know about magic at all?

You want to consider all the possibilities when crafting your rom-com, because they can all lead to vastly different scenarios. Is there speed dating for wizards? Are you unemployable if you haven't been apprenticed to a wizard in the past? Or is it a dirty little secret for your hero and heroine, like that time there was just one bed in the hotel room?

Now that we've got an idea of how our magic works, how are our main characters involved in magic? Just like if you take the romance out of a romance novel, it's not a romance—if our characters aren't directly involved with magic to some degree, it's not a magical romance.

You need to make magic intrinsic to the storyline. The character doesn't have to have magic, of course, but they have to be involved in a magic situation in some way. If the characters are the body of our romance, our magic system should be the heart. Or spleen. Or something less gross but equally vital. Whatever.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

Every good romance novel needs a reason as to why these two can't be together. If there was no good reason, you'd have a romance pamphlet, not a novel. Think long and hard about how to make the magic vital for the reason as to why they can't be together.

In Go Hex Yourself, my main characters are apprentice and warlock, and neither one is supposed to be casting magic. If they're found out, bad things happen. If they fall in love, they can no longer cast (due to various plot reasons).

There's a lot of things keeping them apart, but they still end up together. Think about how you can weave your magic into their character conflicts.

Now we come to the comedy part of our magic rom-com. We can mine our magic for this, too! After all, magic is powerful stuff. Any time you're dealing with power, there are ways for it to backfire. Think about what happens if our main characters cast a spell wrong, or on the wrong person. How is this fixed? How hilarious is it? A lot of good comedy is situational comedy—putting the characters into a ridiculous scenario and watching them work/argue/scream their way out of it. Use your magic system for this!

In Roman magic, there's a magic system called augury where you interpret the future based on the patterns of birds (right?!). Or there's haruspicy, where you cut open an animal and read their entrails. Both sound bizarre (and the latter slightly alarming).

Now put a soccer mom in that situation, or a beauty queen. Chaos, right? And probably pretty funny. Think of the extremes of your magic, and how you can make it backfire. Maybe the heroine gives that handsome guy a love potion ... and it gives him gas through their date. Or he ends up with food poisoning. Or maybe it accidentally kills him because of a wheat allergy. Think about how out of control you can make it, and mine it for laughs.

Good luck out there!

Click to continue.