Romance Arc
The journey of two characters from strangers to lovers.
One of the perennial herbs and spices in the cauldron of storytelling old and new. It's been around a while, it's a major driving force of fiction and it's not going anywhere. A surefire crowd pleaser; probably the only way to really, really screw it up is to overdo it. Induces emotional stakes in an audience like nothing else.
Comes in a myriad forms and flavors. Employs plenty of tropes to get itself across, though a lot of them are mutually exclusive. Like many other tropes, the Romance Arc is looking for a balance: Too many stock derivatives and it's just too much; too few, and it's not much of an arc at all.
See also: Love Tropes; How to Become A Love Interest
Here are some of the common checkpoints of a Romance Arc in typical chronological order.
- Love Before First Sight
- Boy Meets Girl
- Just Friends
- Will They or Won't They
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore
- Maybe Ever After (probable exit point)
- Relationship Upgrade
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle
- Boy Loses Girl
- I Will Wait for You
- I Have Your Girlfriend
- Second Act Breakup
- Downtime Downgrade (where the "Second Act" is either a Sequel or in between episodes)
- Make Up or Break Up
- The Masochism Tango
- Break His Heart to Save Him
- Your Cheating Heart
- Break Up Demand
- Third Act Misunderstanding
- Boy Finds Girl Again
- Did Not Get the Girl
- Her Heart Will Go On (exit point)
- They Do (exit point)
- Together in Death (exit point)
- Reincarnation Romance (Go back to start)
- No Romantic Resolution (exit point)