In Youngblood, Kat Finn—a teenage vampire—is suddenly admitted to the Harcote School, a vampires-only elite boarding school. When she arrives on campus, she’s dismayed to see that her ex-childhood best friend, Taylor Sanger, is her roommate. Taylor is the school’s only out queer kid, and she’s had a serious crush on Kat for years, even though Kat is obviously straight (right?). When things at vampire boarding school start getting ~creepy~, the girls grow closer than ever as they team up to unravel the conspiracy at the heart of Vampirdom.
Youngblood is an enemies to roommates to co-detectives to lovers story. Early reviewers have also called it out as a slowburn romance, which I’ve taken as a compliment. I love (and hate) all those excruciating misunderstandings and rationalizations and missed opportunities to just kiss already! On the other hand, I didn’t set out to write a slowburn romance. It arose naturally out of how I combined romance beats with the external plot structure. Since this was my first romance, I relied heavily on Gwen Hayes’s classic Romancing the Beat, which outlines the key beats in a traditional genre romance, and my go-to story structure favorite, John Truby’s Anatomy of Story.
Here’s a few things I did, using Kat’s arc as an example.
1. The romance plot and the external plot both poke at the same character flaw or wound:
Kat’s main issue is that she believes she has to suppress her true self to fit in, because she believes the alternative is a life of poverty and isolation. The romance plot requires her to realize she’s actually queer and that embracing that can bring her happiness and love, while the external plot forces her to reconcile her burning desire to fit in with Vampirdom’s elites with the growing realization that they’re all actual monsters. Together, these plots force Kat to confront conflicting visions of herself and the world.
2. The tension with the external plot prevents the romance from moving too fast, too soon:
Because the external and romantic plots attack the same character flaws, they need to advance together. In the lead-up to the midpoint, Kat’s desire to fit in leads her to into “friendships” with Harcote’s mean girls, a relationship with the hottest guy in school, and a prestigious mentorship with one of the most important figures in Vampirdom. Kat’s getting what she always wanted, even if it means pretending to be someone she isn’t. At the same time, her growing relationship with Taylor has her doubting if she’s really been wanting the right things—and Taylor keeps getting her into trouble. Taylor is also pretty clear that she hates Kat’s enthusiasm for Vampirdom. In other words, the romantic plot creates roadblocks and helps raise the stakes for the external plot, while the external plot creates obstacles for the romance.
3. The Dark Night:
The third act of a romance plot is characterized by the characters turning away from each other and from love in a “black moment”. This matches up perfectly with the more generic plot structure that positions a major negative reversal right before the climax. These periods where everything seems terrible and is only getting worse fit together perfectly. Kat’s continued investment in Vampirdom, despite all their detective work has uncovered, finally pushes Taylor to the breaking point and the girls are barely talking. This happens, of course, right when the girls most need to be working together.
Importantly, this falling out isn’t just a petty miscommunication to reduce the burn speed—it’s about showing them a world without each other, where they return to the character flaws they started with. That world feels a lot less satisfying now that they’ve had a taste of love. Of course, it’s also a world where the darkest outcome of the external plot prevails.
4. The romance climaxes immediately before the external plot:
Kat and Taylor can only take down Vampirdom and their messed up school by working together, and by now, they can only work together if they choose love. They’re stronger together—but only after completing most of their character arc. That’s why Kat only metaphorically embraces her queerness and physically embraces Taylor right before the external plot comes to a head. This plot beat is a classic feature of the romance genre, and I always find it so satisfying.
Just as there are a lot of other elements that go into a slowburn romance—the pining, the close calls where you could have kissed, the accidental touches and glances across the room—there there are a million ways to mix romance into your plot structure. Experimenting with those combinations can make both plots stronger.
Sasha Laurens is the author of young adult contemporary fantasy novels Youngblood and A Wicked Magic. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has lived in New York City, Michigan and St. Petersburg, Russia. She currently lives in Brooklyn and puts her PhD in political science to use researching protest in authoritarian states.