Be they slash or het, romances are, by far, the most common stories in the newsies fandom. I'm not quite sure why that is... But it is.

So the fact is, it's easy to write romance; it's hard to write good romance that'll stand out. So how to do it? First, a breakdown of the two major kinds of romance/slash:

Fluff — This is the happy kind. At the end, boy and girl (or boy and boy, and you can assume that's implied from here on, since it gets silly to write it each time) get together, or maybe it takes place after they're together and is a scene from their relationship that's particularly interesting. It has a happy ending, and is usually light-hearted throughout.

Angst — Angst is the unhappy kind. In an angst story, Boy and Girl either have to go through some crushing, terrible kind of heartbreak to get together, or they don't get together at all. Maybe one of them dies. This is the really emotional, makes-you-want-to-die stuff.

I can't say which one is harder or easier to do, or to do well. That depends on the person—personally, I have a harder time writing fluff because I see many more plotlines for angst. But that's just me and my love or torturing my favorite characters. (Just ask Blink!Muse). So how do you do either one so it stands out in the sea of romance? You have to be creative. A simple boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-ends-up-with-girl won't cut it... Unless you can bring something else to that. Some questions to ask yourself:

Why can't the characters be together? Maybe they don't like each other at first and have to overcome that. Maybe she's engaged, maybe he has a girlfriend. Maybe he's gay. Maybe she's gay. Maybe she's moving to China, or he's going off to college, or a zillion other things. Be as creative as you can. Romeo and Juliet has been done and done and done. To death.

What about a subplot? Sure, your main theme is that Boy and Girl want to be together, and then can't, and then they get together, but what else is going on in Boy's life? Maybe his brother is dying of some terrible disease, or he owes someone money and has to find a way to pay it back, or something. What's going on in her life? Evil parents keeping her locked in the basement? (Which has, by the way, been done, I'm sure.) Or maybe, instead of the lives of Boy and Girl it's what's going on in their friends' lives. Boy's best friend, Other Boy, is trying to save money to get an anniversary present for his parents, and somehow, this ties into the main plot as well. Maybe Boy wants to buy Girl a ring, so he steals the money for it from Other Boy, and then has to fess up to it and either lose Best Friend or lose Girl. (Hm, I kind of want to write that, now...) Or something. Again, be creative.

The key is to do something novel with the idea of two people getting together, or not getting together. There are a thousand ways to do it, and I can't really give you them here—you've got to find them on your own. But spend time thinking about the characters and how they act and feel and what they'd do for each other and how to put them in situations where they have to do things for each other, and something will come up. Really.

Sex Scenes

Ahhh, smut. FFnet has purged most of the straight-up smut from their archives, but you can still find it if you look. If that's your thing, I guess... I'm far more into the emotional, angst-ridden side of romance, but sex is an important part of it (and no, I'm not pretending to be above reading the occasional PWP... Or writing it, for that matter). A few words of advice, though, as always.

It's very hard to write about sex and being sexual if you've never done it. Which isn't to say that it can't be done (or that you should go get laid so you can write better fanfics—that's a terrible idea, actually) but the truth is, you have a much better idea of what it's like and how to describe if you've experienced it. Otherwise, you end up going largely by the stuff you can read online (or see in porn, I guess, if that's your thing) and that has about as much connection to real sex as Newsies does to historical accuracy—yes, something happened, some of the names are right and it did involve selling papers, but Disney, shall we say, embellished. By which I mean, made things up.

Sex isn't necessarily super-romantic. It can be, but if you stray too far in that direction, it's going to be corny.

People rarely have orgasms at the same time. And even if they do, it doesn't mean true love forever, it means a lucky sense of timing.

Boys rarely have screaming orgasms. Actually, neither do girls, really, but it's a tad bit more likely. There may be groaning or panting or whatever, but rarely screaming.

Oh, one other, semi-related note? Boys rarely cry. I don't mean during sex, I mean in general. I can't speak for everyone, and this should probably be under character and not plot, but nothing will make me click the back button of my browser faster than when a fairly tough male character breaks down and starts sobbing. Because that is radically out of character (especially for, say, Spot, for the love of god) and I just can't handle it. I know others who feel that way, too.

I'm not saying this because I'm a horrible person who can't deal with the idea of a nice, emotional, new age guy; I'm saying this because they don't really happen in canon, especially not when your canon takes place in 1899. Sure, in real life, boys do cry; but fanfics have to make sense in society as a whole. And for all it's 2005 and men are just as liberated as women, society still discourages boys from being emotional, and above all, from crying. It's considered too feminine, and thus taboo. So, in fanfiction, boys don't cry. Remember that. There'll be a quiz later.

Quiz: Do boys cry?
A: No.

Okay. That is all.