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
- Meet Cute
- Crash Into Hello
- Falling Into His Arms
- Returning the Handkerchief
- The Glomp
- Samaritan Relationship Starter
- Rescue Romance
- She's All Grown Up
- Fate Drives Us Together
- Love At First Sight
- The Bet
- Fatal Attraction
- A Match Made in Stockholm
- Honey Trap
- In Love with the Mark
- Meet Cute
- Just Friends
- Will They or Won't They?
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo
- Green-Eyed Epiphany
- Love Epiphany
- Love Confession
- Did You Think I Can't Feel?
- Aborted Declaration of Love
- Can't Stand Them Can't Live Without Them
- 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
- Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends (exit point; do not pass go; do not collect $200)
- I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy
- Pair the Spares
- Cartwright Curse
- Derailing Love Interests
- Death of the Hypotenuse
- Dump Them All (exit point)
- I Wish You Had Called
- 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)