Whether you’re writing a sweet rom-com or a slow-burn seductive thriller, it’s important to create realistic, emotionally compelling obstacles for your main character. Some suggestions:

Begin with Your Character’s Deepest Wound

A strong obstacle grows organically from who your character has become. What past injury, pain, or struggle defines them? What belief system did that wound create? How does that belief make finding and falling in love feel so perilous? If they grew up surrounded by conflict, this creates a pathway to avoiding relationships and conflict. If a previous or past partner abandoned them, they may not trust declarations of love.

Create a Goal that Conflicts with Love

A character’s life ambitions should collide with love. Your character’s dream job may require relocating. Or a sick parent or sibling may take up the emotional headspace they need to fall in love. Maybe they're rebuilding themselves financially, and dating irresponsibly makes them feel untethered and vulnerable. Love must complicate whatever they treasure most.

They’re Compatible but Don’t Mesh

Two people may be meant for each other but struggle to align their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps an overly meticulous planner just can’t seem to dovetail with a spontaneous risk-taker. The same holds for a caretaking, self-sacrificing character set against a fiercely independent one. Or you could have someone who talks through conflicts and problems collide with an individual who simply shuts down under stress. These scenarios let you create believable conflict without villains or melodrama.

Use External Pressures to Intensify Internal Obstacles

The goal here is not to make external obstacles come off as random. Instead, they should confront a character’s internal flaws or wounds. Perhaps a challenging job that calls for secrecy, making trust exceptionally difficult. Or a family’s high expectations that expose a character’s fear of disappointing others. In some cases, a rival love interest could serve to highlight a character’s insecurity without taking up the story’s entire conflict. What you’re going for are external obstacles that force your character to confront what they fear most.

Allow Both Characters to Make Human Mistakes

Make your characters behave like flesh-and-blood humans, not caricatures. Create realistic tension from ordinary imperfections—like misreading each other’s intentions, sidestepping important conversations, or being afraid to first show vulnerability. Your characters come alive when they hold on to their pride after an argument or try to protect each other in ways that sometimes don’t make sense or appear irrational.

Morph Your Obstacles

Obstacles rarely remain static. They escalate in uncomfortable and unpredictable ways. Small misunderstandings often erupt into real emotional friction, resulting in deeper revelation of insecurities. This forces characters to make major and sometimes life-altering choices, which ideally makes your characters grow. Keep in mind that realistic obstacles should ultimately lead your characters to confront a belief or fear that keeps them from healthy love. Obstacles must change them and teach them about themselves or about love. To achieve this, they must take emotional risks, which gives true romance the emotional payoff readers crave.

Clear and Sympathetic Motivation

Throughout the sturm and drang of overcoming obstacles, and especially when your character makes mistakes, your reader should think, "I understand why they did that—even if it hurts." Remember, when motivations are clear, obstacles feel earned, relatable, and deeply emotional.