The 1997 disaster-romance movie Titanic is arguably among the best movies of all time, and it has many craft lessons if you’re looking for romance writing tips. In this article, I’m going to break down some major takeaways from the movie Titanic as one of the best romance writing examples. Since this is a film that’s been widely seen, I’m hoping many aspiring romance novelists can use this classic story as a master class in romance writing. I’m going to pull from four different craft components from Titanic that romance writers can use as fuel for penning their own love stories.
Takeaway #1: Drive Suspense with Internal and External Conflict
The best romance stories are driven by internal and external conflict that propels the core suspense of whether or not the couple will get together and have a HEA (“Happily Ever After”), the signature promise of romance stories.
When your H/h come close to consummating their attraction with a kiss/sex/some other significant act of physical or emotional connection, push them further apart as long as possible by throwing them conflict.
Why?
Overcoming conflict makes the consummation of their attraction more emotionally cathartic and satisfying for the reader. The conflict keeping them apart is, for the moment, finally resolved. Against all odds, the two are vulnerable enough to risk their darkest fears and embrace love—it’s earned.
For a satisfactory romance story, both characters should show they’ve changed by the story’s end. They have healed their “wound,” which is the misbelief about love they each have. That fear could be a fear of abandonment, the risk of intimacy, etc.
Titanic offers one of the best romance writing examples with a story steeped in both internal and external conflict. Let’s see how.
First, consider Rose’s internal conflict…
In the beginning, “romance” for Rose is a transaction: Rose will marry Cal, and he will save Rose and her mother from financial ruin and scandal. “Love” will suffocate, constrict, and limit her. “Love” is a trap. That’s her wound.
Just take a look at this scene with Cal and her fellow first class diners…
As Older Rose reflects….
“…all the while I feel I’m standing in the middle of a crowded room screaming at the top of my lungs and no one even looks up.”
Older Rose
But Jack offers an alternate future, a surrender to the unrestrained, wild emotions of true love—and its risks. This uncensored, carefree, and liberating version of love with Jack is incompatible with Cal’s promise.
Jack and Rose’s relationship is built on terrifying, risky, radical vulnerability from the very beginning, when Rose considers ending her life.
Jack pushes her into a place where she’s forced to challenge her own self-limiting conceptions of love and what her life could be if she were to follow Jack.
Essentially, Cal offers safety without love…while Jack offers love without safety.
This puts Rose at odds; she needs what Cal would provide, but she wants a life with Jack. That’s why Rose backtracks with Jack in the gymnasium. Life with him is too scary. Too risky. She’s not ready yet to walk through that door (more on doors later).
And that dynamic—the push and pull between different and incompatible and mutually exclusive versions of love—fuels the internal conflict that drives Rose’s story forward.
Witness this dynamic when Jack asks her if she loves Cal.
Jack’s question touches a nerve by poking at her internal conflict. Rose can’t answer the question. That would mean admitting she doesn’t love Cal, and that her idea that marriage doesn’t include “love.”
To grow, Rose must challenge her wound about love being a trap and find the courage to pursue a future driven by the secret desires of her heart. And, by the end, Rose has grown. She has healed her wound by having the courage to embrace the thrilling risk of true love. She takes Jack’s last name and lives the carefree life she fantasized about with him. In photographs, we see her flying a plane and riding a horse the style a man would. She’s grown into a woman who lives by her heart—exactly the way Jack encouraged her to do.
Now let’s consider external conflict in Titanic…
In Titanic, Cameron dumps not just internal, but external conflict on his H/h as well. Until the moment the ice hits the ship, which we’ll discuss in much more detail in Takeaway #2 and Takeaway #3, the primary conflict keeping Rose and Jack apart is internal. Jack is turned away from the chapel, but no other external conflict drives them apart. Instead, it’s up to Rose to overcome her internal conflict and surrender to Jack, which she does. She finds him and asks him to draw her. Then they have sex. They passionately kiss, and she says she’s planning on going with him when they get to New York.
And then the shit hits the fan.
Or should I say the iceberg hits the ship.
What happens next changes everything; the Titanic strikes the iceberg, and the ship starts to sink.
Cameron starts piling on external conflict.
First, Cal has Jack arrested by framing Jack as a thief who’s taken the Heart of the Ocean necklace. Cal causes Rose to doubt Jack, but she realizes Jack was set up. She overcomes her internal conflict and chooses Jack over Cal. But now she faces the external conflict of trying to locate and rescue Jack.
Even more external conflict follows: Jack is locked to a pole, and she can’t find the key, so she has to go find help, and when she finds a crew member to help her, he doesn’t listen to her, so she punches him, and then she uses a hose to break open the glass and take the axe, and then she goes back downstairs, and she has to take off her coat so she can move, and then she has to free Jack by hacking at his handcuffs, and then, from there, the two of them face even more external conflict.
Each of these setbacks work as more external conflict to split Jack and Rose apart.
You can watch this sequence here:
Jack and Rose face even more external conflict in the rest of the story. It’s no longer about getting together; it’s about survival.
You don’t have to be writing an epic disaster story to include a rich tapestry of internal and external conflicts that push and pull your characters’ interior emotions and exterior actions. Obviously, a life or death situation is an extreme example of external conflict, but your own story can also draw on external conflict that is meaningful and significant within the contexts of your characters and their relationship.
Ask yourself…
- What is the internal conflict that drive your characters emotions and actions?
- What kind of external conflicts can keep your characters apart?
- How can you blend internal and external conflict?
Takeaway #2: Pivot Immediately after the Midpoint
Next in our series of romance writing tips, the Midpoint. According to Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, the “Midpoint” happens roughly around halfway through the story and brings with it either a “false victory,” wherein the characters feel an incredible high by getting what they want and achieving their goal, or a “false defeat,” where characters struggle and fail to meet their objective.
A “false victory” in a romance story is often when the union between the two main characters results in the consummation of their attraction, through a sexual encounter, kiss or loving embrace, or a moment of deep emotional and romantic connection.
Jack and Rose have a “false victory.” This is the high they’re experiencing on the front deck of the ship after having sex. It peaks when Rose reveals her intentions: “When the ship docks,” she says. “I’m getting off with you.”
Jack replies, “This is crazy!”
Rose says,”I know! It doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I trust it.”
Watch the scene here:
They share a passionate kiss, which distracts the lookouts so they miss seeing the iceberg “straight ahead.” (This is James Cameron’s artistic flourishing; a lover’s embrace didn’t cause the ship to hit the iceberg.)
But this craft choice is genius; Jack and Rose’s false victory ultimately causes their own destruction.
After this false victory, Cameron’s plot steers the story into a new sequence when a ton of conflict—internal and external—is thrown at Jack and Rose. Every moment from here on out will test them. Their objective is not just being together; it’s staying alive.
The contrast between the false victory and the new, dangerous, urgent challenges feels like emotional whiplash, which is why it’s so effective. We’ve seen our hero and heroine share the peak high, which makes the ensuing descent into the conflict to follow that much more tragic. We got a glimpse of what might have been, but the ensuing conflict erases that victory.
Folks, that’s why the Midpoint is called a “false” victory. And the reason why it feels so thrilling and emotional in Titanic is because the story immediately pivots into a new set of obstacles, ones directly tied to the false victory. The high was so high, and now the crash is so low. This gives the struggles to come a deeper emotional resonance since we know how things could have gone if the false victory was a real one. That’s why one of these romance writing tips from Titanic is to contrast the false victory or defeat with an immediate pivot to the opposite mood.
Ask yourself…
- What would a “false victory” or “false defeat” look like for your characters?
- How can you shift the mood of the story after the Midpoint?
- How can you turn a false “victory” into a “defeat,” and how can you turn a false “defeat” into a false “victory”?
Takeaway #3: Raise the Stakes—Then Raise Them Again
A story is boring unless you raise the stakes. Although some of us might be satisfied with a story that hums along at the same pace without any real danger, the truth is raising the stakes heightens tension and suspense, gripping readers and leaving them hanging on your every word.
If the Titanic never sank, Jack and Rose might have gotten their HEA. What obstacles would have stood in their way? Cal was too much of a cad to restrain Rose or murder Jack. Rose wouldn’t let herself get marched off the ship with her mother and Cal. She was a changed person. There was no going back. Her future was with Jack. Nothing would stand in her way.
But that would have been boring! A good HEA has to feel earned.
So what do you do to keep readers inhaling pages?
Raise the stakes. That’s one takeaway from these Titanic romance writing tips.
In Titanic, James Cameron ups the stakes dramatically when the ship hits the iceberg. This brings a new urgency to the story and rivets the viewer. Now Jack and Rose don’t only have to fight for their relationship; they have to fight for their lives. The stakes could not be any higher: they are literally facing life and death.
Along the way, Jack convinces Rose to get on the lifeboat. That might have led to a predictable ending… wealthy Rose lives, and, tragically, pauper Jack dies. But Cameron has the courage to push his hero and heroine to the brink.
When Rose gets on the lifeboat, it seems like the story will end. But then Rose does something to raise the stakes even more—she jumps off the lifeboat and climbs back onto the ship. Jack and Rose run to each other, and she says, “I jump, you jump, right?”
Now Rose faces an even more dire situation with no way out. There won’t be another lifeboat. Cameron has raised the stakes again. And this time, there’s no going back.
You can see that scene here:
Furthermore, Cameron draws on another powerful way to up the stakes: with a deadline. We know when the iceberg is going to sink the ship in a matter of hours. Jack and Rose have to survive as long as possible before the ship sinks. The clock ticks.
Your story needs stakes. Maybe not life and death, but consider what stakes would heighten the emotional intensity for your characters. In your own romance book, think about what kind of symbolic, thematic, and emotional “life or death” stakes you can introduce.
Ask yourself…
- How can I add more urgency to the plot?
- What would force the characters to the point of no return?
- What danger—physical, external—could threaten your characters’ chance at a HEA?
- What would a symbolic, thematic, and/or emotional struggle between life and death look like in your story?
- How can I incorporate a deadline into my story?
Takeaway #4: Use Symbolism to Deepen Emotions
Last but not least among these romance writing tips from Titanic is how to use symbolism to deepen emotional resonance.
After the ship sinks, Jack convinces Rose to climb on top a floating debris. While some think that it’s a door, it’s since been proven that the makeshift life raft is actually the arched frame over one of the first class lounge doors. Still, that is still technically a part of a door, so I’ll be treating it like that.
Here’s a look at that scene:
Why did Cameron make this specific artistic choice? He could have picked anything else. A bed frame. Or a deck chair. Or a dining room table.
But no, he chose a door as a deliberate craft decision. Let’s dig into why.
When we first meet Rose, she’s on a self-described “slave ship” headed to America to marry foppish Cal, who will rescue Rose and her mother from financial ruin and scandal. The life that awaits her will require her to meet societal expectations that restrain her from a more carefree existence that she is drawn to.
But meeting Jack derails those plans.
Jack offers Rose an alternate option, another way to live her life. With Jack as her guide, Rose can leave behind the stuffy decorum, suffocating social codes, repressed desires, and tightly controlled emotions of the role she has been cast to play. Jack offers her a portal into a new realm, a liberation.
Crucially, it’s Rose’s decision to walk through that door. It’s up to Rose to liberate herself
When she tells Jack that it’s over in the gymnasium scene, she’s trying to close that door. But it’s too late. Jack has already deeply affected her, and she realizes that her heart yearns for him—and for the new world he offers passage into if she only walks through the door and into a life with him, a life where she is liberated to follow her heart.
In fancy writing craft speak, the door functions as what is known as the “objective correlative,” a literary theory term created by poet T. S. Eliot. Essentially, the objective correlative is when an object comes to symbolize the emotions of a character.
For Rose, the door operates as an objective correlative by embodying the liberation that comes with the salvation that Jack has offered Rose. Thanks to Jack, but thanks most of all to her own actions, Rose is liberated from the trappings of her doomed future with Cal. She has changed, has been liberated to live the life she wants to live. Not only has Jack rescued Rose from the terrible future that doomed her—he has literally rescued her from death by sacrificing himself and giving her the door to float on. (Side note: it’s been disputed ever since the movie came out in 1997 whether or not Jack would have fit on the door. That’s an argument for another article. In this one, we’re operating under the presumption that Jack had that he would not have fit.) The door signifies her emotional liberation. That liberation is thanks to Jack as catalyst, but it’s Rose’s decision that allows her to save herself.
Rose says it herself to her audience. She acknowledges that Jack rescued her, stating:
“But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me… in every way that a person can be saved.”
Older Rose
The door is loaded with symbolic meaning by reinforcing the theme of Rose’s liberation.
The hallmark of love stories is that these stories are emotionally visceral. That’s why we read them; we love romance because it stimulates our emotions. When we think of romance, people often reference the emotional “escape” that these stories offer. Rose didn’t get off the Titanic on a lifeboat, but, for many readers, like me, romance novels are a lifeboat for an often cold, dark, and lonely world. We read romance because we want to lose ourselves in a story that is profoundly emotionally moving.
That makes the romance genre a fertile ground for the objective correlative, which can be an incredibly effective way to infuse a story with emotional resonance.
The takeaway here is to consider how you can work symbolism into your romance novel to deepen the emotional layers. Each romantic couple will bestow an object that has has specific meaning for their specific relationship.
Ask yourself…
- What object connects to the emotional journey of your protagonists?
- How can you blend literal meanings with symbolic meanings?
- Can you identify any symbols in your story? What do they represent? Can you connect them to the emotions of the couple?
And there you have it… my top four romance writing tips using the classic disaster-romance novel Titanic as a mentor text. I hope you’ve found these romance writing examples to be useful in your own story craft. Which one will you try first?
PS: If you’re looking for more romance stories, check out these articles here on the blog:
