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How to transition from a crush to love?

XY Rules

Pokemon Master
I need help in how I can slowly pace a transition from a character crushing on another character to falling in love with them.

For example: Alice starts off of as a kid who has a big brtoher admiration of Sam (not really related) she then begins to start crushing on him after a time-skip. Alice proceeds to fall in love with Sam. How can I balance out with the story while not making the transition seems to fast-paced?

Side note: the story is an Adventure/Action Genre focusing on the two characters although their real names are Ai and Sato.
 

Brutaka

Ignition
In story, I find that crushing transitions to loving the easiest when they learn that the feeling is mutual. So, in your example, if Alice is crushing on Sam, but finds out that Sam likes her back in the same way, it would naturally transition into loving very quickly.

But you have to be careful, of course. Just as with anything else. If you make it too fast, even if it is explained, you may miss some good conflict in that regard. Of course, there is a part where conflict and angst do meet, and it's never fun to fall over that line, so thats why it needs care too...

I know it sounds like I'm rambling, but it's hard to analyze love because it's very case specific. It depends on the two's personalities, the plot, and what's actually happening right then. There are a lot of factors that play into it, and sometimes, many different paths would be believable. My own characters' love was hard to map out too, trust me.
 

Shadow Lucario 50

Shadow Pokemon
There are several ways to go at transferring a crush to love. Sometimes, the feeling may be one-sided or mutual, but the way to go at it is when the one having the crush starts sending a bunch of signals through his/her actions.

For example, he/she might give the one they really like something then stating that he/she love them (common approach). Then there's the one-sided where he/she proclaims his/her love and start claiming that they're a couple (aggressive approach). Then there's when the setting is perfect and he/she proclaim his/her love in a romantic setting (corny approach). Finally, there's the unexpected approach where they resolve a huge conflict before he/she states that he/she loves them (climatic approach).

Honestly, it really depends on how the character is like. Just remember that it has to fit Alice's personality of how she would go at it. Was she prepared or was it on a limb? Does it fit or is it out of place?

Like Bru said, "it's hard to analyze love because it's very case specific". The backstory, plotline, and all those important things that define the character and setting... They're all important to how it should be tackled. For doing crush to love, you have to observe everything because it's a plot twist in itself.
 

Skiyomi

Only Mostly Dead
There's obviously more than one way to go about this and how you want to pull it off will depend a lot on the characters and the situation. Brutaka is very right to advise caution in handling the transition and not have it happen too fast or too easily. A lot of pairs I've liked the build-up for in media have been spoiled for me by a slap-dash execution.

Something that might be worth noting here is what we consider the difference between a "crush" and "love" to be. A crush is a childish thing--fleeting, immature, lacking a greater context, etc. Whereas we consider love to be the more mature, fully-realized form of the emotion.

Taking this into account, sometimes a good way to deal with the transition is to actually make the character who has the crush kinda step away from the love interest and the situation for a time and gain some maturity before coming back. It seems counter-intuitive, I know. It's natural to think he/she should be getting more and more into the other character--but co-dependence is not really a good recipe for maturity. If the character can learn who he/she really is and what their responsibilities are on their own, then they'll be in a much better position to find and accept love for someone else as a result of that growth and independence.

...I hope that actually made sense. And, like I said, there are a lot of ways of doing this.
 
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