Romance where attraction builds gradually over many pages or chapters, with delayed gratification heightening the emotional payoff.
Slow burn romance takes its time. The characters don't fall instantly; tension builds through lingering glances, almost-touches, loaded conversations, and the agonizing gap between what the characters want and what they allow themselves to have. The pacing is the point. Readers choose slow burn specifically for the delicious frustration of wanting two people to get together long before they do.
Slow burn teaches you pacing and restraint. If you can make readers desperate for two characters to kiss for 200 pages before it happens, you've mastered emotional tension. That skill applies to any story where anticipation is more powerful than delivery, which is most of them.
The original slow burn: Darcy and Elizabeth circling each other through misunderstanding, pride, and gradual revelation.
A fake-dating setup that creates forced proximity, with the slow burn simmering beneath the academic setting.
Claire and Jamie's attraction builds across chapters of shared danger, cultural clash, and growing trust.
Write three versions of the same scene: two characters alone in an elevator. Version one: they've just met. Version two: they've been circling each other for weeks. Version three: they've finally acknowledged the tension. Same setting, different emotional charge. Feel how the slow burn changes everything.