Writing About Immortals Who Fall in Love with Mortals
One of the most fascinating tropes in fantasy and romantasy is the immortal who dares to love. Whether it’s a vampire, a fae lord, a water elemental, or a cursed sorcerer, immortals carry an irresistible allure of timeless power bound up with the vulnerability of desire.
I am 15,000 words into a romantasy working title, Jekyll & Jinx. It’s about a young green witch who finds herself in unfortunate circumstances and saves an elemental lord who then reluctantly falls in love with her.
But how do you write an immortal romance that feels both believable and compelling? Here are a few elements I am exploring.
Immortals have lived through centuries, sometimes millennia. They’ve seen empires rise and fall, loves found and lost. That kind of history changes the way they approach relationships. Do they guard their hearts fiercely, unwilling to lose another? Or do they seek connection constantly, chasing fleeting mortal passion? I feel giving your immortal character a relationship with time itself can make their love story richer.
Romances between mortals and immortals always raise questions of imbalance. One has centuries of wisdom, strength, or magic; the other is fragile and has only a finite amount of time. Rather than shying away from this imbalance, I am leaning into it. How do they reconcile it? Does the immortal envy mortality? Does the human resent being “less”? I hope that the tension will fuel drama and intimacy.
For many immortal characters, love is the only thing that can truly change them. Immortality often causes stagnation; they’ve seen it all, and they are bored. Enter the element of love; it is messy and unpredictable. It jolts them out of their bored eternity and makes life dangerous again. I want to show how falling in love alters their choices, values, or even the powers they wield.
A good story for me is when an immortal’s romance isn’t just about attraction, it’s about big questions. Can love survive eternity? Is it selfish to bind yourself to someone who will grow old while you remain unchanged? Or does love itself offer a kind of mortality, because even an immortal can be destroyed by heartbreak? Is that why it is so dangerous for them, because the loss of a loved one could destroy them?
I hope that when readers dive into an immortal love story, they want to wrestle with these questions alongside my characters.
Think of stories like Hades and Persephone, Arwen and Aragorn, or countless vampire romances. These tales endure because they explore both the ache and the ecstasy of loving outside the bounds of time. Immortals who fall in love remind us of what is fleeting, what is eternal, and why we love at all.
When I write immortals in love, I’m not just writing romance, I’m writing about time, and the essence of what it means to be mortal. I work hard to give them depth, conflict, and consequences, and if I do a good enough job, readers will follow them into eternity.
Immortal love stories are some of the most powerful and heartbreaking in fantasy. What’s your favorite tale of an immortal falling in love? Would you choose eternity with your soul mate, or one perfect mortal lifetime?
Until next time, keep reading!
~April Nia Raine