Romance or no romance?

[Alatariel]

I'm trying to decide if my two main characters should have a romantic connection or platonic. I personally love both in books, so I'm trying to feel it out with my characters and go with whatever feels right for them.

If I go with romance, it wouldn't really bloom for a while (if this became a series) so I have time to decide. Right now, I can lay a good groundwork for friendship but leave it open for possible romance in the future.

Trust me, I know the pros and cons for both scenarios. That's why I'm struggling because they both have strong merits. 

Personally, I think simply creating a strong friendship built on mutual respect and support is a good place to start. My biggest beefs with many novels is when the two characters feels pushed into situations to force the romance. It's obvious the author intended the two characters to fall in love but they rarely allow the time for any kind of foundation to be built.

So I guess writing it out here really helped organize my thoughts on the subject.

What about you? Do you ever write a story with a specific mindset and find halfway through your characters are telling you something different?

[RAVENEYE]

Ooo, if the story is epic enough for a series, then having the characters start out as friends then developing a deeper affection would be believable and, I think, more involving for the reader. A longer, more gradual journey sounds fun to explore. Are referring to Darq and Raine? That would totally work for them (unless there's something I don't know yet).

A couple of my characters were going to be just friends, referring to my bard Sanjen and his shiftskin friend Ue. But in the second story in the series, Ue started acting angry and jealous when Sanj was going about his business. So friendship shifted on her end without her giving me the heads-up about it. Not sure how I feel about this, especially since Ue is not Sanjen's destiny. There's trouble ahead, that's for sure.

[Valhalla Erikson]

I was in a similar situation where the characters start out as childhood friends but their connection started to become even stronger than that through time. 

I find that the best method in hooking your characters up is to see if their chemistry clicked with you and the reader? If the chemistry is solid and there's a long term payoff then I say go for it and see where it takes you.