How to write harem ?

[Iamnotabot]

Hey, as a writter i don't know how to write proper harem but i'm going to try to add harem in my story soon so i'm asking beforehand. Give me your tips, advice, anything that one may need in writting a harem.

I don't want the harem member to be like pokemon waiting to be collected.

How should i handle each member reaction toward each other ? Trial by kombat ?

Yes mc will married all of them. No, there won't be threesome or anything like that. No, mc won't try to make it happened.

 

[Anon2024]

Take your time with each member.
Make the connection meaningful.
Add big boobs too.
Big boobs = big meaning.

 

[Terrate]

Shounen usually sets up harem correctly but they ultimately choose 1 girl only.
Notable things that make it natural, is because of the mc’s personality; don’t try to go for those typical harem mc’s that are basically a self insert that has a personality of a cardboard yet still gets the girls, it’s not natural to see the average guy doing nothing and somehow has a flock of girls on him.
Charisma works too, maybe the mc is naturally good looking, and with his kind and gentle demeanor he just becomes more attractive.
The perseverance of the mc, I mean who doesn’t like seeing someone always do their best to achieve their goal.
This might be cliché, but yeah, “saving” a potential harem member once should put the mc in a good light.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Get in touch with the polyamory community. Listen to their stories and embark on some of your own adventures for firsthand experience.

 

[Anon2024]

embark on some of your own adventures for firsthand experience.

Sounds like a cult invitation.

 

[DaScoot]

One of the most annoying things about harem stories to me is when you know a character is going to join the harem in the first paragraph where they're introduced. How? Because it describes them as an attractive/cute/beautiful woman and every single attractive woman in the story inevitably joins the harem. If some of the people the MC is attracted to actually have zero interest in him, it makes it more meaningful when someone else does.

Also, I haaaaaate when harem protags are so insecure that they won't even let other harem members enjoy each other if the protag's not around. While of course the protag can do whatever to whoever at any time. If the characters aren't treated as being equally human as the protag than it's nothing more than power fantasy.

 

[Placeholder]

Speculating, I think you need deeply worked out motivations and characterization of each participant.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Sounds like a cult invitation.

Join usss~.

 

[Anon2024]

Join usss~.

You are a poly?

 

[Cipiteca396]

You are a poly?

Who knows? I'm definitely going to give some advice here once I have more context though.

 

[DanielPotter]

Is your novel historical or modern?

 

[Daitengu]

You will bloat your story if you actually give the proper amount of time to continuously keep in touch and have every harem member grow.

I have never seen that done, and that's why I think harem is crap.

 

[Hopper]

Hey, as a writter i don't know how to write proper harem but i'm going to try to add harem in my story soon so i'm asking beforehand. Give me your tips, advice, anything that one may need in writting a harem.

I don't want the harem member to be like pokemon waiting to be collected.

How should i handle each member reaction toward each other ? Trial by kombat ?

Yes mc will married all of them. No, there won't be threesome or anything like that. No, mc won't try to make it happened.

Hmm... The bot of Paul_Tromba asked how to write harem...

Yeah, let's give him an advice!

*Sees the date he joined SH*

 

[Cipiteca396]

Hey, as a writter i don't know how to write proper harem but i'm going to try to add harem in my story soon so i'm asking beforehand. Give me your tips, advice, anything that one may need in writting a harem.

I spent a while searching through past posts that give my advice, but I wasn't satisfied with any but these two:

It's a bit hypocritical of me to say, but I like to see romance as a world building tool, not a plot device. It's something that's meant to add realism to the story, not to make your characters jump through hoops. In real life, a lot of people like to look for and be in relationships, so characters that pursue romance are more relatable. Sometimes, people just like hanging out together, regardless of any external reason or their own motivations and desires.

---

The key in my mind is to make them comfortable around each other. Maybe they can have moments of tension, or drama, or whatever, but in general, their presence should give them a chance to relax.

Outside of that, yes, communication is important. They should try to make their thoughts and opinions on what's going on clear to one another-

Which is where we get to the 'meat' of the deal. Try to create a web for each character that explains what those thoughts and opinions actually are.
Your MC is the center of a vast web which connects them to partners, potential love interests, friends, family, and others. Each thread of that web represents a relationship, and every relationship is basically a character of its own; one that only exists when two other characters interact.
Now, recognize that every other character has their own web, with completely different thoughts about the same people, and different relationships with them.

Once you have those webs clearly defined, you can start to see how they might interact. Each character will have varying levels of affection for the others. Some of them may end up just being friends, some might be intensely devoted to one or two particular members of the group. That affection may then change their opinions on seemingly unrelated relationships... As if the metaphorical characters that are 'relationships', are also interacting with each other.

It's kinda a big deal. Even just a group of three is three times as much work as a couple. Having four, five, seven people? A lot of work.

You could try searching through different threads with keywords like 'Harem', 'Poly', 'Relationships' or whatever, and you might find better advice as well.

To summarize my other, less well put-together posts:

1. Make each character unique and memorable. You can only reasonably expect a reader to remember 7 characters from your story. Yes, the MC and main Villain count towards that. There are ways around this, like using one of those 'memory slots' for a group of characters.
2. Don't make them fight against each other. If they want a monogamous relationship, they shouldn't pursue someone who doesn't. Either play nice or gtfo.
3. Not every interesting character should be in a relationship with the MC, even if it seems like they should to readers or the MC. Not every relationship needs to be sexual or romantic. Sometimes it's nice to just have a friend, or a mentor, or whatever.
4. How does the culture feel about this? Are there institutions in place for dealing with polygamy? (If not, the characters will need to create their own rules.) Is there sexism that complicates this? Do the characters believe in these cultural ethics, and feel shameful or oppose what's happening?
5. Does the plot change because of these relationship? Would it be possible to make the plot more interesting because of these relationships, with some slight tweaks?

That's all for now. Oh also, if there's any advice for a monogamous relationship, it's probably even more important when the number of relationships increases. No lying, no gaslighting, no exploiting each other, stuff like that. Common sense stuff.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Harem in most shitty wish-fulfilment/fanservice anime is nearly indistinguishable from close school friendship with extra bonuses, if you exclude the ecchi stuff.

To replicate that, Just write them as friend group, but with multiple female that are openly attracted to a male. Or multiple male that are openly attracted t a female.

Its quite easy to write and easy to mass produce because the whole thing didnt need to be as convincing and written properly.

For proper realistic harem, your MC must be a playboy, whether intentional or not.

Or do it the Mushoku tensei way, in which the first wife, Sylphy, is the one who allows the protag, Rudeus, to get another wife.

In that case, All wife must fulfill Sylphy's screening, and If Sylphy refuse Rudy's wish to take Roxy as harem, Rudy won't make harem at all.

Almost works the way an empress control the husband's harem screening, whether the husband is the emperor or mere consort.

 

[Anon2024]

I'd say it's better if the Harem is small. Like 2-5 at most, and the story continues on after it's established. If there is always a new harem member, that's where the problem begins.

 

[Kureous]

Hey, as a writter i don't know how to write proper harem but i'm going to try to add harem in my story soon so i'm asking beforehand. Give me your tips, advice, anything that one may need in writting a harem.

I don't want the harem member to be like pokemon waiting to be collected.

How should i handle each member reaction toward each other ? Trial by kombat ?

Yes mc will married all of them. No, there won't be threesome or anything like that. No, mc won't try to make it happened.

Trial by kombat sounds like a wonderful idea...

 

[Jemini]

Harem in most shitty wish-fulfilment/fanservice anime is nearly indistinguishable from close school friendship with extra bonuses, if you exclude the ecchi stuff.

To replicate that, Just write them as friend group, but with multiple female that are openly attracted to a male. Or multiple male that are openly attracted t a female.

Its quite easy to write and easy to mass produce because the whole thing didnt need to be as convincing and written properly.

For proper realistic harem, your MC must be a playboy, whether intentional or not.

Or do it the Mushoku tensei way, in which the first wife, Sylphy, is the one who allows the protag, Rudeus, to get another wife.

In that case, All wife must fulfill Sylphy's screening, and If Sylphy refuse Rudy's wish to take Roxy as harem, Rudy won't make harem at all.

Almost works the way an empress control the husband's harem screening, whether the husband is the emperor or mere consort.

Yeah, so far as I'm aware, there are really only 2 "correct" ways to do Harem. Either the Mushoku Tensei way, or the Rumiko Takahashi way.

The Mushoku Tensei way is more well known today because it's the one that is more recent in mind due to both the webnovel and Anime having come out a lot more recently than Takahashi's stuff.

Rumiko Takahashi is pretty much the mother of the entire harem genre. Harem originally got popular in the first place because she did it so incredibly well.

What made Rumiko Takahashi's harem genre material work was... well, actually, to be frank it probably worked specifically because she wrote it to appeal more to women than to men. When it's written as a male wish fulfillment "collect all the wifus" type thing, that's when it starts becoming incredibly shallow. Rumiko Takahashi, on the other hand, selected a "main girl" and wrote in rom-com elements, with all the other girls who popped up being competition. But, the competition was played off comedically, and the introduction of each new girl to the competition was done such that every new girl's justification for going after the male lead was increasingly ridiculous and nonsensical to the point that "adding more girls to the harem" was more a joke than anything, and after the first 3 or so the male lead was also starting to grow increasingly horrified at the kinds of girls who were chasing after him.

 

[Simple_Russian_Boi]

Carefuly

 

[WaterFish]

People can have different kinds of interests, whether positive or negative, about one person in particular. Nowadays people call stories a ‘harem’ even if the girls around the MC aren’t romantically interested in him. The fact that he is the centre of their lives can’t be understated.

This is the mark of a low-quality harem story which likely invests in things other than the romance aspect.

To actually be a ‘harem’, there needs to be something sincere about their relationships. A point where they won’t fight as a ‘love triangle’, but will care for each other or won’t get in the way of each other’s affection.

This point you have to figure out yourself.

Low-quality harem stories don’t explain why the female characters are ‘okay’ with each other. It either focuses on their ‘love’ and kinda gaslights us into believing this is normal. The real good ones, on the other hand, have a reason for it.

Either the girls realised they gain more to benefit from together than apart, had a journey that made them recognise the importance of one another, actually cared about each other beforehand, or it’s the MC doing the heavy-lifting in making sure his harem is peaceful.

It’s annoying when everything works out well without the MC earning it.