hi!! first, thank you so much 🙏 what a lovely thing to say. i have a couple of old cc answers where i've talked about writing emotional arcs, first here and also here, and i think i'd still answer similarly now! i also have a couple of things to add to what i said there:

1. i touched on this in both of my cc answers, but i wanna expand on it: there's a kind of synergy i think between the external events of the plot and the emotional progression of the plot that i try to hit. i think that people's feelings toward each other change from seeing the other person in different situations, and i also think that learning information about another person by just seeing how they respond to things that happen around you is really important for kind of cultivating a vibe ✨ so i try to rely on things happening more than i rely on dialogue about feelings to help the characters learn more about each other, because i think weaving the two (external plot and emotional plot) together makes things more interesting. so, for example, if i know i want a particular series of plot events to happen, i'll think about how each one of those events might progress the characters' relationship or feelings toward each other. are they working together in a new way? do they realize something about the other they didn't know before? i think every major scene should move the character's feelings forward (or backward!) in some way. and you can also work backwards the opposite way, like say if you're writing an enemies to lovers fic and you know you want the protagonist to realize that the love interest might not be as bad a guy as he first seemed to be, you can work backwards and think of an event that would cause him to have that realization. it's always more impactful to see your enemy display humanity and go "oh, he's not such a bad guy!" than it is for the enemy to just say "i'm not such a bad guy" without seeing that in action. moments where the characters talk to each other about their feelings are still important, ofc, but i think those moments hit better when we've already been shown those things about their changing feelings before we're told them! we're having what we already know from watching them interact confirmed by the characters speaking those things aloud.

2. as much as i do try to have an idea of the emotional arc beforehand, i do NOT stick to my original script lol! i find it REALLY hard to write fics where the characters are sort of stand-offish with each other, for instance, like my writing tends to veer SUPER hard into romance SUPER fast, and so like, if the feelings are progressing faster (or slower) than i'd intended when i started writing the fic, i go with it! i think nothing kills the momentum of the fic faster than feeling like the author had a certain plot development they needed to hit, even though the emotions didn't end up fitting it, so they're kind of contorting the fic to make it work. that's how you'll get plot lines where like, the characters already feel emotionally attached to each other from the way they've been interacting and thinking about each other, but the author doesn't want them to be together yet and so instead one character like, turns on a dime and decides "actually now i'm having a crisis about how i can't be with you even though these concerns have never been a major part of my characterization before this moment!" i think instead, you can always rework scenes to incorporate the feelings that the characters are already having, and like, if you had an event planned that relies on your character being in a particular emotional place, and when you get there, they're not in that place, rather than forcing it, try to adjust! consider whether there's a way that the same events can happen, but have a different emotional motivation behind them that feels more in line with where your character is, or whether there needs to be an entirely different event here instead. or maybe your story's just ready to be done and they're ready to be together! that's fine and good!!

okay i wrote a novel again lol, i love you, let me know if any of this made no sense, have a great day!!