164: Creating an Effective Love Triangle

 

Whether you're writing a romance novel or some other genre with a romantic subplot, love triangles can be a great way to add tension, force your characters to grow, etc. 

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cREATING AN EFFECTIVE LOVE TRIANGLE

Hello and welcome to your big creative life podcast. Thank you for being here. I'm excited to chat with y'all about love triangles and how I want to approach this episode is give you some tips and some things to think about. But I just want to say that this can be this can be applicable to you if you are writing a romance novel that has a love triangle, or if you are just writing some other type of genre, not necessarily romance, and this is something that you're interested in having in your novel as kind of like a subplot, an opportunity for character growth, for character development, but it's not the sole focus of the book. So either instance, I think hopefully there'll be some helpful things to think about in this episode for you, because the truth is, there are a lot of poorly written love triangles out there, I will just be honest, as an editor, as a reader, someone who reads a lot of romance now, I didn't used to, but loves it now.

 

 Yeah, there just are, because love triangles are, it's important to think about them strategically and to do some work to With your characters that are in the love triangle, but also how the love triangle fits into the larger story. And we're going to talk about all of that in this episode, but maybe you've even read books or watched movies. I mean, we can talk about all kinds of pieces in media where there is a love triangle that just feels forced, it feels unnatural. It's so obvious who the better choice is? I mean, it's so apparent that the main character is going to end up with this person, and it's just like, why are we? Why is this even here? What is the point of this love triangle? It can be frustrating. So yeah, I want to talk about, well actually, let me go through the tips and stuff first, and then at the end, I'll give you some examples.

 

And I try to when I come up with examples for these episodes, I always try to think about examples from books or popular media that people are familiar with. Because if I pick some obscure novel that no one's heard of, that I've read, and I think that there's a good example of in it, of a love triangle or some other plot device or element in it, then I don't know, it's not really as helpful. Maybe, I mean, I guess I can encourage you to go read it. But so I want to talk about a couple of examples that present love triangles for you to think about how this looks in practice. Okay? The first kind of point that I have, that I want you to think about with a love triangle is that it is absolutely essential to develop all of the characters in the love triangle, all three of them fully. This is important if you are having a love triangle as a subplot in your book, meaning it's not the main focus of the story. Maybe you're writing some other genre, but you just want to have this as kind of a b storyline that's occurring alongside the main plot. It's important to develop these characters fully, but it's even more essential.

 

If you are writing a romance and there's a true love triangle as a big focus of your book, then you absolutely have to develop all these characters fully. If you've listened to me at all in this podcast or unfollowed me on social media, you know, I talk all the time about characters, and I want to tell you what I mean by this when I say develop them fully. One of the pitfalls with love triangles is one of the love interests. So you have your main character, right? And there's two options for this person, two love interests that they could end up with, two romantic interests. A lot of times, one of these characters will be very flat one of the love interests. I mean, hopefully the main character is not flat, because that's a bigger issue. But one of the love interests is just very one dimensional. We really don't ever get a sense of their personality.

 

We don't understand their connection to the main character, but also just the character on their own has not been fleshed out. They're too perfect. They don't have any real any real personality. We don't get a chance to see them really do much. And think about it as you know, if you think of a tripod and there are three legs to it, if one of those legs isn't fully propped up, like it's just like the whole thing is going to collapse, right? And the same thing is true of your love triangle, if one of your characters, particular. Really, you know, the one of your love interests is not really developed. That's going to be an issue, and it's going to make a love triangle just not work in the way that it needs to, and it's not going to be engaging for the reader. In order to form an emotional connection to characters, we have to get to see who they are. We get we have to get to see how they interact with their relationships are like what they want, what they're working towards, have a sense of their backstory. All of these things need to be present in order for the reader to form a connection. And that's true with characters generally, but but in a love interest, that's That's true.

 

Now the amount of work that you do to develop the love interests those two people, whoever they are, might be a different amount of work. If you are writing a romance, it's definitely worth fleshing them out a little bit more. So this doesn't have to mean, I mean, let's get really practical to talk about what this looks like. I have a free character profile sheet in the in my link in the show notes, that if you sign up for my newsletter, you get a copy of and it's a chance it just asks you a bunch of a bunch of questions about your character to help you develop them. And you you can make multiple copies of it to do it for different characters. So that's a helpful exercise to do, to force you to come up with ideas and articulate things about the character. But even if you don't do that, once you get through the first draft of your book, you should have a good understanding of who this person is, and it should be coming across on the page.

 

Now, if you write a rough first draft, it might not really be there. You might have to add in more to make this character a little bit stronger. That's fine, but check their mannerisms, check their decisions that they're making. Make sure they have a personality. Are you clear on at least a few details of their past, their backstory, things that happened to them before the book opens? And also, yes, what their relationship is like with the or, sorry, yes, what their personality is like, what this character is like in their own but what is there a dynamic like with the main character, who is having to choose between these two people? What is their dynamic? Is there a different dynamic that you want to be present? And this kind of leads me into point two, which is that both love interests need to be good, viable options for your main character.

 

Meaning, there is a path, there is a form of the main character's life in which they could end up with Person A, and there is a path. There is a version of their life in which they could end up with Person B, where love triangles fall flat is there's like one character who's not really developed, and they're also just kind of there to take up space in the love triangle. But everyone but everyone really knows who the main character is going to end up with. The choice is so obvious. Person A, let's say, is so much better for them than Person B, like, it's never a question. So that's another way that they can fall flat. So make sure that they're both viable options. They're both good options. Like this should be a big decision that your character has to wrestle with. They can see pros and cons of being with this person care you know, person A, and they can also see pros and cons of being with Person B. And the reader can see that as well. And part of having two viable, good options for your main character is making them different. You do not have to have complete opposites in every sense. Like your characters don't need to be the two love interests, that is, but they should be at least some. I don't want to say how different. I don't know. They need to be at least fairly different, right? Because they're representing different paths for your main character, and if they're the same, then it's like, well, what's the choice really going to be? If they have the same personality, their relationship is the exact same, they bring out the same positive qualities in your main character. You know, that's that's no fun.

 

So think about how you can make those two people different, both good, but just different. I actually what I'm going to do is I'm going to throw one example at you now, where both characters are not of a low triangle, where both characters are not really viable options. But, like, I don't know, there's debate about this. So Twilight. Okay, I'm choosing Twilight as an example because everyone knows the story. Even if you haven't read the books or seen the movies, you're aware of Twilight and that there's the Team Edward and Team Jacob, in my opinion, it's never really, it's never really a full developed love triangle, because Bella never fully falls in love with Jacob. I believe that she had strong feelings for Jacob of friendship and caring about him, but it was never love. It was never the same sort of attraction or feelings that she had towards Edward, right? And it was always it's like her friendship with him, her relationship with with Jacob, was to serve and. Need. He was there for her when Edward left, and it always felt a bit transactional, like he was kind of filling this hole in her life, because she was so distraught over Edward leaving or whatever.

 

So there are people who will argue that it is a love triangle, because the characters are very different. Jacob and Edward are very different, and they represent two different paths that Bella's life could take, so we can see what her life is going to be like if she chooses Edward, which she does ultimately, spoiler alert, to become a vampire, to radically change her life, whatever. Then there's also a direction that Bella's life could take if she ends up with Jacob that would be very different. She probably would stay put. She wouldn't have to become a vampire. She wouldn't have to, like radically change her life. She would just be in this committed relationship with someone that is close to her family, someone she has a connection to from her past, like they're just different, right? And Edward brings out different positive aspects in Bella, I guess, than Edward does, or sorry, Edward brings out different positive attributes in Bella than Jacob does, right?

 

Bella's a slightly different she can express different parts of her personality when she's with Jacob, as opposed to when she's with Edward. Now, again, I don't know that this is a fully effective love triangle, because it just is, like, we know, you know from the beginning that Edward is going to be the choice for Bella. Now, I don't think that that suspense and that mystery is like, the only thing that makes a good love triangle, but again, it just felt like, for me, Jacob was never really a viable option. And it seemed like something that was really played up for readers. Who readers some, and that's that's actually one thing that Stephanie Meyer did really well, is a lot of readers connected to Jacob, and they wanted Bella to end up with Jacob. But Bella, I don't think, ever fully view Jacob as a viable option. It was like, at some point, she was trying to, like, force herself to maybe see if she could have feelings for him, but she never really did. So in that, because of that, I just don't think it's a fully like, solid example of a love triangle.

 

Okay, so going on to my next point, point number three, or suggestion, I guess number three, the decision has to have weight, and it has to have stakes, and there needs to be a decision. If you are doing a Why choose romance or some kind of polyamory thing? Like obviously, you don't actually have to have your character choose. But if it's a love triangle, the character has to choose. They have to make a decision about who they're going to end up with, and this decision has caused tension. This decision has caused conflict, external conflict in the relationship dynamics that the main character has with both of these love interests, but also internal conflict, because this person, your main character, is really wrestling with this decision because both of them are good, viable options. It's hard, it's hard to be in that situation. I've never been in a love triangle in real life, so I can't speak to how I would handle it, but I'm sure, if I put myself in a character's shoes like I'm sure that it would cause a lot of mental anguish if you have two very good decisions, but they're just different decisions.

 

It would be hard to choose, but there are going to be for your character, there are going to be consequences for choosing character a, and there are going to be consequences for choosing character B. Now the consequences might not be earth shattering, like the world will end if they choose character B, but maybe it's just consequences in the sense that they will lose something well, they will lose out on the relationship with that person. They will lose a sense of security. They will lose they will have to physically move if they decide to go with character a, they will have to give up something else, whatever there's there's got to be some sort of of weight and some stakes behind this decision for them to make it messy and to make it exciting and interesting to read, right? If the I guess this, this kind of leads into my next point, my next suggestion, which is like, don't drag out the choice for no reason. If it is clear on page 10 of your novel, who the right choice is, and what the character, who the character is going to choose, and then you just drag it out artificially. For the rest of the book, the reader is going to be able to tell the reader is going to be able to tell that it's contrived.

 

And it's like, Well, duh, everyone knows. And I don't mean that like, again, I want to be careful about how I say this whole talk about this whole like mystery suspense, thing of who they're going to end up with, because romance, if you think about the genre of romance, when a reader picks up a romance novel, they know that the characters are going to end up together. So it's not like spoiling something to tell us that they end up together. But the interesting part is how they get there, how they get from the beginning to the end of the book, where. They are together, right? What obstacles are they overcoming? How are the characters forced to confront their feelings, forced to grow and change? What else is happening externally around this couple that is forcing them to navigate this like that's what's interesting, the journey of how they get there, even if you know what happens at the end, roughly.

 

So I don't think there needs to be, like, an extreme amount of mystery behind it in that sense, where, like, well, I guess, I guess I do, because I'm what I'm saying is, if it's obvious on page 10, then it's gonna feel kind of artificial and contrived to just present this other person as a viable option when the reader knows they're not, the character knows they're not. So just think about that. Think about that balance. And I guess one other thing I want to say with the character piece of this and the plot piece of this is conflict is always essential, right? Because you you have to force your character to grow and change and to go through some shit, right? Because that's interesting to read about. That's life. No one just has a smooth sailing ride where everything's hunky dory and then they just That's it. We want drama. We want conflict. We want momentum. We need those things to keep us interested and to write an effective story, no matter what the genre is. And so if the love triangle doesn't really feel like it's serving the plot, then that's another way that it can fall flat.

 

So whether you are writing your love triangle as a central component of your romance novel, or just something that's a subplot for your characters, make sure that it's forcing your characters to get messy and to have conflict and to really wrestle with the decision, because that's, again, it's so much more interesting to read about than like, oh, Duh, of course it's going to be this. I want to give you another example of a love triangle that I think is maybe a little bit better done. Again, I feel like I'm kind of limited sometimes with love triangles, because I'm trying to talk about media books that people are familiar with, but I think the love triangle, in a sense, in Hunger Games, is a little bit more well done. I could see Gale. I could see Katniss choosing as a reader. I could see Katniss choosing Gale because of what he represents. He represents that stability, that connection to her past, that kind of loving friend who's always been there. And there's a version of her life where she she could choose him, and it would make sense, because he's a good, viable option.

 

There's also a version of her life in which Peeta makes sense because he's been through all of this traumatic stuff with her. He knows her on a deeper, deeper level than someone like Gail ever could. They have this connection. He brings out different aspects of her personality, different traits, and so he's also a viable option. And I don't you know Hunger Games is not a romance, so it's not like Katniss spends three books just agonizing over who she's gonna end up with, because that's not the main point of the story, but I do. Now it has been a while since I've read these books, so maybe I should have brushed up on it before I said that this is a good example, but at least in my memory, I do remember a little bit of turmoil within Katniss about this where she could see both options, right?

 

That's her the romance is not in the forefront of her mind, like she's not moving through life completely motivated by romance and by Who am I going to choose and being so I don't know. Yeah, she's got bigger things to worry about, right? But I do remember there being a bit of turmoil about who she could end up with now, yeah, another option that I just or not, option example that I just thought of actually, okay, this is maybe kind of embarrassing to admit. I've talked to, I think I've admitted this before, but I'm a big fan of The Vampire Diaries, the TV show. It's like my guilty pleasure, and I am re watching it for probably the fourth, fifth time, maybe. And I'm doing it because I'm trying to get myself out of the habit of being on my phone for like, two hours in the evening. And I'm like, Okay, let me just watch a show that I enjoy, that I don't have to think too hard about because I've seen it already. I know what happens. It's like a comfort show, and then I watch that in the evenings as a way to not be on my phone. That's my strategy. Anyways, if you're familiar with the show, you know that Elena has a choice between Stefan and Damon, who are two brothers, two vampire brothers. And if you're not familiar with the show, that's okay. It's just another example. I do think that's an effective love triangle, because Elena has feelings for both of them.

 

I'm not gonna spoil it and say who she ends up with, but there it is, at least in early seasons, before the very end of the show, there's a version of her life that she could see with Stefan, and there's also a version of her life with Damon that she could see both brothers. They're very different characters, right? Stefan and Damon are very different. They bring out different aspects of Elena's personality, and she does have to wrestle with her attraction to both of them. Doesn't want to admit the fact that she is developing feelings for Damon while she still was Stefan. Like there's all this, this conflict that's present in it, and there are, there are consequences. There are huge consequences for her decision, because of all the history, all the things that have gone on, and it ties into the plot, right?

 

The love triangle, the relationship that these people have, like it ties into the plot really strongly. So that's just another example I thought of because it's fresh in my mind. Okay, what I would love for you to do if you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening to the podcast version of this. Excuse me. Please let me know if you can think of an example of a really well done love triangle, because I need to add more examples to my like list. Yeah, because if you like Twilight and The Hunger Games, again, I picked big books because people are familiar with them, but I'm sure there are much better, much better examples out there.

 

So if you think of some, if you have read books lately and you're like, Damn, that was really satisfying. That was a really well written, well done love triangle, please let me know you can DM me @KatieWolfWrites. So good luck with this. Whether you're writing a romance or some other genre that has this in it, love triangles are really satisfying. When they're done well for readers, there's a big payoff, and it also allows you to, like, have messy relationship dynamics and really mess things up for your character in a good way, to make them struggle and change and wrestle with their feelings. And there's all it's all good stuff. It's all good fodder to make a really good story. So that's what's exciting about a love triangle. All right, thank you for listening. Hope this was helpful, and I'll see you next week.

Katie Wolf