I wish female protagonist didn’t mean “guaranteed romantic subplot and/or love triangle” in fiction. It’s in everything, including genres where it doesn’t make sense.
TV Review: Seven Swordsmen aka “Seven Swords Descend from Mount Heaven”
In 17th Century China, the Qing Dynasty now rules where once the Ming Dynasty did. Many Han resent their new Manchu overlords and pockets of rebellion are everywhere. To help quell the resistance, the Qing have banned the practice of martial arts by ordinary citizens. The Red Spear Society strongly objects to this…
i actually kinda enjoy love triangles? they do get done poorly so i get why people tend to hate them because sometimes they exist ONLY as a cheap tactic for relationship tension, but even so I don’t really mind that.
some reasons people don’t generally like love triangles
Type 1 love triangle: A likes or is liked by both B and C.
Usually, there’s one obvious winner. And it’s usually the first character A interacts with. (So for examples sake, B is the main love interest, C is the secondary love interest) This part is actually ok, but readers will sometimes check out of any A&C scenes because they can tell their love wont go anywhere.
If C is LESS likable, they’re just an annoyance for the audience, made doubly annoying by A’s affection towards them.
When C only exists to add a speedbump to A&B’s relationship, it’s very obvious and might not be very enjoyable to read.
Type 2 love triangle: X likes Y, Y likes Z, Z likes X.
It’s generally a more interesting format than type 1, but the cyclical nature of it can annoy fans that want progress in a specific relationship
This type is common in episodic content that has to maintain some kind of status quo. If the triangle is a core part of the status quo it usually isn’t altered permanently or until the end is in sight. Can get repetitive.
Before I get into the part where I talk about cool things about love triangle, I do wanna say that if your characters are nicely fleshed out, even the most basic love triangle is still completely FINE. you don’t need to go subverting things if you’re happy with what you’re doing and mindful of the above pitfalls.
anyway,
Things Love Triangles sometimes do that I like
(it’s mostly type 1 triangles)
One of the triangle points is secretly a villain, or becomes a villain. I think a famous example of this is in Frozen but lol it’s a bit poorly done . As long as the villain isn’t SUDDENLY a villain, it’s great. I would also tread carefully with rejection being a major motivation for turning to villainy. It can be a valid and even interesting motivation but I’ve seen some Yikes executions of it.
The first character that A has chemistry with is NOT the final love interest. Maybe I like this because it’s justice for all the good secondary love interests that have died lol. No but really, putting the main character in a brief relationship with the secondary love interest before they get with the main one offers a lot of opportunities. The main character gets a chance to learn more about romance and about their own feelings.
i don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of media taking a love triangle and developing it into a polyamorous situation but I want it
Here’s one I’m actually writing right now: Characters B and C eventually fall for each other rather than character A.
Basically as long as the secondary love interest is more than that, it does so much to improve the situation. Even if it’s just that they’re a fun character even outside of their relationship to the main character. Giving them some plot significance helps tho.
WINDS, you say? Yes, still working. Finally finished a clutch of Cersei chapters that were giving me fits. Now I am wrestling with Jaime and Brienne. The work proceeds, though not as fast as many of you would like.
AC: How do you decide what you’re going to work on, whose voice you’re going to work in today?
GM: Well, I don’t write the chapters in the order in which you read them. I get into a character’s voice. It’s always difficult to switch gears, actually. When I do make that transition from one character to another, I usually struggle for a few days trying to get back the voice of the character I’m just returning to after some hiatus. But once I get into it, I tend to write not just one chapter by that character, but three or four. So I’ll be writing Jon Snow chapters, and I’ll carry that Jon Snow sequence as far as I can. And then at some point, maybe I’ll get stuck or not be sure what I should do next, or maybe I’ve just gotten way ahead of all of the other characters in the books, so I need to sort of rein myself in and make myself switch from Jon Snow to Sansa or Daenerys or somebody like that.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with love triangles. The problem is that most authors write them poorly. Here are some pitfalls to avoid when writing a love triangle.
1. Don’t make it obvious which side will win unless learning to stop hanging on to wrong choices is the character arc of the person in the middle. Readers will wonder why you’re dragging out the decision when it’s clear what will happen. If only one side invokes passion while the other side is “just nice,” you’re falling into this trap.
2. When it finally becomes time for the character in the middle to decide, don’t suddenly turn one character into a jerk. Arbitrary character changes are never a good thing, but they’re even worse when they magically end a major conflict.
3. The decision should not be forced by one of the characters dying or getting taken away. This makes all the conflict beforehand seem pointless.
4. If you are not writing a romance, the love triangle should not overtake the main plot.
5. The person in the middle should not randomly switch which one they love more between paragraphs. This especially shouldn’t happen more than once unless their flip-flopping for no reason is an intentional character trait.
