How I Feel About Love Triangles

When I started writing on a more serious basis, love triangles were running rampant in fiction. It wasn't just in book series like Twilight and The Hunger Games (in which, for what it's worth, it felt like the love triangle angle was ramped up for the films and I could go so in depth about the paralells there), but in popular shows at the time like Gossip Girl, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and The Vampire Diaries.

It made for good drama, which kept people invested. And especially with Twilight, it also created a sense of community and rivalry amongst Team Edward and Team Jacob.

Love triangles weren't limited to young adult fiction, though. I recently read Undressing Mr. Darcy by Karen Doornebos, an adult contemporary romance originally published in 2013, which also featured a love triangle (that was one of the things I kind of hated in it, as I'll explain in a sec).

And as you might recall from previous posts, there were several interconnected love triangles in the first novel I wrote, making it very clear that it was written by a teenager in the 2010s. It wasn't that I was intentionally following the trend, per se. I think it was more a matter of absorbing the fiction that I was enjoying at the time and those elements bleeding into what I was writing.

That was half a lifetime ago, but that doesn't mean love triangles have slowed down; The Summer I Turned Pretty is a prime example, having ended in 2025 with a movie conclusion on the way. And in terms of writing love triangles, I still kind of do, just not to the same, dramatic, aspiring to be Team Edward vs Team Jacob sense I was writing them in high school.

Let's chat about it in this thought-dump ramble post!

But first, a quick overview of that WIP for context. Guises to Keep can best be described as a Regency Era Downton Abbey. Essentially, it revolved around the servants of a country manor house in Derbyshire and the members of the family residing there. The key players were the new maid, the stable hand, and the heir apparent of the estate. Basically, a (forged) clause in his father's will decreed that the estate would go to the first of his two children to wed and with his estranged sister now engaged, the reclusive heir figures that his only option is to marry a maid (who he ends up falling for during their engagement). Meanwhile, you have the stable hand trying to break off said engagement because the maid is his girl.

There was an adjacent love triangle involving the maid, stable hand, and his adoptive sister (her family took him in as a runaway when they were kids and fell for him as a teen) who was now a maid for the heir apparent's sister.

It was MESSY, and teenage me loved that melodrama.

But as someone who's turning 30 a couple of weeks after this post goes live, I can't say I feel the same way. There are so many things I still love about Guises to Keep, but there are also things I would do differently if I were to take it off that shelf or start it from scratch—including the love triangles.

I don't think I'd omit the love triangles completely since so much of the plot hinges on them, but I would take a different approach.

One of the glaring issues in Guises to Keep's love triangles was the fact they were one-sided. The maid and stable hand were into each other, but she clearly didn't feel the same about the heir apparent. It was a business transaction; she was desperate for the money he offered if she agreed to the engagement, and that was it. And on the heir's side, there weren't any feelings for her until the ball in a classic Beauty and the Beast yellow ballgown moment on the stairs.

For what it's worth, the yellow ballgown wasn't a Beauty and the Beast homage. I had this motif of purple being her color, so putting her in a yellow dress for that scene was based on its placement on the color wheel; it was that "this isn't who you are" type of scene.

That can also be an issue in love triangles across the board. Bella never feels as strongly for Jacob as she does for Edward. And in Undressing Mr. Darcy, Vanessa likes Chase well enough but isn't as attracted to him as she is to Julian.

SPOILER WARNING FOR UNDRESSING MR. DARCY

Undressing Mr. Darcy is about a social media manager taking on an author who performs an "educational striptease" about Regency Era clothing (which, by the way, is now my dream bachelorette party). With every bit of historical garb Julian removes, he shares fun facts about it. Vanessa, initially, loathes the works of Jane Austen but becomes a bona fide fan thanks to him, a change of heart that felt too swift to me as a reader.

In addition to Julian, there's Chase, who attended the same high school as Vanessa, though she doesn't remember him at all. He's a pirate impersonator and flirts with Vanessa quite a bit, but she doesn't reciprocate it much.

As I read it, I had the feeling that the love triangle element was thrown in there to catch the bandwagon in the 2010s. So when it turns out that Julian is more of a Wickham than a Darcy, with a crumbling estate and a fiancée Vanessa knew nothing about while she and Julian were hooking up, I was actually surprised because I figured Chase was going to be the Jacob in this equation, relegated to the friendzone.

So when Vanessa, scorned, finds herself suddenly pining for Chase, it felt more like a switch had been flipped. Like, "Welp, Aldi is out of Smucker's jam so I guess I'll just get the generic store-brand one instead." Like she was settling for second best because he was there, not because she realized that she loved him all along.

I really liked Chase. Honestly, I liked him more than Julian. Just as I liked Jacob more than Edward when I read Twilight and New Moon (ignoring stuff like the imprinting nonsense that happens later in the series). And I felt that he could do so much better than Vanessa. Their romance didn't feel earned.

When a love triangle is as one-sided as Undressing Mr. Darcy or the ones I wrote in Guises to Keep, readers either aren't going to care because they kind of already know who will be together in the end based on the direction the author is leaning, or they might be left unsatisfied when the dust settles.

Think of it like the endings of Life is Strange. Without spoiling the outcome of the final choice, it's very clear which one the developers want the player to choose. One option's following cutscene is long and emotional, while the other feels half-baked in comparison.

In writing a love triangle, each side needs to feel significant. Both suitors need to be well-rounded contenders vying for the same heart, with meaningful strengths and weaknesses. So much of the love for love triangles comes from that will-they-won't-they suspense, so making the final pairing blatantly obvious from the jump can make the triangle itself feel like a frivolous plot device. If the love triangle is too predictable, there won't be any stakes.

Similarly, the character at the point of your love triangle needs to be dimensional. If they're a blank slate aimlessly dithering between two lovers or madly in love with one and tolerating the other, readers might grow tired of their indecision (or, as was my case with Undressing Mr. Darcy, come to the conclusion that chosen love interest deserved a better partner who genuinely put them first). It's important for your reader to care about your character regardless of your genre or the tropes woven into your story, but it's especially important with a love triangle.

At the top of this post, I mentioned that even though I don't love love triangles in the same way I did as a teen, I still kind of write them. Love triangles, here, feels like a loose term. In Bound to the Heart, you have Eve, Zach, and St. John. Eve never feels anything for St. John, rather, it's who her mother wants her to marry because he (supposedly) has money and is a willing option where they don't have many. Meanwhile, Zach is, in some ways, the embodiment of her love of reading (and her love of reading love stories). He understands her in a way her mother refuses to. He doesn't mention that his father is an earl and that he comes from money because it doesn't matter to him. It doesn't define him as a person.

It's also part of the larger conversation about Katniss, Peeta, and Gale. Gale represents who Katniss was prior to the Games. Peeta represents who she is now but also the soft strength she longs for. Comfort amid chaos.

To me as a reader, love triangles are all the more compelling when there is something beyond wondering which characters will end up together. When each angle might represent a character's goals or the deep desires they cannot voice.

Tips For Writing Effective Love Triangles

With that rambling though dump over, I figure it's only fair for me to leave you with some final thoughts and tips for writing more compelling love triangles that keep your reader invested in the drama.

• Each character needs to serve the story, not the trope — avoid walking archetypes. Make your characters unique. Give your love interests individual strengths, weaknesses, ideals, and motivations beyond winning the protagonist's heart in the end.

  
  

• Stakes beyond love — what is your character gaining beyond love and affection if they fall for each love interest? What are they losing? What do they want, and how might each prospective love interest support or challenge those goals in a relationship?

  
  

• Quit playing games with (your reader's) heart — love triangles can bring plenty of suspense and drama to your WIP. And while you don't want the final outcome to be super obvious, it's equally wise to avoid making your reader play that guessing game for too long. Dragging out the decision for too long might make the character feel annoyingly indecisive.

  
  

• Build meaningful relationships between your love interests — a love triangle isn't only about who a character is with in the end. It's about the progression of relationships (that includes the one that doesn't pan out), so build those relationships with care. Let your readers get to know both prospects and see what a HEA with either might mean. When only one love interest gets that build-up, it can make your love triangle predictable; in an instance like Undressing Mr. Darcy, it can leave your reader feeling like the character settled for second-best when the chosen love interest is made secondary because you want that shock of the "main guy" getting dumped on his rump.

  
  

• Make the romance feel earned — one of the biggest critiques in any romance is whether or not the romance feels earned or if the characters deserve that happy ending. In a love triangle, it matters twice as much because one romance gets that happy ending, while another doesn't. The final resolution needs to feel earned in order for your readers to feel satisfied. No matter the outcome, it needs to feel like a choice that is true to your character.

It may have been years since the spike in love triangles, but they're far from gone. Readers love the drama and conflict they can bring to fiction, especially in a series where the characters have so much room to grow and their priorities can shift so drastically.

However, love triangles have their pitfalls. Things like predictability and one-sided romances can totally ruin your reader's experience. The best love triangles are the ones that balance stakes and emotions amid well-rounded relationships.

What are your favorite love triangles? Have you ever written one of your own? Tell me everything in the comments!