With the recent popularity of romantasy, or romantic fantasy stories, and the popularity of booktok, there’s been a lot of talk about romance tropes that we all know and love and observe in many stories. Enemies to lovers has been one of the most popular romance tropes in literature, and many people really love the idea of two people who hate each other coming together by the end. However, there is also the idea of rivals to lovers. I find that sometimes, people mix the two tropes up and confuse them for the other. They are both relatively different in their own ways, so for today’s post I’ll be discussing rivals to lovers vs enemies to lovers and what the big differences are?
What is Rivals to Lovers?
Rivals to lovers is a trope where the characters start out in the story as competitors of some sort. They are typically against each other in some sort of competitive space, such as a game, athletics, academic achievement, or something of the like. In this situation, they are simply rivals that are competing for the top spot, but they tend to hold some sort of mutual respect for the rival. Additionally, their rivalry is fueled by ambitious behavior, but it can manifest itself in the forms of jealousy and frustration.
What is Enemies to Lovers?
My personal favorite of the romance tropes out there, enemies to lovers talks about two people who are vastly different to the point where they start out the story vehemently hating each other. These stories tend to explore things like different principles, personal grudges, betrayals, different countries, different armies, etc… In an enemies to lovers story, the two may even hate each other to the point where they strive to destroy the other party but by the end, they come together and eventually fall in love.
Key Features of Each Trope
Under enemies to lovers, the two have a very strong hatred for each other. Their conflict can easily turn violent and they tend to stand against the other person vehemently. Furthermore, under enemies to lovers, you tend to find that writers will force proximity and make the two require the help of the other. This forced proximity eventually gets the two characters to open up, cooperate, and learn more about each other. Eventually, the enemies will begin to have a sort of shaky alliance which manifests into love.
Under enemies to lovers as well, the stakes are usually significantly higher. They may come from opposing sides of a war, a feud, or some sort of intense conflict. Additionally, enemies to lovers often have two characters who are quite different from each other to the point where it seems almost impossible for them to come together.
Meanwhile, rivals to lovers are different. The two parties don’t actually want to kill each other or anything like that, and they tend to acknowledge (silently) that the other party is a very skilled one. The two tend to be ambitious and are working towards the same goal, which leads to a level of competition. They may not necessarily want to destroy the other, but they want to at least be better than the other.
Rivals to lovers tend to have interactions that forces them to be near each other, but it may not be the same sort of forced proximity that you tend to find in enemies to lovers. Additionally, rivals to lovers has situations where the two characters have lots of internal conflict. They want to beat the other person but are simultaneously falling for the other person.
The two tend to be better tropes when written in a slow-burn romance, as there is plenty of time for the feelings to develop and for the characters to get to know each other better. This also avoids the painful insta-love trope that I’m not a huge fan of. I know some people like insta-love, but I feel like many readers resonate with the idea that insta-love is just not as rewarding as slow-burn romances.
How to Write Rivals to Lovers
If you want to create a story around rivals to lovers, you’ll want to think about the characters and what their personal stakes are. You want to show what the two rivals are actually fighting for and why they care about this thing. Maybe the two are high achievers in their school and want to be the top student of the year. Why do they want to be top of the class? Is it an ego boost or is there a reward or is it expected of them?
As the two characters begin to grow a relationship–possibly by needing to work together or being forced to interact in some capacity–how do they balance their growing feelings for each other with their respective ambitions?
You also want to ensure that your characters have a relatively balanced power dynamic. Having one character be superior to the other will kinda ruin the idea of the rivals to lovers. They need to have some level of matched ability and it needs to be interesting.
How to Write Enemies to Lovers
For your enemies to lovers to actually be good, they need to genuinely be enemies. And by that, I don’t mean that they suddenly hate each other by the end of the story but then one page later they fall in love. Don’t throw the trope in without spending proper time developing it, as I have seen many enemies to lovers stories not really do this part well.
You want to create memorable characters with backstories and have a reason for their hatred for each other. Maybe one character is the son of a king who left the other character’s country in a state of despair. This is a case when they will genuinely be enemies and it makes sense.
The characters must come together, and this is called forced proximity. You can’t have them grow feelings for each other if they’re separated and have more time to let their hatred of each other fester and grow.
Furthermore, you want to build tension between the two characters. Maybe they hate each other at different points or try to push away, afraid of their own feelings. You want to add highs and lows to the emotional side of the story.
Enemies to lovers is a great trope, but if it’s added in at the last-second, most readers can tell.
Remember, the difference between the two is basically that in rivals to lovers, they are enemies fighting for the same goal. In enemies to lovers, they are enemies because they may oppose each other’s goals, they are supposed to fight against each other, they have fought before, etc… There is a circumstance that leads to the two being enemies. In rivals to lovers, they are not brutally violent towards each other, but in enemies to lovers, brutal violence at the beginning makes sense in the context of the story.
I personally think both tropes can be done really well, but if you want to apply any of them to your writing, you want to ensure that you are doing it the right way and that it’s not just about adding the trope in for the sake of adding it in.
If you want more information on romance stories, then check out these posts:
- How to Write a GREAT Star Crossed Lovers Story!
- How to Write an Engaging Romance Subplot in a Book
- How to Outline a Romance Novel Easily!
- 50+ Romantasy Writing Prompts to Start Your Next Story
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