Friends to lovers as a trope has been done time and time again in the world of romance and it’s quite a popular one in contemporary romances. It builds off of a previously established connection but it makes the connection deeper, transitioning from a simple connection to a deep and heartfelt romance. The trope is also very relatable for many people and tends to perform better in more light hearted romance stories than other tropes. So, for today’s post, I’ll be teaching you how to write a great friends to lovers romance story!
What is Friends to Lovers?
Friends to lovers is a popular trope in romance stories where the characters involved already have a pre-established relationship of friendship prior to the beginning of the story. This friendship can be very deep or relatively recent, but the idea is that when you flip open to the first page of the book, the two characters are already friends.
Friends to lovers can be done in nearly any context–they could’ve been friends from childhood, friends from school, friends at work, friends through mutual friends, etc… Whatever you choose to use to establish this friendship is up to you, but it should help service your story and provide good context for the backstories of your characters.
If you want to learn about how to write enemies to lovers, then check out this post!
How to Write Friends to Lovers
Create the Foundations for the Friendship
The first thing that you want to do when you go to create the friendship is that you want to create how this friendship actually began, or the foundations of that friendship. You want a backstory that shows how deep this friendship goes and as I mentioned before, they could’ve been friends for years, since college, or colleagues at work, etc…
Friends are often friends because they relate to each other on some level or have similar hobbies and interests. Maybe he’s a big fan of video games and so is she. Maybe they both like the outdoors. Maybe they have ambitious goals and like to discuss those and share ideas with each other. At the end of the day, friendships tend to be built around commonalities.
In addition to this, friends are often close because they help each other out through emotional situations. They have to trust each other and understand each other at some level.
Create Interesting Characters
Beyond just the foundations of the friendship, you want to actually flesh out each character in a way where they feel like individual people and not simply devices for a story. I find that a lot of romance books tend to make mistakes in this angle where they have a character simply serve as the romantic interest with no personality beyond that trait.
The way to combat this is to actually design each character separately and give them their own backstory, personality, and individuality. The best way to do this is to create character profiles for each and flesh out their backstories, their character traits and more. If you want to learn more about how to create a character profile, then check out this post.
Creating interesting characters in a romance story means that they need to have interactions with each other, but these interactions need to go beyond just romantic interaction. If they were friends, they have to do what friends would do: Have fun, go out, partake in their shared interests, etc…
The Little Details in Romantic Tension
Romantic tension is very important in a romance story and can really shape the way readers engage with the romance in the book. For the most part, if the two characters were friends and are beginning to fall for each other, they may begin to notice little things at first. For instance, maybe he starts to take more notice of the way she styles her hair or the way she laughs at his jokes. Maybe she starts to think about his smile and his voice. There are little things that the characters will begin to see in each other that can start to build the tension.
Next in building romantic tension is the idea of physical closeness. There may be things like hugging that lasts a little longer than usual, touching the other person’s arm, etc… These sorts of little details help to build the romantic attraction more.
Internal Conflict
The next thing you want to show in the beginning of the formations of the romantic feelings is the idea of conflict. This also adds onto the tension between the two characters and can help show that the romance is not going to just happen overnight. I do think that slow-burn romances tend to be significantly more rewarding than insta-love, so check out this post if you want to learn more about slow-burn romance.
The characters may feel like they are resisting these feelings that they’re growing, and one of the most common reasons why is the fear of ruining their established and strong friendship. They may fear that confessing attraction or something similar might push the other person away, which is definitely something that close friends would be afraid of.
A lot of friends to lovers stories also do this thing where they create moments of jealousy. For instance, maybe he sees her talking to a guy that clearly likes her and he starts to feel pangs of jealousy because he likes her but is afraid to admit it. This may only push him to believe more and more that he is falling for his friend.
External Situations
Beyond the internal conflicts that may occur, there are plenty of external factors and situations that can happen in a romance story that can trigger something that pushes the two characters to fall for each other. This could be mutual friends who notice the romantic tension and start to tease the two love interests about it.
There could also be things like major life events such as a job offer or a crisis in one person’s life that can push the characters closer and force them to admit their feelings for each other over the course of the story.
Work on the Chemistry
One of the biggest problems a lot of romance readers have with stories that include romance is the fact that the characters don’t have any proper, genuine chemistry with each other. This is–I would say–the biggest mistake that a romance writer can make when creating a story. Chemistry is extremely vital to the building of a compelling and engaging romance and it’s one way that readers can feel connected to the story.
There’s a lot of ways you can build chemistry between the two characters such as having them engage in playful banter with inside jokes and playful teasing. There’s also the chance to create moments of deep and meaningful, intimate conversations where the characters can feel more connected to each other.
Furthermore, you can show the characters do small things for each other. Maybe she wants to go to an art gallery and nobody is available so he steps in to take her, leading to a moment where she starts to feel a bit closer to him than she did before.
Body language is also one strong way to show chemistry between two characters. Including things like subtle touches, lingering eye contact and more are great ways of building chemistry.
They Won’t Necessarily be Open Right Away
Even if, for instance, the two characters share their first kiss at some point in the book, they will not necessarily give in fully to their feelings and admit their undying love for each other. They may feel confused afterwards and unsure of how to navigate this new phase in their relationship. They may feel excited and elated. This really depends on how your story is supposed to play out and what sort of subplots you’ll be exploring.
Obstacles and Overcoming Them
A big part about the characters in friends to romance is that they will be facing a lot of internal obstacles. Even if they’ve kissed, they may be afraid that they’ll never have a good relationship again or that the friendship is ruined. Maybe the one that initiated the kiss starts to avoid the other person but then the other person finally confesses that they’ve felt the same way the whole time.
There is also the opportunity to delve a bit further into the personality and the character traits of each person and show things like individual insecurities, doubts and fears.
There may be external obstacles that force a wedge in the relationship such as previous relationships, other dating interests, social expectations from friends and family, etc…
However, the idea of friends to lovers and in any romance story is to have the characters overcome the problems and obstacles and eventually prove their commitment to each other. It sounds a bit cheesy, but you want to show in a love story that love trumps fear.
The Happily Ever After
As with most romance stories, readers expect by the end that there is a happily ever after (often shortened to HEA). Now, this is pretty much expected because why else have the readers been engaged in the story for so long and why else have they been following these characters the whole time if not to see the relationship work out?
You want to show the two characters finally being happy together, realizing that they have fallen totally in love with each other, etc… You want to show them planning their future together. Maybe there’s a proposal at the end? Hint at something and show readers that whatever is next is going to be great too.
Things to Note and Avoid
There are a lot of things that I tend to notice in some friends to lovers stories that you should note and make sure you do and things that you should make sure you avoid when writing as well.
Firsty, you want to show realistic dialogue for the time period and genre that you’re writing in. If you’re writing a contemporary romance that takes place in 2024, then the characters are going to talk like they’re in 2024. If the story takes place in 1920s America, then they’re not going to talk like 2024 Americans. If you want to learn how to write realistic dialogue, check out this post on my blog.
The next thing is that you want to make sure that your pacing makes sense and is authentic to the overall story. You want the romance to develop over the story’s course and you don’t want to rush things because what’s left to write after that?
You also want to make sure that your story has compelling and interesting subplots too to support the main romance plot. Oftentimes, I think romance books fall into a pit of not knowing what to do with the story and that can be boring quickly. You need to have subplots that are engaging, interactive, and actually support the main plot while still keeping the story actually intriguing and interesting.
Also, just because the two characters will end up falling in love at the end doesn’t mean that you should ignore the friendship that they started out with. Don’t ignore the basis of their relationship and maintain elements of it throughout the book.
You should also make sure to avoid too much drama in the relationship like the dreaded, godawful miscommunication tropes. I will forever be a hater of miscommunication tropes that make no sense in books. If done right, it makes sense, but a lot of the time, it’s so badly done and takes up WAY too much time in the book. It adds immature drama and is unnecessary for most stories. If your story is about adults, this is especially true. I’ll give you some leeway on this if your story is about teenagers because teens can be a bit immature, this is true.
Conclusion
Friends to lovers can be a really great trope when done right in a story but it does have some challenges because you are trying to take a relationship that has already been established prior to the beginning of a story and now you have to take it and develop it once again into a romance. However, if you remember to actually let the romance develop over the course of the story, provide moments of tension and conflict, and showcase internal and external conflicts and obstacles that the two characters must overcome, then you actually have the setup for a great story!
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