I have love triangle of sorts in my story that I would like some advice with. This takes place in a late Renaissance culture. My MC, Atheray, and his older brother, Dalik, grew up together with a female friend, Catherina. Both Atheray and Dalik were attracted to Catherina, but they both spent their teenage years in the "friend-zone." Eventually she went on a long journey with Atheray and fell in love with him. They had sex once. The following morning, she asked the Dalik (who didn't know about the romance between the MC and the girl) to propose to her, and he did. The backstory is that her mother had forced her to agree to an arranged marriage to Dalik and she had to do it despite falling in love with Atheray. She had sex with Atheray because Catherina knew she would never get the chance again, and as a secret defiance against her mother. Neither Atheray nor Dalik know the marriage was arranged. Atheray thinks Catherina betrayed him for his brother but is too honorable to reveal they slept together or to confront her about it. Dalik is completely ignorant of anything between Atheray and his new bride-to-be. A month later, soon after Dalik and Catherina's wedding, Atheray could no longer stand to be reminded of what could have been and left for the capital city to join the imperial guard. Four years later he returns again and this is where the story I am writing begins. Atheray and his sister-in-law are alone in her house while the Dalik runs errands. They drink quite a bit of wine and reminisce about their younger years when Catherina suddenly asks Atheray why he left. Now there are some options: 1. Atheray tells her the truth about his feelings for her. Catherina tells him that the marriage was arranged. 2. Atheray tells her the truth about his feelings for her. Catherina doesn't tell him the marriage was arranged until later in the book. 3. Atheray deflects the question with a witty joke and will only tell her of his feelings towards her later in the book, and she will then tell him it was arranged. The reader is kept in the dark about the tension between Atheray and Catherina until that later point. 4. Same as option 3, but as Atheray deflects the question, he has a flashback that describes those events. What do you think would be the best option? This scene is happening in chapter 2.
What works best for your story? Like, the main goal you want your characters to be working toward - what would make the journey toward that goal more compelling?
Well the thing is, this background is central to the characters' emotional development but it doesn't affect the plot in almost any way- just the way that the audience sees the characters and their interactions. Soon after this scene Catherina falls out of the first quarter of the story. When she reappears, Dalik has been killed and Atheray only spends a brief time comforting her before he has to leave for another 4 years. She is in the rest of the story, but this conversation has little effect on the rest of the plot, which occurs 4 years after this scene. Since it doesn't influence the rest of the story, any of the options for this conversation would fit without altering events down the line. I wanted feedback to see what you guys thought sounded the most interesting.
Only someone with complete knowledge of Atheray's and Cathereina's personality can answer this. That's not us.
To reveal some of the motivations behind the characters' actions and show who they are as people. Even in the case where Atheray deflects it and I don't add a flashback, I will reference this conversation later. "Remember when we talked about x, well... I wasn't entirely honest. Here's the truth." Maybe I shouldn't say that the occurrence of this conversation is irrelevant, but the timing of this revelation is not very important in relation to the other events. No matter how this conversation goes down, Dalik still dies, Atheray still leaves again afterwards, and they still later go on a perilous quest. None of the options I showed above change how Catherina and Atheray feel about one another enough to alter future events. But I think that it may have some influence on how the readers perceive them. My original instinct was to have Atheray (with some encouragement from wine) tell Catherina how he felt so readers understand their history going forward. Yet on second thought it seemed to me that it may be early in the story to have such a tense scene between them. Plus this way I can leave clues for the reader throughout the chapter- for example upon seeing Catherina for the first time, Atheray "mistakenly" calls her Lady Velovois rather than Lady Condari (her married name), and Dalik remarks that Atheray always got it wrong. That way I can keep the readers wondering what their history was, and finally have the reveal at the end of the first act of the novel.
Yes, I agree that the fact of the arranged marriage doesn't make me sympathetic to Catherina. It sounds like she wanted what she wanted, and didn't care how much she hurt Atheray or Dalik.
I think you're certainly correct that it needs to be handled carefully. I'll have to find that balance given what kind of person I wrote Catherina to be. By the way, the arranged marriage isn't meant to dilute Catherina's selfishness or garner sympathy. It's just the reason that she provides to Atheray to explain why she suddenly abandoned him for his brother. What she did is still completely wrong and this is the way I want to the reader to see it. I intend for the story I am writing to be full of morally grey characters and I actually do want the readers to see Catherina as distasteful towards the beginning. She does feel guilt over the one night stand and has even given over to a kind of self-loathing. When she and Atheray meet after four years apart, she is surprised that he makes no mention of their previous history and seems to harbor no malice towards her. Catherina attempted that night to goad him into confessing his anger towards her so that she could feel anger back (irrationally, but humans do that often) and convince herself that he was wrong about her. She was secretly afraid that if he refused to be angry with her she would see him as far better than her and feel even more self-hatred. Catherina also did this because she still loved him and believed that it would be easier to let her emotions for him die if he hated her. She wanted to hear that. This ties in to the fact that she had two miscarriages and no children during her four years of marriage and she believes (superstitiously?) that it is due to her deeply seeded regret and continued love for Atheray. She considered herself unfaithful and believed the gods cursed her with her miscarriages to punish her- and this ties back to her self-loathing. She believed that the only way for her to move on with her life was to emotionally distance herself from Atheray. Ultimately, her awful choices in regards to relationships even influence Atheray's decisions years later, when Catherina's mother arranges for Catherina's sister Casana to marry Atheray and he agrees, despite knowing that Catherina still loves him. Eventually he does break off the engagement and choose to marry Catherina. Casana is not heartbroken, she was not enthusiastic about it in the first place. I intend for Catherina to be eventually redeemed in the readers' eyes as the story progresses, especially towards the end. In the beginning she is selfish but during the story she will evolve and show qualities that are traits found in genuinely good people. Does all of this make sense or is it perhaps too complex? You're right, it's not honorable. Yet it's also not out of character. Here's why: my thoughts were that Atheray has changed significantly over the time span in which they have not met. He spent from 19 to 23, crucial years in a man's mental development, in the imperial guard, which has been known for its corruption and political intrigues. Atheray had no family in the capital, and one of the few friends he did have eventually becomes a merciless tyrant hellbent on world domination in the latter part of the first novel. While Atheray did retain the noble roots he grew up with, his experiences as a young adult did thin his patience to some matters and he is prone to making rash decisions when provoked. Being drunk certainly doesn't do him any favors in that regard. You make a good point, it's certainly worth taking into consideration. Like I said, she was written to be a flawed character yet I don't want her to be so flawed that she turns readers away, and the response to Catherina thus far has been heavily negative. I could make Catherina leaving Atheray a lot less sudden and thus slightly less selfish, although Dalik still has no idea his wife didn't marry him by choice. I guess Dalik just pulled all of the short straws- wife loves his brother, two miscarriages and no heirs, dies fighting an ancient demon...
It IS complex, but that's not bad, IMO. For all these reasons you described, I wouldn't hold off on the facts till later. The sooner you tell what happened, then the sooner you can flesh out/have the characters experience these emotions (above). Especially since this is a subplot, I wouldn't hold back- there's no reason to. If the purpose for the subplot is to demonstrate character traits and motivations, is it not better to have this info going into the main plot? Otherwise, you have your plot being driven by flat characters "Mysterious" can turn to boring really quick, without a firmly grounded reference- meaning, why would I want to keep reading about a character I know nothing about? This doesn't mean you have to tell every last detail of what they are feeling all in one scene, but it would be a better read, and easier for you to write, if the reader has all the facts up front. You aren't trying to make either one a perfect angel, so I'm not offended by any of the actions or choices of any of the characters.
Pitiable, but it would make him a more well-rounded fellow if he had some other things about him- either something (quirky?) that does bring him some limited happiness (making it even more tragic when he dies), AND/OR his own dark moment/secret/practice/corruption that make it seem a little bit justified he gets the short straw. Lots of ways you could go here. I always like multi-dimensional characters. What happens as a result of who he is, not just because of what happens, or is done to him.
I like this plot! However, I'd personally be more inclined to go for Option 3. Yes, we don't want the information about this to be withheld forever, but I don't think there's anything wrong with making readers ask questions about the subplot as well as the main one. It's another reason for them to keep turning the pages. I'm always disappointed when authors reveal things earlier than I think they should have done. Having tension between these two characters without giving a reason why would personally draw me in. Plus, you mentioned that whatever option you pick, the same events will happen. I find it harder to believe that Atheray would both leave Catherina to go off to war again and agree to marry her sister if he already knew her true feelings and the reasons behind her actions. Especially because he throws caution to the wind later on and decides to break off the engagement and marry his true love anyway.
