The story I'm working on does have a female lead that is a love interest to our hero. As tried and true as this trope is, I do love that in a story, mostly because I'm a romantic at heart. I have my ideas on how make it work, but getting some input from every would be most appreciated. How do have a love interest in the story and not make it too cheesy? Thoughts?
Try to think them as a rounded character not just a “ love interest “. Better still give them aegis and am arc which doesn’t depend on your hero
more like... even though they are better together, they can stand on their own. Their plots dont revolve around each other . If the male lead wasnt there/if he didnt exist, is your female character able to still be a 'good' character (i.e. has a likeable personality, an engaging plot, a rounded story arc)?
There is nothing like the love of your youth. My first love was in the fourth grade, Cathy Sweeny. I even named my first daughter after her. It was a pure a love as you could ever have, given our ages. She was a neighbor and we spent a lot of time together. We are on Facebook now and we kid each other back and forth. She asked me one time, 'and she was serious.' How did you know you were in love with me at such a young age. I told her it was easy, I remember after we broke up in the 5th grade, watching her walk across the gym floor I could feel my heart breaking. A real feeling in the 5th grade. If you have your character have a youthful history with his love interest there will always be a connection. There really is a type of friendship that you develop as a kid that never ever happens as an adult. Shared memories, of a time long gone by; is a real bond that any two adults could share that let them talk with each other, share a personal joke that only they get. It would be easy to have old flames rekindled. It would be easy to write in some humor, easy to convince the reader, there is a real bond between the two, and would leave the door open to go in any direction you needed as a storyteller.
I don’t understand, if she’s the lead, how is she the love interest to the hero? I thought the hero and the lead were one and the same?
Romances typically have two leads, often dubbed the MMC and FMC (male main character, female main character). I suppose the most important question here is whether OP is writing a romance or a story with a romantic subplot, because the answer has major implications not just for the characters but for the structure and focus of the entire plot. If it’s a subplot, the love interest may fall into a more of a supporting role because the story isn’t really about them. They still need more to them than “love interest”, as other posters have already described. If you never write from their point of view, they’ll probably look more like other major supporting characters than your main one. But if you’re writing romance, they need more or less equal depth because the story is about them and the love growing between them. Even when a romance features strong external conflict, it’s designed to push the leads together.
in fact nearly every genre is the same - hence what hollywood used to call the 'leading lady'... and there's nothing wrong with the female lead having a relationship with the male lead, what the OP needs to avoid is her being defined by said relationship and only existing to facilitate it
i mean have her be more than just the love interest - give her her own life to live, mission to carry out, job to do or whatever fits , and try to avoid giving her long flowing red hair, green eyes, breasts so big she has a balance problem, legs longer than a giraffe's and a name like Aurora McBoobson
I just watched the movie Bullitt for the first time since it was released and was curious to see what Roger Ebert thought about it, so I looked up his review. He made an astute comment that I here quote in full: So that's a clue to writing women into the script.
