Hi there, I am brand new to writing so please be patient with me. I have just started writing a fantasy novel, and I am facing an issue where I have been warned of a trap to try and avoid. My protagonist needs a love interest within his party, and yet none of the party members I have already developed, or have an idea for, fits for what I want, I do however have room for another character in the party as I already know how many I want in the party. I do have several options for coming up with a character that fits, but this is the first time the ideas I am coming up with feel less natural and more forced. However I need this love interest for a key part of my plot, not to mention the protagonists character arc, as the main has to marry a powerful woman to gain an ally in the war that is currently going on. This presents me with a problem as I believe that, without a reason to be unhappy about the marriage, the plot point does not work near as well as it could, and I feel like the kind of love triangle I have in mind would be a good tool for his character arc. Any advice you could give me would be highly appreciated, As I stated at the beginning I am brand new to this and i have only just started writing, despite having the idea for this book in my head for years. Thanks in advance.
Does the love interest actually need to be a party member? Can't they be someone the MC hooks up with between quests?
My main plot is a Travelogue, trying to interweave meetings with the same person could work, but I don't think I could work it into the plot as it stands now. I have identified a new angle to come at the problem from though, hopefully it helps, I plan to find a flaw, limitation or other issue that the MC can relate to, and build a character and character arc around it. Other than that I don't know what to do about it, and then of course there is fitting them into the party dynamic, because i pretty much have the rest of that set
This, plus a few other things you said make me think you could benefit greatly from thinking about a character web for this story. I have some info about it in this post on my blog, where I posted several videos by a guy who really understands the concept and how to work with it. He also has a recent video about how to set up a romance based on similar ideas. Let me see if I can find that one. Yep, here it is:
I am tossing out ideas, and questions to get you thinking. You talk about a political marrage for an alliance. What does the MC have to make the alliance desirerable to the brides family? You mention a love triangle. Could the arranged marrage take her away from the person she loves. The alliance forces her to join the party. Which presents oppertunities for conflict as she tries to intigrate with the others. Could she try to leave the group at inoppertune times to get back to her love? Even though it would bteak the alliance and anger her family? What skills dpes she have that would help the group? Or is she little more than baggage? If she is baggage how does the rest of the party react to having to bring her along?
Ok, so I think I have made some progress on this. Just to clarify first, the MC is going to develop feelings for somebody in his party, as he starts to realise these feelings, he is faced with the offer of this marriage, to another woman, which he cant afford to turn down. After looking at this from a different angle, I have decided to re-do an entire race that was lacking relevance, along with a new magic affinity, along with this I have come up with a completely separate way to introduce this character to the party, these changes combined will be able to give me the ability to give the character her own motivations and arc that the MC will also be able to relate to. I am hoping i can develop a more natural feeling character this way.
What if the non-wife love interest is an innkeeper, or a smith, or tavern owner, etc. Someone with whom the party interacts with regularly but isn't a full-fledged member? That could give the MC the time and situations to develop a connection with her, while still marrying the other out of necessity. But maybe then (dun dun dunnn) his wife turns on him or is playing double agent for their enemy and he ends up happily ever after with the party-adjacent love interest. Now, all that may seem a little tropey and you'd have to tweak those angles, but maybe there's something there. Just spitballing an idea or two
