the craft. writing our village into love stories.
When you initially sit down to write a love story, you may think it’s just about those two people. They meet, they fall in love, there’s challenges and the convenient 3rd act breakup and they live happily ever after. But I love thinking more about how community impacts our relationships and as Black and POC writers, we are a communal people and rarely is love happening in isolation.
Beyond the Meet-Cute: Why Friend and Family Dynamics Matter
Recently in my writing group, I received the feedback that they were happy the main character had friends in my work in progress. It can be complex to add additional characters, without them simply feeling like props instead of full fleshed out people.
It was natural for me to think about Carli’s surrounding community as a foundation when working on my debut novel. I’m a family girl, so trying to write my story without my mom, dad, and brother and his family or at least the influence of those people would be hard to do. Carli had friends, co-workers, and a family which created a bit of a juggling act to ensure that it didn’t get too convoluted.
What you don’t want is character soup, of course, but there are nuanced ways that you can incorporate a robust cast of characters to support your A story. Maybe it’s simply that they hold their hands the way their mother used to. Or they’re using their brother’s cabin in Aspen. Whether family is going to be on the page or not, there are creative uses of their stories that you can include.
In many contemporary love stories we see today, in film and in books, you can see easily that even if the romantic story seems like it’s at the center, when you peel back the layers, it tends to be the love story between friends that shines. They’re the ones helping the main character navigate the inevitable ups and downs of romantic love.
Honestly, I don’t really know another way. I’ve read books with limited secondary characters, but in the types of contemporary stories I write, I can’t help but include friendships. I mean, if you’re walking around here without friends, we have some serious things to talk about. But it is a delicate weaving of those external storylines and your main story and finding ways for them not to compete with each other.
Writing authentic family dynamics.
Now, if family is an active part of your story, it’s important to observe those relationships to help them seem realistic. I think about A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams, and while I enjoyed the book, the sisters almost seemed like a parody of real sisters. I kept imagining the stepsisters from Cinderella. And maybe that was a creative choice, which is fair because the book had these elements of magic realism, it just didn’t connect for me in the same way that romantic relationship at the center felt so palpable.
In Before I Let Go, however, by Kennedy Ryan, I think it resonated with so many people because the main characters were divorced. They were navigating Josiah dating someone new, introducing them to the kids, Yasmen’s cast of girlfriends, (that all have their own books coming.) A lot of this felt authentic to women in this stage of their life and the dynamics felt realistic.
Fiction has resonance when it is steeped in something real. Some of the earliest books we loved were because something felt tangible to us in them. Even if we’re longing for a prince charming that doesn’t exist, you have to be able to sell us the fantasy. The easiest way, to work on these dynamics is to observe. Outside of extenuating circumstances, most of us have family, watch them, how do they interact? Like don’t we all have that cousin Pete?
Character Economy: When less is more.
The way I like to think about these choices is that everyone should be serving the story in some way. If a character is not connected to driving the story forward, I think that’s where you can lose the reader. So, sometimes you have to take a character audit. I remember in my debut, my editor Lashanda came back and asked if we could consolidate two characters because they were doing the same job. It made so much sense. It’s difficult to keep track of a lot of people, so unless it’s specifically an ensemble cast, you want to ensure that your reader will be able to hold onto those important voices.
What I’m really interested in, in my current work in progress, is how differently we show up in love with certain people in our lives. Think about Nikki Giovanni in the conversation with James Baldwin, asking essentially, “if you love me, why do I get the least of you?” They dove into important factors that come into play about how we show up in relationships in our lives. Baldwin was advocating for the idea that home is the one place he should be able to let his hair down, while Giovanni was advocating for keeping up the facade, which had much deeper implications, but I’m not trying to write a novel here.
The fact that a partner can go be a certain person in the world, but comes home to be a terror. Or someone can show up for their friends, but can’t seem to apply some of the same logic to their relationship. Playing with these different dynamics in a story is a great way to show character development. How might those relationships change over the course of the book? What do these relationships show the main character about what they may need to change or who they are?
I like that in Colored Television by Danzy Senna, Jane’s greed for a certain lifestyle is filtered through her husband Lenny. Starting the book, it’s as if she’s so in love and the more things seem to go off the rails of her career, the more he seems to become a central part of her problems. The way that she lies to different people in her life, it all is a great way to push what these relationships reveal about the character. I hate Jane, by the way.
Tools for the Craft: Building Your Supporting Cast
We can’t get lazy with these secondary characters. Not all of them have their own storyline that can add to your main plot, but those main secondary characters need depth. So, it’s important to spend time with them in the same way that you do with your principle acts. Angie Thomas includes a secondary character profile as well in her book on craft, Find Your Voice: A guided journal for writing your truth.
Here are just a few questions she asks you to consider:
Four main character traits.
A few objects in their bedroom.
How does this character affect the main character’s story? Is their story a subplot? Does it complicate or help solve the main plot?
I’ll be doing a lot more deep dives on approaches to craft specific to romance in my new vertical “Love in Full Color” so if your interest is love stories, specifically, make sure that you subscribe.
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Getting motivated as a freelance writer.
In These Literary Streets
“Power to the Pen: Writing for Revolution” is an opportunity for new and returning Blue Stoop students to build their storytelling skills in a supportive environment. Applicants will choose from two 3-week classes, one in poetry and the other in essay-writing, and will be invited to participate in other community-building activities. Classes will be held in-person at 1315 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. (Applications close Feb. 23)