: Re: How to prevent "they're falling in love" trope I have two characters, the male being sort of a jerk, but lightening up later in the story, and the female is...very hateful. But a person who

You cannot prevent that suspicion altogether; especially because that is your plan. Which means your two characters are heterosexual; so you can't really use homosexuality as a show-stopper.

I would suggest you make it clear that one of them is already in love, and the other one knows it. If your guy is a jerk, that may be because he is unhappy, the woman he loves is not really in love with him, and he needs to learn in the course of the book that what he was feeling isn't really love at all.

If your girl is hateful; same thing, and same lesson: Maybe she is hateful because the guy she loves is a player, using her, and she has mistaken something else for "love". Something like dependency, or the lies of a player that convinced her they were in love but just uses her for sex.

Other than sociopaths (who cannot fall in love) people are not jerks, or hateful, for nothing. Those traits grow out of psychic trauma of some sort. Start them out in the midst of their respective traumas, already clearly thinking they are in love, and it may defeat the reader's instinct to ship them.

But you cannot prevent shipping altogether, even Batman and Robin have been shipped!

Load Full (0)

: How to write a sentence with the '=' symbol in it? Does the following line sound okay when read out? We choose the index n=5. If not, how can I restructure it to make it a good readable

@Odierno164

Load Full 0 Comments

: Have I got the plot? I am looking for verification on what is a plot for a short story. For example: A man wants to develop a new rose variety for his girlfriend as a way to propose, but

@Odierno164

Load Full 2 Comments

: I use a double-dash, and specifically a double-dash (not an em dash), on both sides of the interruption. The demon -- he? she? -- gestured toward the supply wagons. Although in your

@Odierno164

Load Full 0 Comments

: What matters more when it comes to book covers? Is it â€˜professional qualityâ€™ or relevancy? This is a sort of follow up to my previous question. It is generally understood that covers matter

: Re: How to prevent "they're falling in love" trope I have two characters, the male being sort of a jerk, but lightening up later in the story, and the female is...very hateful. But a person who

More posts by @Odierno164

: How to write a sentence with the '=' symbol in it? Does the following line sound okay when read out? We choose the index n=5. If not, how can I restructure it to make it a good readable

: Have I got the plot? I am looking for verification on what is a plot for a short story. For example: A man wants to develop a new rose variety for his girlfriend as a way to propose, but

: I use a double-dash, and specifically a double-dash (not an em dash), on both sides of the interruption. The demon -- he? she? -- gestured toward the supply wagons. Although in your

: What matters more when it comes to book covers? Is it â€˜professional qualityâ€™ or relevancy? This is a sort of follow up to my previous question. It is generally understood that covers matter

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top