Deborah Cooke: Author

A comment from G here on the blog this weekend got me to thinking about love triangles. I’m not much for love triangles, myself – and yes, I’ll talk about why in a minute – but they do seem to be very fashionable in fiction right now. Any discussion of an urban fantasy book or proposal, or a YA book or proposal inevitably leads to the question of the love triangle. This is probably because there have been any number of works in those categories that have been successful and have featured love triangles – the love triangle has become one of the perceived ingredients of success in those niches.

My own thinking, though, is that what really gives an ongoing series a spark – one that keeps you reading or watching – is sexual tension. (This is not a digression, really. Stick with me.) A classic example of sexual tension making a series compelling was the television series Moonlighting – sparks flew whenever Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd shared a scene. Their characters were complete opposites; they infuriated each other; they were working together against their own inclinations. But it was evident to everyone else – in the television series, and in the world of viewers – that there was electricity between these two. So long as the characters fought that attraction and the sexual tension stayed potent, the series made for compelling television. It’s no accident that the series ended (due to diminished viewership) once the romance between the two characters was allowed to develop. There was no more sexual tension, and so the show wasn’t as compelling to watch.

And this is the issue with sexual tension – it exists on the basis of a promise or a possibility. Once the fictional protagonists are intimate, sexual tension is very difficult to sustain in the work. In a way, the mystery is gone.

It seems to me that love triangles attempt to use the same energy in a slightly different way. In a classic love triangle, the protagonist (usually a woman, in these genres) is attracted to two men simultaneously. The men are completely different from each other – generally, one is the safe or socially acceptable choice, while the other is dangerous and unpredictable. She cannot choose: whichever man she is with in any scene is the one she wants to be with for the duration – or at least until the other one turns up and prompts her to reconsider. She may be sexually intimate with one or both men – the interior conflict comes from her need to choose (or her refusal to choose.)

This is different from competing love interests. A romance commonly features competing love interests. The protagonist – let’s again assume it’s a woman – perhaps has a marriage arranged (in an historical) or is supposed to marry the first man, who is the safe, responsible, socially acceptable choice. There’s nothing actually wrong with him, but she doesn’t love him. Maybe she thinks she loves him, but discovers she’s wrong when she meets the hero. The hero arrives and shakes her world, being infinitely more interesting to her, quite possibly a less acceptable choice, dangerous, provocative, whatever. She is immediately attracted to this man, but fights her instinct in her attempt to “do the right thing”. When she is with the responsible choice of partner, she is invariably impatient to be away from him, or comparing him unfavourably to the hero. When she is with the hero, she feels as if she can finally be herself.

You  can probably see how this is different from a love triangle – this heroine knows what she wants but is afraid to buck social convention, expectations, or even take a chance on her own instincts. We know from that first glimpse who she will choose, and maybe so does she. This works particularly well in historicals, because the heroine is making a choice between her own happiness and her family’s expectations of her role in ensuring their happiness. We want her to choose herself, but recognize that in some times and places, women were not able to make those “selfish” choices.

My issue with love triangles is that I don’t understand them. Heroines who waffle between options are not sympathetic to me. I want them to choose. I want them to make a choice, even the wrong choice, then get on with it. And I suspect that deep in my little romance writer’s heart, I find it implausible that a character or person could love two potential partners with the same intensity at the same time. Books or series featuring love triangles tend to be wallbangers for me.

Why the fashion for love triangles? I wonder whether it has to do with the increasing popularity of erotic romance, and more sexually active protagonists across the genre. Maybe love triangles are an attempt to put a bit of zing back into the proceedings.

What do you think? Do you like reading books or series with love triangles? Do you find those heroines sympathetic or not? Do you look for love triangles in certain genres but not in others? Have I missed out on some work with great compelling love triangles? Tell me what you think.