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On February 15, 2025, Kasie and Rex built on Valentine’s Day with this exploration of love in stories. Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

Love 

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• What are the types of love we see in stories?
• How connected to the plot should these love stories be?
• How do you write good love relationships?

Segment 1

We’ve had a romance author or two on the show (Episode 159, Episode 160, Episode 233) and we’ve talked about the mechanics of adding romance to a story (Episode 243 and Episode 100). But yesterday was Valentine’s Day and today we were supposed to be selling books at a market at Columbia Craft Brewery (canceled for weather) and I really though I had a shot at hitting that discounted chocolate, post-Valentine’s disappointment crowd with After December and its follow up redemption story, Before Pittsburgh.

So I’m interested in the different kinds of love we see in books and how those feelings and connections are expressed. So today’s topic is “amore”.

We’ll start with Agape or “universal love” which is a spiritual or God-inspired love, the kind we’d see expressed for concepts like patriotism or faith. It doesn’t require familiarity or close-proximity. This link explains it this way: “the comprehensive feeling for the entire cosmos.”

From the same link, other types of love:

• Eros – passionate or romantic love
• Philia – goodwill or friendship
• Storge – natural love or familial love, that which you feel for those in your proximity and history
• Ludos – skittish or unreliable love, maybe a crush? Also playful, or those early stages of the fluttering in your belly, giddiness of love
• Pragma – duty or reason-supported love, as in an arranged marriage, of course I love my sister’s dogs…
• Philautia – self-love or love within oneself.
• Mania (from this link) – obsession 

Segment 2

When and why is love used in a story? 

It’s ubiquitous, it’s part of the human experience. When we meet a character, part of what we learn about them is what they love, who they love, and why. 

Explore the experience – many stories use love as a way to explore the character but others use it to explore the experience of being in love, being loved, and loving others. The experience makes us vulnerable, joyful, passionate, and remorseful. There’s a whole spectrum of feels with love and that makes for good storytelling.

Create some emotional resonance in the story – help the reader connect with the characters, give them something familiar, something they see themselves in. Help the reader feel their way through the story with a strong connection to the love that surrounds (or flees from) the character.

Drive the plot or conflict of the story – nothing makes people act more than love. Think of all the things your character can do because of love. The sacrifices they’ll make, the lies they’ll tell, the risks they’ll take. Even if love isn’t the plot, it’s got the ability to drive it and force your character into impossible decisions.

Segment 3

Let’s romance talk tropes. These are the expected love stories we’ve seen again and again but because of their familiarity, we easily assimilate them:

• Unrequited love – who doesn’t love a good pining?
• Forbidden love – especially if the stakes are really, really high
• Love triangle – it’s rarely an actual triangle and usually more like two people want the same person and that person can’t decide, but nonetheless three makes it more fun
• Forced proximity – this is when two characters are stuck together and through that experience develop affection they wouldn’t have otherwise
• Second chance – this is after the couple has blown up for some reason and they come back around, after growing or healing, and establish something new and stronger
• Enemies to lovers – this is a classic; they start out hating one another and then realize they’re united in something that forces them to work together and reluctantly admit one another’s value
• Fake relationship – this is where the two pretend to be attached and then actually fall for one another
• Childhood friends – I love this one, it’s where the shared history becomes enough to mature into an adult relationship.

What about non-romantic tropes? Love in other relationships that we see manifest in compelling and dramatic ways?

• Mother’s love for her child: 1) nurturing and unconditional, 2) fierce and protective, 3) sacrificial, 4) strained or resentful, 5) absent or abandoned – leaving our character wanting more.
• Father’s love for his child: 1) supportive and nurturing, 2) wise and guiding, 3) demanding or disciplining, 4) abusive or neglectful, 5) stoic or unapproachable, 6) absent or wanting, and 7) replacement fathers like mentors, coaches, etc.
• Sibling love: 1) loyalty and protection, 2) competition and rivalry, 3) complex or strained – from the shared experience but different perspectives, think the siblings in The Godfather, 4) supportive or teammate-ish
• Friendship love: 1) deep companionship – shared experiences, mutually supportive, 2) ulterior motives – what can one gain from the other? 3) platonic affection – mutual respect, shared interests and values.

Segment 4

So how do you do it? How do you write great love stories?

This is Jane Friedman on writing love scenes, which is pretty good. Remember the more love scenes you read, the better you’ll get at writing them.

• Establish reasonable reasons for these people to love one another – romance or otherwise, they should have a reason for being drawn together
• Give them something to talk about other than themselves and their affection for one another
• Limit the dialogue – the tension, passion, understanding, connection is in what they don’t say
• Don’t overstate the description – how they move around one another, the points of contact, leave some of that to the reader’s inner vision of the scene.