Is the "love interest" necessary?

You can definitely have good stories without a love interest. Now, I should probably mention that, from what I’ve heard, publishers tend to prefer stories with love interests for marketability purposes. As an author, if you get to that point where you’re negotiating with publishers, you may have to fight to keep love interests out of the story. That being said, it’s definitely possible. Leepike Ridge is one of the first books that springs to mind for me as a book that did well without having a love interest.

I don’t have any love interests in the book I’m working on right now either, so I certainly hope it’s possible to be successful without including a love interest. 😉

@that_writer_girl_99 this is a good question, and @Aratrea has a good answer. I’d just like to add that first, it is possible to write a good romance without experience if you’re looking on it as essentially a really, really deep friendship. Obviously romance is more than that, but it will be easier to let the character’s slip into romance if you’ve developed their relationship to the point where they’re such great friends there’s no one else in the world they feel as comfortable with. (Not to say there can’t be conflict. There’s always conflict. But the friendships that really mean something don’t change deep down at the heart where they matter most.)
Secondly, if you do have romance, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge plot-thread/point. It can simmer quietly in the background for most of the story and still be really powerful.

So I definitely don’t think you MUST have a love interest for it to be a compelling story, but I don’t think that it will hurt anything either, handled well.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by Kate Flournoy.

I have said this before and I will say it 1 million times more::

if your story isn’t interesting without the romantic subplot then you’re doing it wrong

the obvious exception to this being if you’re writing purely in the romance genre. I feel like, yeah, that is a trap too many authors fall into. The y want you to think”there has to be romance to make it interesting”, but it’s just ain’t so. So you should never feel obliged to put in a love interest.

If you do put one in, don’t let it override the rest of the plot and other character relationships. Romance, contrary to popular belief, is not the most important thing in the world.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by Adry_Grace.

Seek truth, not trends.

@Daeus with or without your permission I am putting that on my wall.

@that_writer_girl_99 This question is always present in the back of my head, and usually I’ll just say ‘no’ to myself because 1st, I don’t want to. 2nd: I think they are overdone. I plan (and am) writing in the young adult fiction area, and none immediately come to mind that don’t have a love interest. Particularly ones that are cliche (like @daeus said) and are too mushy or too weird for my taste. If I’m going to do one, I have to make absolutely sure that it is necessary to everything. I recently had a story idea where a romance could be necessary, and I’d allow myself that.
Romances aren’t necessarily necessary, but on a case to case basis, it can be done. The romances that I do enjoy are the Princess Bride, The Black Arrow by RLS and Ella Enchanted by Levine.
A few examples that I can think of that don’t have romances are Big Hero 6, Moana, Storks, and the Hobbit (unless I am dreadfully mistaken. 😛 ) All of these have great Character Arcs and development throughout them, and yet there is no romance. There may be love among family, or friendship, but no romance.
On other cases, romance is necessary, like in Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. Without Serena, Louis would have no reason to do anything in the story. In the Princess Bride, there would be no princess bride without the ‘true love’ between Wesley and Buttercup.

@daeus @kate-flournoy yes that’s going up on my wall too.

@that_writer_girl_99 Oh, goodness, I certainly hope romances aren’t necessary to a story line, because my book has absolutely zero romance. (And I plan on keeping it that way. No girl is good enough for you, Emolas…) What really annoys me in fiction is when there’s a romance for no other reason than a girl and a guy are main characters. Rogue One forever earned my respect when they didn’t go that route with Cassian and Jyn (my apologies if you haven’t seen that movie yet), even though they very easily could have. It would not have furthered either character or plot, and so they left it out.

Basically, I think if an author is having the “should I, shouldn’t I” question, they ought to ask themselves if the romance is important to characters or plot. If it isn’t, they’re probably better off leaving it out.

(Of course, I am willing to recognize exceptions to this. For instance, Eowyn and Faramir. Though technically, that was kind of important for her development, so I guess it still applies. 😛 )