Hey guys...so, I need some help with a few characters that I just can't flesh out. I'm not a big fan of character sketches; I prefer to work characters out by writing them. But anyways...here's the situation:

So my MC is named Alleyni...she's a princess, doesn't want to be, jealous of her sister sort of situation. So I decided to have the son of the evil king from another country (the king's name is Vinrys...I don't have a name for his son yet) come and somehow they fall in love. However, he's just using her and ends up getting engaged to her sister. I want him to sort of break her heart...but here's the problem. In a short amount of time, I want her to fall in love with another dude, Varyn, who's this soldier who just got promoted and is trying to win Lyssa's (Alleyni's sister) hand. They end up together, but I don't want this to just be a rebound relationship. Due to time constraints for the rest of the plot, I can't have too much time, so I'm wondering how I can make Vinrys's son and Alleyni fall in love enough that it's heartbreaking and angering but not that much so she can fall in love with Varyn.

One thought was to have Vinrys's son pursue her, so maybe she doesn't fall in love with him as much...I'm just not sure how I should do this....so any suggestions on what I should do here?

P.S.: I really like to build incredibly awkward love triangles...except mine always turn into gigantic diagrams, I have several pages dedicated to showing who is in love with who, what they do about it, and what happens to their relationship...fun stuff.

Any advice? Anyone at all? Thanks

I could try and help. First of all, is this your story that needs developing to sort out these issues, or is it making the characters better that would solve the problems?

Well, this new guy was a spontaneous addition because I needed something else for one character so I added him, and I can think of a lot of ways to incorporate him into the story. So, I'm not exactly sure where the problem lies. I guess if I could figure that out, I could probably fix it... any suggestions?

This is...incredibly confusing. I think I'll need a simpler explanation to help at all.

If Vinrys's son and Varyn are very different in personality I think that could help. She would sort of be angry with the first guy and then suddenly meet this other guy that is so different that she thinks he'll be better.

I also think that if she has very little support or love from the males in her own family she would be more prone towards loving people too heedlessly, and hence quickly. Girls need support from men, and when they can't get it from the people God gave them, they tend to look for someone else.

Very wise, Rwebhu. I think that's the best suggestion I've seen so far.


Ahh, a kindred spirit.

I really have nothing to input until I hear more, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Since writing this, I have changed a few things. Kalyn (Vinrys' son) and Varyn end up being enemies. Kalyn's father, Vinrys, has a brother (Linys) who later over turns him and rules in his stead. Both are evil. However, Linys has a son = VARYN. Thus, Varyn and Kalyn are cousins and know and hate each other. I think that this will work, thoughts?

I think that it is only the culture that we are familiar with that sees disappointed love as a barrier to another love. Buttercup - "I will never love again."

You could have a culture where Alleyni is so far into love that she is so heartbroken that she fiercely seeks Varyn's love out of her grief. Her betrayal by one would cause her to love out of hurt and desperation, and this love would be hard but healing. This would be a strange way of thinking to our culture, but - to me - that would be a good thing.

What do you think?