Zagaroth
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2023
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- 389
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Eh, that setup can start to smell bad quickly. Let's go through some options:
1) MC is interested in Love Interest, but LI ends up dating 3rd Party for a while instead. During a future arc, LI and 3rd break up, and sometime after that LI and MC get together.
-To make this work, MC needs to stop pursuing LI and date someone else. Pursuing someone who is in a relationship is generally a bad look and hard to pull off well.
-this also requires timing in the flow of the relationships to end up with them both single at the same time.
-It's slightly easier if 3rd is secretly an antagonist, MC is aware of this, and LI does not believe MC at first. But even then this can be really cheesy and hard to make believable. Still, it's the only potentially good path where MC pursues LI despite LI being in a relationship.
2) MC and future LI know each other but MC is not currently romantically interested in LI. LI then starts dating 3rd.
-This scenario is easier to pull off, assuming that there are no other complications. Romantic feelings need to develop after the breakup between LI and 3rd, though MC and LI can be friends before that.
-If you are really good, you can pull off all three being friends, and the breakup is on good terms because they just didn't work as a couple. But if you are asking about your 3rd party love interests here, you are probably not ready for this challenge.
3) When MC meets LI, LI is dating 3rd party.
-This can make for a shorter arc than option 2, as they can already be close to a breakup.
-Please don't make MC the cause of the breakup, in all reality this will usually backfire and LI would probably want nothing to do with either of them.
One of the harder things in all of this is to make it so that LI and 3rd are a reasonable-looking couple without making the breakup look artificially forced. While it is realistic that things just don't work out, believability in fiction is not bound by actual realism.
Personally, I think that unless you have a good reason you are doing this, wedging in the 3rd party is probably a bad idea. Don't add drama for the sake of drama, it is okay for the MC and the LI to simply be together and working on developing their relationship during the rest of the story.
1) MC is interested in Love Interest, but LI ends up dating 3rd Party for a while instead. During a future arc, LI and 3rd break up, and sometime after that LI and MC get together.
-To make this work, MC needs to stop pursuing LI and date someone else. Pursuing someone who is in a relationship is generally a bad look and hard to pull off well.
-this also requires timing in the flow of the relationships to end up with them both single at the same time.
-It's slightly easier if 3rd is secretly an antagonist, MC is aware of this, and LI does not believe MC at first. But even then this can be really cheesy and hard to make believable. Still, it's the only potentially good path where MC pursues LI despite LI being in a relationship.
2) MC and future LI know each other but MC is not currently romantically interested in LI. LI then starts dating 3rd.
-This scenario is easier to pull off, assuming that there are no other complications. Romantic feelings need to develop after the breakup between LI and 3rd, though MC and LI can be friends before that.
-If you are really good, you can pull off all three being friends, and the breakup is on good terms because they just didn't work as a couple. But if you are asking about your 3rd party love interests here, you are probably not ready for this challenge.
3) When MC meets LI, LI is dating 3rd party.
-This can make for a shorter arc than option 2, as they can already be close to a breakup.
-Please don't make MC the cause of the breakup, in all reality this will usually backfire and LI would probably want nothing to do with either of them.
One of the harder things in all of this is to make it so that LI and 3rd are a reasonable-looking couple without making the breakup look artificially forced. While it is realistic that things just don't work out, believability in fiction is not bound by actual realism.
Personally, I think that unless you have a good reason you are doing this, wedging in the 3rd party is probably a bad idea. Don't add drama for the sake of drama, it is okay for the MC and the LI to simply be together and working on developing their relationship during the rest of the story.
