Do multiple potential love interests dilute tension and diminish drama? [closed]
Closed by System on Sep 24, 2018 at 23:17
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My MC is focused on his profession; barely giving his personal life a thought. His last serious romantic relationship with a woman was when he was 22. Time for that later, he believes. Retire at 45 and then look.
He has two women who are interested in him now:
M wants him now, is very strong willed and fierce. She is a colleague of his and loves that he is more dangerous than she as it makes her feel normal. She is expert at seduction but not so at serious courtship. She ends up declaring her feelings by serenading him with ‘You’d be so nice to come home to’ accompanied by a very fine pianist who is madly in love with her.
J is a young, vivacious and quirky woman who is very professional but uninhibited and very loath to let the MC take himself seriously for more than a second. She is also a colleague of his, though in a completely unrelated field. She is more of a cheerful beacon. She has decided that the MC is certainly worth the effort and until M declared herself had even been willing to wait until the MC is ready. Now her hand is being forced.
I am considering adding two more and my question is this: would adding more potential love interests add tension or dilute it?
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1 answer
I think FOUR is too many interactions, you dilute the focus by having so many characters competing for the same guy, especially if the romance is a subplot. They are too hard for the reader to keep track of and remember who is who.
I would limit it to three if it were a central plot point, and two as a subplot, since the reader's attention is already distracted by what they need to remember about the main plot.
Saying it is "character driven" doesn't alleviate the load; the best character driven stories (in my opinion) devote a lot of attention to a FEW characters, not thin attention to a cast of dozens. Thin attention and deep character development do not go together.
And the young uninhibited woman can be both a professional and family rich (I've known at least one such girl) and the colleague could also be single with a son.
You can give him things to like about each; the young woman is better in bed, the colleague isn't terrible in bed, but she IS more fun to hang out with and have conversations with, she is more clever, they have a similar sense of humor, and that isn't true with the young woman. He knows because he has been to several professional events with the colleague.
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