The problem of the throwaway boyfriend
In the first 10% of my novel, my MC has a boyfriend. MC is accepted into the Space Corps (or he's summoned to fight Troy - the particulars don't really matter), boyfriend is sure he'll wait the required X years.
MC starts training, and already the forced separation, the change in their respective lifestyles, the separate new experiences - all of it draws them apart. There's friction, eventually they break up.
From a Watsonian perspective, the MC finds himself sacrificing a relationship that was important to him, for his chosen path. It's painful, he struggles with it, he tries to keep both, eventually he accepts it.
From a Doylist perspective, of course they're going to break up. From the beginning, a long-distance relationship isn't very interesting - having the MC meet someone new and exciting a bit further into the story has much more "meat". So it's just a question of when. Once the conflict appears, it's therefore rather obvious how it ends.
I'm struggling to maintain tension in the struggling-relationship period. On the one hand, the conflict needs time to develop - they wouldn't just break up at the first sign of trouble. That would feel unrealistically abrupt, and devoid of the related internal struggle for the MC. On the other hand, it is clear that they're going to break up. Not clear to the characters, but clear to a savvy reader. Since it's clear how the conflict is going to end, why would a reader be invested in it? How do I prevent a "get on with it, break up already!" reaction?
A particularly important element: boyfriend is not a schmuck. Rather, they both, and MC in particular, underestimate how hard the ordeal is going to be. Which is an important recurring theme I want to set up early.
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The main character has to relinquish his old life. His boyfriend is just one part of that.
What else is the MC giving up?
- His friends
- His family (they will stay his family but he can't see them or contact them very often)
- His Sunday morning routine (crossword puzzles and walking to the corner bakery sounds trivial but losing it can totally shake someone up)
- His favorite library with the comfy chair
- Volunteer work
- His old job
And so on.
Losing someone who he probably assumed he would marry and grow old with is major. But the rest is all part of losing a life. The totality of what he gave up to take this new job (whether a long hoped for dream or a conscription) is going to hit him like a ton of bricks. The breakup might be the obvious representation of that but it's far from the entirety of his loss.
As he lets go of his old life, he may try desperately to cling to the bits of it that he can. His boyfriend senses this and maybe he clings harder, maybe he pulls away faster. Or the MC may resent the parts of his old life that are keeping him from fully immersing into the new (no matter how badly he wants to have both).
If you show the conflict with the relationship as part of a larger issue, then the reader won't get impatient or overly invested. It's about the MC growing and changing. By including the relationship at all you're showing us who the MC is. He's someone who commits, who cares about people and tries not to hurt them. But he's also a realist and knows when it's time to move on, in large part so he can honor his new commitment.
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Make the boyfriend more than just "MC's boyfriend".
Give him a life of his own, a (minor) role in the story beyond the doomed relationship. Maybe tell some of the "home front" part of the story from his point of view. Then you also don't have to throw the character away after the breakup - he's still around, doing stuff that matters, perhaps even something relevant to the main plot.
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You seem to want there to be a throwaway relationship on the one hand but not on the other hand.
There are of course subtleties and degrees, but, in a broad analysis, either it is a throwaway relationship—and you shouldn't worry about there being little tension over it disappearing (at least not in terms of pages of writing)—or it isn't a throwaway relationship and there should be more going on to make it obvious that it's not a simple decision.
For instance, give them a child together. That would make it dramatically more difficult for the MC to decide to abandon one life in favour of another. And it might keep readers guessing a lot longer as to whether or not that will actually happen. The stakes, and the tension, would be all the greater. It would also make the readers care more about the relationship than they would about one where it's really just two separate people each going their own way and putting the past behind them. (People break up all the time, but it's more significant when a breakup leaves longer-lasting effects than just moving on to someone else.)
The most effective learning experiences are those which are painful, but from which you grow and adapt anyway.
Or, go the other way and only summarize the breakup. The character can still suffer—you can describe things that happen to him that indicate that—but the reader doesn't need to be aware of all of the details around them as they happen. Relay events in a short series of vignettes or flashbacks. You can indicate the suffering and growth, but still preserve the bulk of the tension of the story for what comes after the breakup.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40962. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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You can stop making it so obvious they are going to break up; and don't even make it obvious to the MC they already have broken up. The boyfriend can break, and move on to somebody else without telling the MC.
So the arc is:
BF: I miss you so much!
MC: Be strong, this is what we talked about.
Second round: Something bad happens to the BF:
BF: (tearful) This is too hard. You said you could quit, I want you to quit. Come home, and help me.
MC: You'll get over this, I can't quit.
BF: That's a lie! I read the enlistment forms, you still have two weeks to withdraw!
MC: Yes, but I'm not going to, not now. This is too important.
BF: And I'm not?
(tearful argument ensues, but MC is adamant)
MC: I love you, but I can't.
BF: I love you too.
Third round:
BF: Hi! Everything is fine, I'm in the middle of something, gotta run to a party!
MC: What party?
BF: Michelle's birthday, or did you forget that too? Nevermind. Gotta go!
MC: Oh yeah. Well, have a good time.
What the MC doesn't get is that BF is cheerful because he has already moved on, but isn't going to admit it. The MC can suspect this, and dread it, and deny it to himself, but you (the author) can take time to confirm it for the MC (leaving the reader hanging).
The truth is the MC gave up his BF in the second round, by refusing to withdraw from the program and come home. I think this ability to withdraw is important; if the program he is in does not allow withdrawal, then whatever happens between him and his BF was not really his choice. He did choose to join, of course, but his BF had agreed to wait.
But if he can quit and come home, and chooses not to despite his distraught lover begging him to quit and come home, then he has made a conscious choice of mission over boyfriend. When he confronts his conversation-avoiding BF, he gets an unapologetic confession and the MC is told he shouldn't call anymore. The MC can be reminded, by his BF, that he made the choice, when he refused to come home when the BF needed him most.
Otherwise you have a situation of something bad happening without any conscious choice. I mean, if I invite my friend to dinner somewhere, and she slips on the sidewalk and breaks her wrist, I feel terrible for her but I don't feel guilty for inviting her to dinner. I made no conscious choice in her trouble; I thought she'd be fine getting to the restaurant. I think your MC must make a conscious choice of job over boyfriend for this to be a sacrifice.
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