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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44373
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44373
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

If they are teens, I'd suggest you make the breakup a clear fault in one of the characters; preferably the more main character. By "clear fault" I mean one that most readers will agree with; a wrong-headed assumption of youth about "proper roles" or something like that; and something that with time the flawed character can overcome.

Hence making the flawed character the more main character; so you can show that personal growth. You don't need to show as much for the character that was in the right.

Then, follow the "try, try and try again" formula. As an example, I create Brittney as the main (flawed) character, and Alice (in the right); they are in love. They get into an argument over some principle Alice holds dear (religion, politics, reproductive rights, any hot-button issue you feel you can write about), and Brittney gets angry, Alice gets angry back, and they break up.

Alice (in the right) _tries_ to get back together with Brittney because she misses her, but Brittney gloats that Alice came back to her and threw her principles aside. Alice doesn't want to be in _that_ relationship, so End of Try 1.

Then Brittney, eventually sad at the loss, realizes she was wrong to gloat, and tries to get back together with Alice, but Britt won't admit she was wrong on the original point. Alice feels like this is all going to just repeat, so ... End of Try 2.

After enough time, Alice decides she doesn't care. She still loves Brittney, and she thinks she will just put her principles aside to be with the girl she loves, and will avoid the disagreement that broke them up in the first place. She comes to beg Brittney if they can reach détente for the sake of love, only to find out Brittney has changed and admits she was wrong, that Alice was always in her head, and she had seen first hand how wrong she was, but thought it was too late -- but if it isn't too late-- They kiss and make up.

You can, of course, make up your own reasons to break up, fail to get back together once, then twice, and then succeed on the third try. This is just the basic arc you can use to keep the relationship _alive_ in the reader's mind, over the course of a long breakup. And in this time, the girls can have other romantic relationships that, in the reader's mind, threaten the Alice-Brittney prospects. Or make Alice or Brittney jealous and feel like they've lost their true love to somebody else. So the reader is relieved when these flings come to an end; it revives the Alice-Brittney true love possibilities.

This also doesn't have to be the main plot of your story; it can be sub-plot.

Original score: 3