How to Write Love Interests You Fancy

Because if you don't fancy them, who will?

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Every time I write a love interest in a novel, I always fall a bit in love with him.

Jesse Franklin (from Call Me Maybe): My OG leading man, and what a guy! He’s fit AF. Famous for five minutes in the nineties, he plays bass (the instrument of sex!). He’s sweetly unable to deal with his feelings, is prone to ostrich moments, but he is pretty good at big, romantic gestures.

Ollie Taylor (from Swipe Right): Cheeky. A bit of a lad. Seems like he’s out for himself but he can also be thoughtful. He doesn’t always make the right decision. Heavily based (looks wise) on the actor in the music video for Don’t Delete The Kisses by Wolf Alice. And by that I mean, I watched the video and thought, yep, okay, he’s incredibly pretty, let’s write a book about that guy.

Ash Ramsay (from Love You Too, Esty Mackie, my unsuccessfully queried Southampton-based novel): A bad boy, who loves his mum. Also loves Esty, his teenage sweetheart. And Luna, his daughter. But not his wife because she’s awful. Bit of a rebel. Bit lost. Also hot. (yeah, they’re all hot, okay! You’ll never get a minger out of me.)

Fraser James (from The Matchmakers): Very vaguely inspired by Henry Rowley of TikTok/IG fame. I wonder if he’s the sort of guy to google his own name and might one day see this?! Anyway, he amuses me. I like the way he makes himself genuinely laugh in his videos. So I borrowed elements, mixed them up a bit with Jack O’Connell, and conjured up a Derbyshire boy with a penchant for hair products and hoop earrings, adding some fear of rejection he has to overcome, following a life lived in the shadow of grief. Fraser’s a radio personality in the Peak District, though, and not a comedian, or, you know, Lady Chatterley’s lover.

Anyway, I fancy them all, because if I don’t, how can I expect readers to? So here are my tips for writing a fanciable love interest.

Give them attributes you find appealing

An obvious one, right? We have things we find attractive in a person, so write what you like, because creating people from scratch is difficult and why make a tough job tougher?

But, I’m not talking so much about the obvious things like how they look, because although this definitely helps, the sum of a person’s appeal is not what they look like. So find the little things. A mannerism you like. A look. A habit. An accent. A favourite pair of shoes. The way their hair falls over their face. Whatever rocks your world.

Give them some depth

Please, for the love of god, give these people some depth. Depth is sexy and anyway, each character should have their own motivations and backstory. Work out what their families are like. How their upbringing was. What they like and dislike. What are their dreams? Their secrets? How is their personality? What are their flaws? Give them flaws. A perfect person is neither relatable nor interesting. Allow your readers to discover these things as your protagonist does. Allow yourself to fall for your love interest right alongside.

Don’t forget the chemistry

Hands up if you’ve read a book and felt that the chemistry between the protagonist and their love interest was flat and lacking. It’s such a bummer when that happens.

In order to avoid that, you need to remember that it’s not just about looks, but about interaction. You can use conversation here. Do they argue? Fran and Ollie do. Do they flirt? In Love You Too, Esty Mackie, Ash walks Esty home from their high school prom and rizzes her with stolen alcohol and takeaway chips. Later, he plays a song for her on his guitar and that’s what makes her kiss him (because of course it is.)

Maybe there are subtle undertones that reveal how they feel? Or maybe hearts are worn on sleeves, like when Jesse tells Cassie how much he fancies her at sunset on the beach. Although, they’ve already done the boom-boom by then, so, it’d be weird and a bit shit if he didn’t.

You can also use physical touch (and the feelings that invokes) to create chemistry. What happens when they’re in each other’s company? What’s being said without words? And remember too, that you don’t need to make every physical interaction playful to create a zing between your characters, because that isn’t relatable or realistic. You can use hostility to create chemistry and tension as well. An eye roll here, an intense stare there. Storming out because no one can stand the heat!

But the main point about chemistry is that it needs to feel natural. Forced feels fake, and that does not make for a fun read, or a fun write. And that leads me nicely on to my next point:

Talk to them in your head

There’s a film I love called Me Without You, starring Anna Friel and Michelle Williams. It’s about two best friends growing up in the UK and spans from the 1970s through to 2000ish. There’s a line of dialogue where Anna Friel’s older brother tells Michelle Williams that he talks to her all the time in his head, and the romance of it makes me die. The way he’s looking at her during this quiet, snatched admission. My god.

Who doesn’t talk to someone they’re into all the time in their heads?

I do this when I’m creating a love interest. I’ve had full conversations with Jesse, Ollie, Ash and Fraser in my head. I go full method. I put myself in the shoes of my protags, especially in the romantic scenes (heh heh), because it really helps me to write chemistry that feels natural. And also because why the hell not?! I like to get a bit lost in it.

Is that weird? I don’t really care if it is, to be honest. One of the perks of inventing these people is that I get to feel like they could be mine whilst I’m doing it. It makes them feel real to me, and I think that if they feel real to me, they could feel real to other people, as well. Give it a try.

Nurture their Growth and Development

Coming back to what I said earlier about every character needing a backstory and a motivation. This is true, even if not all of it is revealed and you only keep those details in the notes for yourself that help you write your story.

But your love interest shouldn’t be a character where none of that stuff is revealed, they need to grow and change throughout the story. Both personally, and from the perspective of the protagonist. In short, they should not be the same person at the end as they were in the beginning.

These things take time, though. It isn’t relatable for that change to happen in one fell swoop, so nurture it, shape it, tend to it. Give it the love it needs and deserves. Remember that emotional connections tend to be built gradually and carefully. Visualise it on a timeline can help. Whilst I’ve been writing The Matchmakers, I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of how Fraser and Abby go from haters to lovers, noting the interactions they have that change their perspectives and where in the story it happens. If that sounds like it takes the romance out of the writing, well, maybe it does, but think of it as helping to get that romance on the page. I cannot stress enough how much this has helped me with pacing their love story.

And I’m still in first draft stage, I know it’s currently far from perfect. I will almost certainly be jigging things around.

Finally, your love interest’s role isn’t just their own journey, but to support the protagonist in theirs. The yin and yang of Ash and Esty plays into this. He’s wild. She is measured. He brings her out of her shell. She has a very soothing effect on his anxiety. He helps her to remember who she is where other people in her life have suppressed her and she helps him to see that he is absolutely enough. I like to write dual POV novels, so that support cuts both ways.

Most of all, have fun with it

Writing a swoony love interest should be really fun. It should make you giddy. You should be rendered entirely silly by it. And you should revel in it. Lose hours to it! Rome wasn’t built in a day, so take your sweet time. Day dream to your heart’s content. Trawl Google for images of people you fancy, and quotes you like, and anything that inspires you, and then make mood boards and collages. Save that shit. Look at it often, every time you’re writing, and maybe sometimes when you’re not.

Don’t be afraid to catch feels, because if you do, it’ll really come through in your writing!

Bon chance! xoxo