Adding Romance

I just finished reading a new YA book and once again I was bothered by the romantic plot line. It seems to me that the most common romance seen in YA today involves a love triangle. This does cause a lot of tension and can leave the readers guessing. But my own personal feeling is that it weakens the characters. I get tired of wishy-washy girls who can’t choose between two guys. That isn’t to say that there can’t be more than one guy involved, just that the girl only likes one at a time. There are plenty of other ways to add romantic tension. Think of the Jane Austen stories and how there are two men, Darcy and Wickham, but Jane doesn’t like both of them at the same time. Fairy tales are another good example of different romantic scenarios that don’t involve multiple parties but just two people.

I’m not saying that love triangles are always bad, but just think about how many love triangle are currently out there. It might be time to choose another romantic plot line to keep your audience from feeling like they’ve read the story before.