(Did you ever watch the original Muppet Show? If you did, you really need to read the title for this post like they did the intro to “Pigs in Space.”)
One of my favorite tropes is best friends to love.
One of my least favorite tropes is also best friends to love.
Why do I love it?
I love it because, when I look at the tropes we use in romance novels and I think about how I would want my kids to find their spouse, best friends is my number one draft pick.
I was best friends with my hubby for a little over a year before we started dating. My parents started that way as well. As did my hubby’s.
And it makes sense. When you’re friends with someone, you get to know them. You reach a point where you finish each other’s sandwiches, if you will. Generally speaking, your best friend sees you at your worst and loves you anyway (as a friend, don’t make it weird.)
And that “don’t make it weird” part at the beginning of the transition to more? That’s fun to write. (Maybe less fun when you’re the person working through it, but you know, whatever. Authors like to make their characters cringe.)
But once everyone’s on board and the friendship has shifted? From an in-person and a romance novel standpoint, it tends to be pretty smooth sailing. You’re friends. So when there are problems, they aren’t generally misunderstanding. Because of the whole sandwiches thing above. And you’re friends, so you’re going to flick the other person in the middle of their forehead, plant your hands on your hips, and say, “Look here, buster.” And hash it out. And you will. Because you know each other well enough to get through the obstacles that life likes to toss your way.
And really? It’s pretty low drama.
Which means, from a purely romance novel standpoint? Sometimes it’s a little boring. (I’m cringing writing that, because I don’t love high drama books as a rule. I like gentle, low angst, happy endings. But sometimes friends to more is too gentle even
for me.)
And that’s the reason that as much as friends to more is my favorite? It’s also my least favorite.
It’s hard. (Channel your inner teen to whine that sentence and you’ll get to where I am with my current book.)
I’m sliding down the final slope to the end of The Billionaire’s Best Friend and Austin and Kayla are all happy and in love and there’s “supposed” to be that whole black moment/break up thing coming and…I’m really struggling to figure out what would work to make that happen. Because they are best friends. And they’ve weathered a lot. And they’ve chosen each other.
At this point, breaking up is out of character for both of them.
They just won’t.
Which means I need to figure out something else to get that last little bump of tension and drama in the story before we can finally (finally!) slide to that happily ever after.
And okay, between you, me, and the fencepost, I know what I’m going to do.
But I’m worried it’s not going to be exciting enough. Angsty enough.
I don’t want it to be boring.
Because, in real life, I think marrying your best friend is the absolute best thing ever.
And I want readers to agree.
The Billionaire’s Best Friend will release in June — and the pre-order is just 99c if you want to grab it so you can find out if I managed to make it work.
Here’s the back cover:
You ever meet someone and have that immediate click? That was Kayla and me. First day of our first teaching jobs and we both just knew we were going to be best friends forever.
And we are.
She does a great job keeping me down to earth—a skill I appreciate even more now that I’m a billionaire.
Except lately, it’s like she’s pulling away.
It started with her spending more time with my sister instead of hanging out with me. And now she’s starting to date the youth pastor?
It could be that I’m a little jealous. Seems like everyone is falling in love except me. But I don’t think that’s it.
Because it feels like I’m in danger of losing a lot more than my best friend and I don’t know how to make it stop.
Now it’s your turn — do you love best friends to love as a trope? Hate it? Something in between? Tell me why!
Elizabeth Maddrey is a semi-reformed computer geek and homeschooling mother of two who lives in the suburbs of Washington D.C. When she isn’t writing, Elizabeth is a voracious consumer of books. She loves to write about Christians who struggle through their lives, dealing with sin and receiving God’s grace on their way to their own romantic happily ever after.
I love it. Being best friends first gives them such a good basis for a relationship.
I don’t actually care if there’s not a huge blow up/misunderstanding towards the end of the book. Who says there has to be one??
It’s actually such a common practice in novels that I find it very ho-hum. It’s like, oh yeah, gotta introduce some angst here….
Why not just some interesting story twist? (Obviously I am not an author!! Lol. )
My husband and I started out as best friends. Somewhere in the middle of dating we wondered if we weren’t missing out on someone better, and dated other folk but the best friends won out anyway, and fifty years later we have no regrets.
It definitely can!
Sadly you are a rare breed of reader. There are genre expectations and that’s one of them for romance. Leaving out that bump of drama at the end tends to equate to bad reviews and low sales.
Aww. Congratulations!
I married my best friend too.
I like it as a troupe because the characters really know and care about each other. I’m positive the book will be great. I would read your grocery list…:)
Aw, thank you. I appreciate that more than you can possibly understand.
I like best friends to more, and part of that is because there isn’t necessarily that breaking away to get back together. I know there’s a “formula” for the romance novel, though I don’t necessarily like it sometimes! I do think their relationship is stronger if they’re best friends first, though.
It definitely can be a much stronger relationship for sure! Although I like to believe that friendship development is what keeps instalove and other tropes together. So it’s just a matter of what happens first.
I like best friends to more and also strangers to more (such as mail order brides) I love to read the differences and how God can make things work out for the best. My husband and I were strangers when we met. Over a year we became best friends. The next step was easy. We have been married now for 37 years. Thanks for sharing your post today
Love it. I’m definitely a fan for real life romance being friends to love :)
Yes! There’s just something about knowing each other for that longer time frame, though. Even enemies to friends can be extremely fun if they’ve known each other a long time. Short times work, but longer is better, in my opinion. I’m sure whatever you do with these two will work!
Hi, Elizabeth! I’m with you on the friends to more in real life. My sweetie and I lived it coming up on 33 years ago. The drama, though, can come from subtle surprises like expectations that one has that the other doesn’t know about.
Probably one of the first real fusses we had was at the end of a retreat for engaged couples. Yup, there’s some irony for you :-). We were loading up the car afterward. My view: I was getting my stuff and taking it to the car and she was doing the same with hers. Her view: she was making her stuff available for me to load in the car. Something got left behind and we had to go back. The fight boiled down to the fact that her love language was acts of service and I didn’t know that and I had some negative family history with being expected to do the grunt work for others and she did not know that.
So, I suppose, if you pick the right level of significance for that “thing that got left behind”, you could come up with a pretty dark moment to be worked through. Resentment or forgiveness, pride of self or humility. Choose.
I’ve already got my pre-order and am SO looking forward to this!
Thanks so much for all that you put into your writing that makes your books such a blessing to us.
Oh gosh, the little things that boil into big ones are definitely there. Such a funny story now but probably not in the moment. :)
Thank you for your encouraging words!
I enjoy reading this troupe. It makes the most sense when it comes to love. You need to be friends first to have a successful marriage. Thank you for sharing. God bless you.
It’s definitely a key to a happy marriage to be friends!
I love them. Thank you for sharing.
They can be lovely for sure.
it’s okay
I love it! It’s my favorite trope. I also love the enemies of best friends or lovers (I just don’t get that kissing while hating each other). The ‘big misunderstanding’ in these cases of best friends has to be believable if they decide to part ways otherwise it seems contrived.
I think that the big final problem does not always have to break up the couple, it can be something big where it is tested how strong their relationship is.
I love them. My relationship was best friends to true love & happily married for a lot of years with a family.
I enjoy them for sure.
I totally forgot to comment. I like best friends to more but I can see how it could be hard to write. I have seen a few friends in this category that were friends and often best friends but when they went to dating they found they were better as best friends. I have liked a few stories where the characters were best friends and had other boy friends or girl friends but eventually realised the best friend was the ideal partner.
I have friends from school who were friends right thought high school and are happily married.
I struggle with enemies as well – if you don’t like someone, don’t kiss them does seem standard.
Definitely agree they’re marvelous in real life.
:)
It can definitely be fun when you get the sort of “duh, of course it’s you” realization towards the end.