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I've seen a comment about not having characters in a romance break up in the third act pop up in the TL every now and then. first, writersādo what you want, lol. as long as it's necessary to the book, there really aren't any rules about what can and can't be done.
my go-to response is: if someone's tired of seeing something in a book, let them write what they want to see. we can't let everyone's wish to see something in a story become our responsibility.
but I also want to do some thinking about *why* it is relationships tend to break up.
but I also want to do some thinking about *why* it is relationships tend to break up.
the beginning of the third act is usually the "all is lost" moment, where the character has to lose so much that they fall into the "darkness of the night" plot beatāthe moment when they have nothing else to lose, and in that moment think about what they need to do to "win."
for romance books focused on relationships, this usually means that the MC has to lose their relationshipātheir partner/LIāto figure out what it is that they internally need, and what it is that they externally need to change to acquire that internal goal. a lot of the timeā¦
ā¦the MC loses their relationship as a consequence of not meeting their internal need to change. when they realize what it is they need to do, they fix themselves, and usually their relationship as well, given that as a romance, the external goal is usually a happily ever after.
it's interesting to try and brainstorm other potential "all is lost" moments for romances. you can't kill off the love interest rather than break them upāit would break the promise to the reader of an HEA. you could potentially have the MC lose something else that mattersā¦
ā¦to them. a job, maybe, or a relationship with a best friend rather than the LI. but, would that "loss" be significant enough to the plot and theme to put them into a "darkness of the night", especially when the focus of the book is likely a relationship? *shrug* I don't know.
I'm sure it's been done before, and will be done in other ways. but I also think it's perfectly fine to allow an MC and LI to break up in the third act. there's a reason this has been done so many times before, and will continue to be done forā¦ probably forever.
again, snark towards writers and tropes can usually be responded to with a "why not write something different yourself?"
that question is usually met with silence.
that question is usually met with silence.
