Day 14: Writing Love
It’s Valentine’s Day here in the U.S., which can be frustrating and complicated for some of us and joyous and wonderful for others. And—like love—how we feel about the day can ebb and flow, right?
I’m going with the theme though and we’re going to talk about how to write love.
THE TRIANGULAR THEORY OF LOVE
So, there is a man who believe there are three aspects of love. This man’s name is Richard Sternberg and he’s developed an entire theory of this. Those aspects are: intimacy, passion, and commitment.
According to Sternberg intimacy is "feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness in loving relationships."
Passion is "the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationships."
Commitment means in a short-term way "the decision that one loves a certain other." In a long-term way it means "one's commitment to maintain that love.”
HOW DOES THIS HELP WRITERS?
So, how does this relate to us writers?
Well, you mix up those components and voila! You get eight rough types of love. That sounds naughty! I don’t mean it that way.
Writers Write does a wonderful job of breaking this down to:
“Nonlove – means the absence of all three components: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment.
“Liking – means you have Intimacy, but the absence of Passion and Commitment.
“Infatuated love – means you have Passion, but the absence of the Intimacy and Commitment.
“Empty love – means you have Commitment, but the absence of Intimacy and Passion.
“Romantic love – a combination of Intimacy and Passion without Commitment.
“Companionate love – a combination of Intimacy and Commitment without Passion.
“Fatuous love – a combination of Passion and Commitment without Intimacy.
“Consummate, or complete love, – the full combination of all three components: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment.”
Looking at these can help you focus on what kind of love is going on in your story. That can help you figure out how that type of love drives the characters’ actions, inner goals and the story’s plot. Cool, right?
As Filling the Stars writes, “Love is a mysterious and powerful emotion. It can make people do crazy things, and it often inspires creative works of art.
“Love can make people feel happy and euphoric, as if they’re floating on a cloud. It can also make them feel sad and desperate, as if they’re losing their grip on reality. Love can be passionate and exciting, or it can be calm and reassuring.
“Often, we want love more than anything else in the world, and it would be incredible to find someone who wanted you just as much as you do them. That’s why creative writing about true love is such a treat—it allows us to explore the depths of our fantasies through creative contexts.”
Below the paywall is a really cool exercise about this and bonus video and a place to submit. Happy writing and revising! All these emails (and more) live over here on the Live Happy (and Write Better Now) site.
HOW TO SHOW LOVE
While I would always advocate that action and reaction, choice and dialogue are the absolute best way of showing love on the page (acts of kindness, active listening, etc.) just like real life, there are some tried and true ways to show aspects of love quickly via body language.
We wink. We look up through our lashes. We make a prolonged eye contact and poof! It’s showing some desire.
Our characters close their eyes while kissing, their backs arc, their lips part, and so on. Poof! We’ve got some passion.
All that seems a bit less innocent, but a smile, a laugh, a dancing skip, fingers grabbing hands, a hug.
EXERCISES
These first seven are directly from Writers Write.
“Write a love letter from your protagonist to the person they love most.
Write a love letter from your antagonist to the person they love most.
Create a playlist of love songs for your four main characters.
Write about the disintegration of a loving relationship. (Read 9 Ways To Set Up Believable Fictional Breakups)
List the five things your four main characters love most.
Describe love in concrete terms. Do this exercise for yourself and for your main characters.
If love were a place, it would be:
If love were music, it would be:
If love were a person, it would be:
If love were weather, it would be:
If love were a smell, it would be:
If love were a taste, it would be:
If love were a sound, it would be:
If love were a texture, it would be:
If love were a colour, it would be:”
This one is directly from Filling the Jars:
“Two people meet at a protest and despite their drastically different political views, they hit it off right away.”
Whoa. Right?
BONUS COOLNESS
I made this playlist with help from people on Facebook yesterday and it quickly became the weirdest mix of love songs ever. And it’s eight hours long. :)
PLACE TO SUBMIT
Deadline: March 1st–31st, 2025
Payment: 1¢ per word for accepted stories (with a minimum of $20 regardless of length)
Theme: Speculative fiction that explores connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world.
These submission guidelines our for our standard magazine issues. Are you in the right place? (Or are you looking for our anthology, Springtime Fair, submission guidelines?)
Reading periods/When to send
Submissions will be open as follows:
March 1st–31st (closing at 10pm PST on the 31st), for a June release
September 1st–30th (closing at 10pm PST on the 30th), for a December release
What to send
Hearth Stories publishes slice-of-life stories with a focus on nature, forests, connection, family, romance/relationships, and comfort/kindness. We are primarily focusing on stories set in a pre-industrial-revolution time period (or a fantasy world resembling such), preferably not in city settings.
We accept works from 1,000 words up to 10,000. However, the ideal length may be something in the 1,500-3,500 word range. We do not currently accept poetry or non-fiction. We will potentially accept literary fiction (i.e. non-speculative work) if it takes place before ~1825 or so, please let us know in your cover letter if you are submitting a story that is not speculative (this is a new type of submission for us and we want to gauge interest).
Things we are looking for
Cozy, sweet, cute, kind, hopeful, and romantic stories (especially, but not limited to, queer romance)
Medievalism, peasant life, arthurian-style settings and stories (without the war and combat), chivalry
Rural/pastoral life, village fairs/festivals, herb gathering, traditional crafts (sewing, weaving, spinning), and song (include lyrics or sheetmusic if you have them)
Works that take place in nature, wooded spaces, mountains, and fields, stories that feel like spring (or, really, involve or evoke any seasons in a meaningful way)
Stories involving food and cooking. However, we are a vegan publication; stories that feature animal products may result in a pass on the story or a request for removal of the animal products
Stories involving hermits, issolated places, cottages, or wandering in the woods
Witches, paganism, magic
Bonus points for stories backed by vegan, anarchist, collectivist, communal, and eco-conscious themes