Prose Pointer: Enemies to Lovers (Patreon)

This prose pointer is based off of a question from Vanessa, who asked: how did you work out the fact that there's a mutual feeling between Gen and Echo, even though Echo took part in what happened to Genevieve's father? I thought it was a really good question, and wanted to make sure I answered in full, rather than leaving a condensed version in a reply comment.

So of course there are a million different ways to write a successful enemies-to-lovers arc, but here's a few things that I’d recommend you stay conscious of while writing one. The number one thing is simply for your characters to be likeable on their own, apart from each other, but you usually want this to be the case for any characters that you write, so I’ll move on.

After you have likeable characters, I’d say there are two main types of character for the person who was ‘in the wrong’. The first is the kind of character who WANTS to change, be good, or make amends. It doesn’t matter if they’re bad at it and they keep screwing up, like Echo, and it doesn’t matter if they’re too insecure or scared to show this desire to anyone else (even if that person is themselves). But you as the writer have to, and I mean absolutely have to, find a way to communicate this to the reader. I’d even go as far to say that it’s crucial for your reader to forgive and fall in love with the wrongdoer before the other characters do.

The second is the kind of character who does NOT want to be good. I know… what the hell… But when I say characters who don’t want to be good, I mean characters who at the very depths of their souls ARE good, but by some trauma or another have had any desire to act on that good pummeled out of them. Think of Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Catra from She-Ra. Both of these characters try to be bad, and succeed at it for a time, but it’s not who they really are, and the good in them wins out in the end. With this kind of character, it’s also crucial to communicate their inner good to the reader, because you want your reader to be the very first person rooting for them.

That brings me to the other half of enemies-to-lovers: the person who was wronged, or at least the person who needs to do the forgiving/loving. It’s going to depend on what type of person this character is, as well as how badly they were wronged, but it’s important for you as the writer to find the appropriate level of resistance. Given Genevieve’s stubborn personality, the context of the world they live in, and the amount of grief and loss she experienced because of Echo’s actions, the level of violence and anger Gen had worked. However, had Echo’s crime been something less severe, like simply stealing supplies from Gen’s group or getting people injured instead of killed, then the way Gen acted would’ve never been excusable. The reader would’ve written Genevieve off as a horrible person/character and the enemies-to-lovers arc would’ve failed.

Finding this balance, though, is super important, because it creates the tension at the very heart of an enemies-to-lovers arc. The wronged will feel a righteous anger/hurt/resentment toward the wrongdoer, but from scene to scene will start to see the good that the reader has been privy to all along. Your job as the writer is to put these characters in situations where no matter how angry the wronged is, they can’t deny the humanity of the wrongdoer.

Maybe these situations are that the wrongdoer is constantly saving the life of the other and building trust. Maybe it’s a series of vulnerable scenes where they open up and provide context for the way they are. Whatever it is, there are two key things you want to demonstrate to the wronged through the course of the enemies-to-lovers arc. The first is remorse, that the wrongdoer feels guilt over what they’ve done and wants to do better. The second is trustworthiness, the wronged must believe through proof and demonstration that the wrongdoer will never hurt them like that again.

It's these two things that will eventually lead to forgiveness and acceptance, which is the end goal with an enemies-to-lovers arc. It took a long time for Genevieve to get to this point, partly because Echo kept messing it up, and also partly because her hurt was so great. How much of your story is devoted to working that out is up to you and the needs of your story.

I’ll also add one last thing, and this was specific to Echo, but I feel like it’s important for redemption arcs in general. Even if Genevieve was the one to hold Echo accountable, Echo felt guilt for the things she did with the raiders long before meeting Gen again. So, even though Echo had romantic feelings very early on and Genevieve and the camp provided a means to changing, she didn’t change to win Genevieve. What this means is that the change Echo goes through is needfully and necessarily sincere, and that sincerity lays the very foundation of growth through remorse/trustworthiness.

So, to answer the question more specifically, the way I worked out the mutual feelings in CDAD were through the heart of Echo’s character and by demonstrating to Genevieve her remorse/trustworthiness over and over and over again until it stuck. By the end of a successful enemies-to-lovers arc, none of the characters are the same people as they were when they started, and to hold them to the same scrutiny as we did at the start of the story would be an injustice to their growth, and the growth of every reader who sees some part of themselves in the characters.