Best Friends to Lovers

Now look, many people hate this trope but I adore it. And if you’re here, here’s to hoping you love the sweet fluff and angst of falling for your best friend too. But you are scared you will never be able to write a good one? Fear not, for I come bearing tips and tricks.

Anyway so here’s a little bit about the trope before we delve into the structure of many best friends-to-lovers stories.  There are many varieties of this because well this is a trope that has been done to death. We have the ignored best friend whom the protagonist later realizes is their one true love, we have the mutually pining best friends who don’t want to risk the friendship, we have the best friends who slowly fall in love, and many more. Sometimes, all these are present in one story. While like most romance stories, there can be a structure that we can use to plot stories that have this delicious trope, you must remember your story has its own flavour and you need to pick and choose how you want to structure yours to make it a dish worthy of being included in your recipe book.

However, here’s a conventional structure to get you started.

Conventional Plot Structure for Best Friends to Lovers Stories

·      The First Meeting or The Past

Now while most romances start with the characters meeting for the first time, if you are writing childhood best friends to lovers, you don’t need to show their first meeting but establish their dynamic. Start with them just hanging out and show how well they go together. However, you can have a meet-cute or even a meet-ugly if they are meeting for the first time and then becoming best friends. They could meet like Percy and Annabeth did, as children, and grow to have a beautiful friendship that seamlessly turns into love. Or they could meet like Ron and Hermione, who didn’t get along at first but then became friends and then best friends and then fell for each other. Now here’s the thing, you can have enemies to best friends to lovers, of course, but if you want a strict best friends to lovers and still want them to get off on the wrong foot in their first meeting, you have to be careful to not establish them as enemies for a long time. Let’s move on.

·      Growing to Know One-Another

Again, this is a stage that might be skipped in a childhood best friends-to-lovers scenario because they already know each other. You probably should give your readers a small inkling of how well, through flashbacks, monologues, or just them getting on together in an amazing manner, but you can skip showing it in long thorough detail. However, if you are starting with the first meeting, like they did for Percy and Annabeth, then you have to show them getting to know one another and becoming besties. This can seamlessly lead to the next stage, which is developing feelings.

·      Falling in Love

Here you can go down many a route. They can recognize what they are feeling immediately or be confused and struggle with labeling it. They might do it over the course of a long time and realize it slowly, or the understanding of what they are feeling might happen in a Eureka moment. Percy and Annabeth, for example, just fell in love. Readers would have seen that coming. From Annabeth being jealous to Percy holding her underwater, there was enough foreshadowing that when they kissed it was like tension releasing after a long build-up. Ron and Hermione had something similar but to them, it was a eureka moment when Hermione kissed Ron right? Because those two or at least Ron were knee-deep in obliviousness and denial, which is also our next stage.

·      Denial of Attraction and Feelings

It can be obliviousness or trouble distinguishing between platonic and romantic feelings or it can be idiots in love with mutual pining. Or it can be simple denial. Or it can be acceptance of feelings but the effort to bury them deep so as not to ruin the friendship. There are many flavours of this. It can come out as other friends pointing out feelings and one of the lovers saying no too. This is where the slow-burn intensifies and the angst and pining enter, especially if at least one of them has accepted the feelings but is denying them like a fool. Many also use miscommunication here but that’s a trope I dislike. However, a trope of I am not their type can come in. Or they deserve better. Or as mentioned, I don’t want to risk our friendship and romance ruins friendships. Or perhaps, why will they feel like that about me? There’s just so much sand to play with in this sandbox.

·      Confession of Love

The pressure is built and now it releases. Your best friends are now lovers. If you are writing fluff. However, if you are writing angst, maybe one of them gets turned down. Or some external problem comes in. However, this is your big kiss moment. Or the underwater kiss if you are a Percabeth fan. Now whether your story ends here or goes further depends on what kind of conflict you introduce. Either it is an external conflict or heartbreak or maybe the lovers have a quarrel. Let’s take a look at that.

·      Conflict

Now if you want to carry your story further, you can put in some conflict. For example, for Percabeth the conflict was Hera kidnapping Percy. It was external. Or you can show relationship troubles, show the transition from friends to lovers is difficult for our lovers. Amy and Rory from Doctor Who have a friends-to-lovers arc and their conflict comes from Amy’s insecurities about not having kids. This conflict can be as big or small as you want it. Or like we said, it can never happen at all and your lovers continue behaving as they did when they were friends, but now there is romance.

·      Resolution

Love stories have to end. Your lovers are together and they have probably overcome a big challenge. Now you need to either introduce a new problem or bid goodbye to the couple. The ending is here- they are kissing in the sunset, driving off together, or having babies, or figuring out life with its everyday struggles. You can either show that or not. Monica and Chandler, for example, saw beyond their wedding. The struggles of children and such. But the conflict of will our lovers get together had been replaced by others. Their love story had sort of changed essentially.

And there you have it. Best-friends-to-lovers.

Popular Scenes in the Trope

Now unlike enemies-to-lovers, there is no dagger scene here. However, the confession scene can be done in a myriad of ways that is just delicious. You can have the friends have a huge fight about one’s safety and then kiss.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because I love you.”

Or they can have a soft moment where they confess.

And of course, there are scenes where they protect each other or comfort each or talk which shows us their dynamic and love- but that’s standard for any romance. So what do you think? Besties-to-lovers is too bland for you? Or is the slow-burn, angst, fluff, and relatively healthy relationship that can develop in such scenarios too good to resist? Let me know in the comments below.

Want some help planning a best friends-to-lovers storyline? Find all this information in the style of a planner on Muses_Saga.

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