How to use the enemies to lovers trope ⋆ Protagonist Crafts

First they were enemies and now they’re lovers – but how does that happen? How do you use the enemies to lovers trope well? If you want to learn how to do that and get some enemies to lovers writing prompts while you’re at it, keep reading!

You don’t need to write romance to use this trope – it works for the romance arc in a story of any genre. You can also use most of these tips if you want to write rivals to lovers instead.

From enemies to lovers – what is it?

In the enemies to lovers trope you have two characters who start as enemies and who learn to see each other differently and who also change as people because of the events of the story. In the end, they become lovers, but only because of the personal changes that they overwent.

The reasons why these characters are enemies can be very different but the reason shouldn’t be violence or outright abuse. The characters should be able to overcome the differences through personal change – you can’t undo murdering someone’s family. Sure, they can be mean and even a little cruel, and they definitely don’t have to be good people, but this trope isn’t about excusing or glorifying abusive behaviour. It’s about change.

Here are some better ideas for why your characters might be enemies:

Their life goals are mutually exclusive
Characters are from different groups who are supposed to be enemies, whether that’s rivaling families, different houses at the boarding school or from different social classes
One character takes something that the other character wanted
Because of external circumstances, one character gets ahead at the expense of the other character
The characters hurt each other somehow when they were children and didn’t know better
A friend or a family member of one character has hurt the other character
The characters perceive each other wrong because they don’t care to know each other better (yet)

And of course, if our enemies are rivals, they could be competing for success or victory in a way that only one of them can win.

Why do people enjoy reading enemies to lovers?

I’ve seen a very good theory on Instagram (probably originally on Tumblr or Twitter) that people like this trope because they love the idea of someone seeing their worst side and loving them anyway or even because of it. This is probably one very good reason.

Some people also really like to read about unlikely friends, so this trope kind of goes in the same category. First, it doesn’t make sense that they should be together, but then it makes perfect sense. There’s something really fun about reading something like that. There’s also a lot more conflict than in a regular romance arc which can be more fun to read if regular romance isn’t your cup of tea.

Personally, I like the idea that I could “win” someone’s affection somehow, and the enemies to lovers trope is a perfect example of something like that happening. The characters really need to earn each other’s love, it isn’t granted at all. We like imagining we are the characters we read about and what better use is fiction than to live a thousand different lives.

How do enemies turn into lovers?

Hopefully you’ve now figured it out that these characters don’t become lovers randomly, they need to change first. There are two kinds of change that need to happen:

They see each other differently because they’ve learned what the other person is really like
They change in some way that makes them better suited for each other or that removes an obstacle from between them

You need to arrange the events of your story so that these changes can happen, they can’t just come from nowhere. When you’re writing a story, the events always need to change your character, but when you’re using this particular trope, you need to engineer the right kind of change. You might even want to start from the end and reverse engineer it.

How your characters can learn to see each other differently

People make assumptions really quickly and first impressions matter a lot. We all know that we should look beyond the surface but in reality it’s not always so easy. In addition, we might like being misunderstood. We might present ourselves incorrectly on purpose.

Don’t forget, you don’t just need to convince your characters that they should be together – you need to convince your readers, too. You need to actually show the moments where your characters learn more about each other. Here are some ideas:

One character helps the other with something even if it doesn’t benefit the character who’s doing the helping – it might even have a detrimental effect
One character acts according to the other character’s values in a surprising way
They see each other’s human side for the first time and possibly by accident
One character acts differently than what the other character expected
One character clears a misconception that the other character had (but just one – more on that below)

Remember, these things need to happen gradually. You can’t just have one character go “oh, actually, you’re completely wrong about me, here’s the full explanation” because that would be unrealistic and it would destroy any actual need for this trope. Why is it unrealistic? Because people aren’t that self-aware. You’re not usually completely aware of why you dislike someone, even if you think you are, and you never know yourself so well that you could fully explain yourself to someone.

How your characters can change

Your characters don’t have to and most likely shouldn’t change completely as people. It’s just that they have flaws, past wounds and ongoing problems that are relevant to the story and that the need to overcome first. When you’re writing enemies to lovers, those things need to be related to this romance arc. You can read these blog posts to understand flaws better: Structuring your story the easy way, How plot and character work together, Start from your character.

Here are some ideas for how your characters can change over the course of the story:

One character sees the other character’s side of things and therefore their perception of the whole world changes
Their priorities change so they stop chasing their opposing goals (or at least one of them does)
They realise that the group that the other character represents isn’t that different after all, or at least not the root of all evil
They question the beliefs they’ve been brought up with
One character actually helped the other go through some sort of concrete change

With any love story, your characters need to stop choosing fear and choose love instead, as cheesy as that might sound. They need to get over something before they can give each other a chance, otherwise there’s no space for them being lovers.

How to go from rivals to lovers

Rivals to lovers is a little different because it’s so focused on mutually exclusive external goals. To make your rivals lovers, you essentially have two different options:

Have one character (or both of them) give up this external goal
Have your characters realise that winning or losing doesn’t change their relationship if they want to be together

Can you write enemies to lovers from a dual point of view?

As with any story, you can also choose to write enemies to lovers from both of the characters’ points of view. If you choose to do that, remember to follow the rules of writing from multiple POVs.

Even if you’re writing from both POVs, one of your characters might be more of a main character than the other. If so, you should do as you would do with just one POV. You see, with one POV, the other character has a little more work to do. We can’t have the POV character chase the other character or bend over backwards for them! If any convincing needs to be done, the other character needs to be doing it.

When it comes to changing and to seeing the other character differently, your POV character needs to see the other character differently more than they need to change, and the other character needs to change more than they need to see the POV character differently. Both characters need to be doing both of those things, just with a different emphasis. Why? Because usually that gives your reader a more enjoyable experience. Pretty much all fiction is wish fulfilment of some sorts.

Don’t be too quick to make them lovers

Like I stated earlier, change needs to be gradual. A lot of things need to happen in your story, both in the external layer (stuff unrelated to the romance) and internal layer (stuff related to the romance), before your characters can have each other.

All romance should be structured around getting closer to each other and then pulling away, getting closer again and then pulling away again before getting closer for good. You need to tease your reader with “ooh, now they’re finally gonna tell each other how they truly feel!” and “OMG they’re gonna kiss now” before any of those things are actually going to happen – it just isn’t the right time yet. Remember, these two people have loads of reasons not to be together, or at least, they think they do.

In a normally structured romance novel, the two characters don’t get together until they’ve gone through a dark time where they realise they really need to be together and they’re willing to make the sacrifices and changes that need to be made. This should happen at the same time as the story’s external layer’s dark times, so right before things are finally solved. If the external layer takes a lot of space and time, you can wait until that’s been dealt with before you put your characters together as lovers.

Make it make sense

This is important when you’re writing any kind of a romance arc but it’s especially important here: It needs to make sense that these characters end up together. Yes, we already talked about change, but this can’t be overemphasized. Make it make sense.

First of all, you need to make sure your characters spend enough time together. There needs to be some kind of forced proximity that puts them in each other’s company for extended periods of time. Maybe one character has hired the other character to deal with a problem, maybe they’re united by working on the same project or maybe they’re both been hit by the same disaster and they need to join forces to survive it.

Over the course of the story, there need to be signs of them going through a personal change – it can’t just happen all at once. Have them show mercy, cut some slack, look the other way and give instead of take every now and then.

Enemies to lovers writing prompts

I love creating writing prompts about different subjects so naturally I wanted to include some in this post as well. For my other writing prompts, you can check out my Etsy shop Writer Lifestyle or you can browse the various posts in this blog.

Here are some enemies to lovers writing prompts for you to use:

Your characters are both authors who are represented by the same agent, and one of them snatches a prestigious publishing deal right from under the other character’s nose
“I never thought you were stupid. In fact, I always envied you.”
The characters wield different types of magic that aren’t compatible with each other
Because of a deal their grandfathers made, character A owns character B’s family’s home and lands
Think of something that character A would never want to do, and them have them do that just to save character B
“Why would you give me this?” “It’s no big deal, I just noticed you looking at it. It’s not like I need it myself.”
Because they were too busy bickering with each other, they miss the flight to the school/work trip and they have to find alternative transportation together
She wants to impress her father by being a good boss at the family business and he’s the new employer who shows up late on his first day
“I haven’t hated you in a long time, I just didn’t know if you could forgive me.”
One character has worked hard to get where they are and the other character ends up there by accident
“I always knew you were beautiful but I could never make myself look at you until now.”

Get the enemies to lovers outline template to write your story the easy way

If you need help with writing your enemies to lovers story, I’ve got just the tool you need. Based on my bestselling romance novel template that has already been used by hundreds of writers, the enemies to lovers outline template gives you the steps to turning your enemies into lovers in a way that keeps your reader turning the pages. You’ll know exactly when to push your characters together and when to have them separated because of external circumstances.

You won’t have to worry about having your characters get together too soon or about not knowing what should happen in your story – this template solves all those problems.

The template is accessible on Google Docs and it comes with instructions for every important plot event so that you can plan your enemies to lovers story step by step. You can easily access it on any device and plot your story wherever you want.

Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.

How to use the enemies to lovers trope