Introducing new love.

It's pretty common to move on within that sort of time period, actually (from what I've read/heard.) As such, I don't see it being a big issue.

Actually, I read somewhere in studying for my Hospice certification, it normally takes about 2 years to come to terms with loss and for grieving to settle into fond rememberence. YMMV.

I think it'd be realistic, but as a reader, if I had any positive feelings for the lover, I'd lose my respect for the MC.

Don't worry about whether the reader will be pleased with the character's decision. Write it however your heart feels the story should go. Characters should be just like real people--they have their faults, they do things we might not always agree with. As much as it might hurt to hear it, our characters, including the MCs, are not perfect.

It depends on how you write the developing relationship with the second guy. If I feel the connection and the sparks, it will be easier to accept the new relationship.

For a great example of what you're doing, read Megan Hart's Broken.

If she sees the friend as a refuge from her grief, and it gets more and more loving, then I could totally see it. Then there's the Sophie's Choice idea of sex as escape from pain (but I don't know how well that plays out for a relationship. Dunno).

In the end, if she doesn't take the idea lightly and is a fully developed character, you can convince your readers to understand her decision even if they don't agree with it, imho.

Just throwing in my two cents, here. As a reader, I, too, would hate/resent the MC for moving on so soon. Why do you have to kill the love interest? Couldn't he/she leave the plot in some other way that would let us develop forward with the MC? Coma, maybe? Cheap, but good.

One thing to consider ... how much 'book space' separates loving Guy One and loving Guy Two?

The reader needs the emotional separation of lots of story to accept both Love One and Love Two. In a way, it's less important whether six days or six months pass . . . what matters is the emotional journey the reader makes.

Fr'instance, if Guy One dies splendidly on page 364, and then you swing into an epilogue where the heroine marries this other great guy, three years later --
the reader is going to resent the betrayal. Emotionally, the reader hasn't been led through the journey to the new man.

So . . . do you go through the process of dramatizing the guy to guy move onstage?

Second possibility is to signal that the move is going to take place from Page One. Show how Guy Two is the one she should really love, not Guy One.

Your female protagonist doesn't have to see this. The reader sees this.

As a reference point, consider Casablanca. Two men. One woman. We go back and forth between those men and we're never mad at the woman because she loves both of them.

What if you just suggest the new relationship - like insinuate that it's going to happen, but don't actually show it?

Otherwise I think the reader will feel betrayed and super annoyed that the old love interest has been left so quickly in the dust.

Everyone reacts to death differently. When a very close family member in my family passed away a few years ago, I took the death relatively well, but my sister was devastated. We probably loved the person equally, but I was able to get over it by the time the funeral was over, but she was down in the pits for a couple of months.

Granted, the person wasn't a "love interest", but a family member, but I think similar rules apply for "moving on" and accepting the fact that the person won't be around anymore.

It all depends on how you build the character and how we as the reader feels they will deal with it, that makes it seem like it was too soon or not

Sure, everyone gets over a death at a different rate but four months to recover from losing the love of your life?

It takes years to "get over" someone, but it's not uncommon for those in committed relationships to actually seek out companionship faster than those who aren't. They're used to having someone else in their life and putting someone in the void is a coping mechanism.

I wonder how the second love interest would feel about being a placeholder boyfriend, then?

Now that could make for an interesting conversation.

Two years is considered "normal" for people who've been together for a while, like a spouse or a child. Four months is pretty quick for someone who was deeply in love, though. However, if the new love is "redemptive" and if the door closes on the possibilities of renewal, rather than the, er, consumation of the new love - i.e. the sun coming up again, a twinge of hope, a lessening of grief and the character is emotionally ABLE to see that life, after all, is what goes on... there shouldn't be as much hatred for character. In fact, if she's been through quite a lot, the readers might be relieved that she has something to look forward to. You may want to write it with her thinking that she COULD feel the same way as he does, rather than fully cognizantly ready to move on.

PoppysInARow said:

I want to have it so that Guy 2 really puts his moves on the girl on the second last chapter, and it's more implied that she feels the same way. There's not much more than a kiss.

So, you think it would be better if the reader favors guy 2 all the time? That might be difficult...

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I don't think two chapters is enough to transfer a great love from one man to another. You can write it so six months have passed or two years . . . but there isn't enough 'book time' to drag the reader through the emotional journey from one man to another.

This leaves you a couple three possibilities.

a) she is committed in different ways to the two men.

That is, she's always thought of Man Two as her 'Best Friend'. Man One she gets hot for. When Man One is out of the way, she sees Man Two more clearly.

Why didn't she love Man Two?

Man Two seemed unsteady/immature to her. Man One was much older. More like a father figure.
Then Man Two grows up in the course of the story. The female protagonist also grows and has no need of the father figure. Her move from one man to the other is facilitated by the death, but might have occurred anyway.

b) You emphasize a problem in the relationship with Man One. He has a flaw that would have made a long term relationship difficult.

The tragedy of his death is not just that he is gone, but that the relationship would never truly have worked if he'd lived.

c) You only hint at her shift from one man to the other.

You do not make the whole journey from one man to the other. You reveal the intention of the male -- perhaps only to the reader. The female protag's journey, however, still lies in the future, beyond the scope of the story.
This new relationship would stop short of a kiss, probably, because that's a long way on the journey.

Consider what you are really trying to get out of your ending. Do you want to show the heroine will have a safe harbor . . . ? That 'harbor' can be both the intention of the Guy Two to pursue her and her own newly-found strength.

Since you are not writing a Romance, you don't necessarily need to pair your characters up on the last page. The woman's growth or the woman's acceptance of her own strength or some other story conclusion gives the satisfactory ending, rather than a rushed and perhaps problematic pair bonding.

Okay, so I'm writing my novel, in which my MC is in love with this guy throughout most of the book. They get together very early on, and are together for most of the book. She works with this other guy for about the same amount of time. Their relationship goes from hating each other, to friends.

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So she's already known the other guy while she's with the MC? I may suggest putting in a characteristic towrds the 2nd love that's so attractive (personality/appearance-wise) that way the readers won't be too crushed at her getting over the 1st love. And by attractive, I don't necessarily mean attractive to the MC, but more like attractive to the readers, so although they're pulling for Love #1, they're also gonna pull, perhaps secretly, for Love#2. Good luck in pulling this off. Excuse the puns hehe. Just my two cents

I read a novel recently where this happened. It didn't work for me at all. I was very sad about the death of First Guy. Then the author tried to make it a sort of a forced HEA with the MC marrying New Guy. But I was like, MC, why aren't you honoring your feelings for First Guy? He was so good and you're jumping on someone else while his remains are still warm practically. I could understand the character going for a new guy who is substantially similar to the old guy, but I couldn't see that leading to happiness at all. For the author to imply that it was a healthy decision felt kind of like betrayal of my trust.