How to handle book with two love interests for my MC?

CWatts said:

Think about compatibility and the difference between Mr. Right vs. Mr. Right Now. Someone doesn't have to be a bad person to be wrong for you.

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Exactly. My character feels this when she makes her choice. "I love No. 2 too, but not enough. In a different way. I have a feeling that after a few years, the charm of his stories will fade, and he will become just another person like any other. What would I do then? I am attracted to him, but he isn't meant to be my everything. Just a friend, more special than all. With No. 1, we have been best friends before being lovers, and we are thinking in the same way. We would never get bored together."

I am also currently working on a ms with a love triangle. I agree with what others have said, that there should be a reason to like both options, but also not clear/obvious choice.

I kind of feel like I'm piling a cliche onto a trope, but the initial relationship began out of false pretences, and later blossomed into something real. But when the mc finds out, she's upset he never bothered to tell the truth and suddenly the other (more truthful) guy seems way more appealing. But then she also wonders if it should even matter how something began, if it turned into something real?

Basically, there are many, many options. I know some people loathe love triangles, but then there are always people like me who enjoy them.

Laer Carroll said:

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How would you handle such a story? Two great choices. Which to pick? How? How to tell the story?

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IMO, the key is in the conflict: Within the MC, between the MC and each suitor, and between the suitors. And it is better if you, just like the readers, don't know who she chooses until the end because that helps makes the conflict more interesting.

Marian Perera said:

Yes, it does. Kelly Jamieson's Rhythm of Three and Becca Jameson's Bound to be Taken came to mind at once. So did Maya Banks' Colters' Legacy, where the premise is that there are three sons in each generation and they all fall for the same woman.

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See also Tess Bowery's Rite of Summer and She Whom I Love (finally back in print!). The first is M/M/M and the second M/F/F. Also (maybe) Hannah Moskowitz's 3, but I haven't read that one yet.

Laer Carroll said:

Now I have a problem. She's met one hot guy and is getting closer to him. But another shows up competing for her attention.

How would you handle such a story? Two great choices. Which to pick? How? How to tell the story?

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What I *wouldn't* do:

* Don't kill one of them off. It's the easy way out, and long-term romance readers will call you on it. It can be done, but it'd have to be really original.

* Don't make one of them suddenly become evil. I've read some terrible books where the charming other man suddenly becomes abusive and violent, and it's ridiculous - and another copout.

* Don't pull a Stephenie Meyer and make one of them suddenly fall in love with the heroine's baby!