Ask An Author: "How would one write a love triangle without turning it into a major cliché?"

Each week, a new author will serve as your Camp Counselor, answering your writing questions. Andrea Hannah, our first counselor, lives in the Midwest, where there are plenty of dark nights and creepy cornfields to use as fodder for her next thriller. Her debut YA novel, Of Scars and Stardust, will be published in the fall.

How would one write a love triangle without turning it into a major cliché? — Anonymous

There’s a reason why love triangles are a trope in YA fiction. Let’s be honest: how many of you dated someone in high school but still had a crush on someone else? Or dated one guy and watched him drift out of the picture, only to have him drift back in once you moved on to someone else? Creating situations that are realistic and less obvious is the key to a love triangle that doesn’t feel cliché.

Write well-developed, multi-dimensional characters and a protagonist that has a different relationship with each, and you’re on your way to an interesting triangle. Just keep it realistic.

(Two of my favorite love triangles are Mat, Anna, and the boy she dates over the summer in Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, and Adam, Blue, and Gansey in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle series.)

Next week’s Camp Counselor will be Marivi Soliven, author of literary fiction novel  The Mango Bride .

Ask her your questions here!