why don't we write love as a choice? | guest post by kellyn roth
- Grace A. Johnson
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
If you haven't had the pleasure and privilege of reading a post from Kellyn Roth yet...you poor, unfortunate soul. This girl is always dishing out bangers, and she's sharing another one with us today!
Today's post, to promote the launch of her latest release (and knock some sense into my fellow romance authors out there), is all about writing love as a choice. That is, portraying love, romance, and relationships as an active decision and intentional commitment that must be made, not just a vat of roses and champagne and sweet feelings you can fall into. Not only is it unrealistic and just plain nonsensical for your characters to just randomly fall in love and let their emotions sweep them away to happily ever after, it's also bad writing. Your characters should not be passive...but I'll let Kell get into that in a moment!
Hello folks! Kellyn Roth here, and today I’m here to write a guest post for Grace. This is to celebrate the launch of my novel, Like the Air After Rain. This is the second book in The Hilton Legacy trilogy, and it features a closed door, God-honoring marriage of convenience romance that discusses biblical marriage roles, acting in love even when it is difficult, and submitting our life and dreams to God.
Today I’m talking about a (yes, yet another) somewhat controversial topic—namely, a simple fact: oftentimes, love is not a feeling we fall into but a choice we make.
“But Kell,” say you, “that’s so unromantic!” I know, I know. And there’s space for romance … I mean, I argue there’s even space for romance in the choice to love, because oftentimes the things we do which are “romantic” are choices (actions) we make.
But even if a couple is perfectly in love, there will still be moments of choices, and the choice is not just “will I ignore my amazing, barely-resistable feelings—or won’t I?”
That said, a lot of romance novels ignore those choices. Either the choices aren’t available to the characters—or worse, the choices ARE available and the characters make all the wrong ones … and STILL get together at the end of the story!
Now, granted, having characters not love each other well and grow to do so is also a compelling character arc, but if that’s what you’re going for, it must be addressed within the story, and it must have consequences, or it lacks actual weight.
With all this in mind, let’s dive into love as a choice ... and why it’s so important to romance novelists who want to portray realistic relationships.
Part 1: The Heart is Desperately Wicked
Feelings are unreliable. We all know this. How many times have our hearts led us astray? And there’s a biblical reason for this, of course:
“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?”
(Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV)
Love described biblically (such as in 1 Corinthians 13) is action-based. The verse we all memorized in kindergarten was:
“For God so loved the world THAT He gave His only begotten Son …”
(John 3:16 NKJV, emphasis added)
Because God loved us, He saved us.
Because we love Him, we obey Him.
Because we love our spouses (or spouses-to-be), we make other choices …
And a love without those choices is a dead love, much as a Christian life without obedience to God is dead.
Real marriages rely on commitment and daily choosing not only of each other, but of a Christian lifestyle. Christians in a marriage must fight their old sins and grow toward God if they hope to love each other effectively. This requires a lot of discipline—and a lot of choices.
Part 2: What Does the Choice Look Like?
This is the fun part: it looks different for every couple! Sometimes it’s very hard, and sometimes it’s easy, but regardless, the way we love reflects the individual God created—unique but all the more precious for it.
In general, the choice to love someone includes:
Putting their needs above your own
Serving each other even when it’s inconvenient
Choosing to forgive offenses rather than hold grudges
Commitment and loyalty (even when it’s neither exciting nor fulfilling)
Of course, there’s more to it than that, but those are the “bare minimum,” in simple terms.
If you’ve been around on the internet long enough, you’ll have seen two types of posts, both of which I find interesting.
You’ll see Christian couples talking about how hard it is to be married, how difficult every step is, and how people who talk positively about their spouses are being inauthentic …
And you’ll see Christian couples talking about how, with the right person, it’s easy and conflict-free, and you shouldn’t be in a relationship where your spouse causes you trouble.
I think reality lies somewhere in the middle. On one hand, you should be very careful in your choice of spouse! You shouldn’t marry someone you hate, or someone you don’t care about, or someone who has no commonalities or interests with you. There’s a lot of pain to be found for those who ignore that completely (trust me, I know; I’m a marriage of convenience girlie).
On the other, no matter how careful you are, no matter how “in love” you are, life is going to happen, and there is no such thing as a perfect person. What matters is the grace and care we give each other when those moments of hardness come about. And we all recognize that it is the opposite of loving to abandon someone just because they don’t make your life perfectly easy and effortless. Real people are not easy and effortless all the time, and real love isn’t either.
So there will be a choice, regardless of who to marry—and it’ll be an easy choice sometimes and a hard one other times. And sometimes that choice is to love someone, actively, who in that moment does not feel very worthy of your love.
That said, let’s get back on track and talk about CHARACTERS and ROMANCE because that’s what I came here to talk about all along.
Part 3: Portraying the Choice to Love in Romance Novels
Sure, it’s fine and dandy to say that love is a choice, and to show how that may happen in real life, but we’re writing (and reading!) romance novels. When a lot of our examples are more based on fleeting emotions, it can be hard to think what a romance that actually shows characters choosing to love each other could be like.
Here are a few of the biggest tips I’ve come up with for portraying the choice to love in romance novels … without making it so unromantic that everyone thinks your story is super lame and boring.
1 | Show active decision-making.
This is a basic “good character” rule. Your characters need to not just be dragged along by whatever tide happens to catch them! They need to be actively involved in the story, and they need to make active decisions.
In a romance, write scenes where the character must act lovingly despite difficulty. On the flip side, shows scenes where they DON’T and let the consequences for those actions be realistic—and a little painful. After all, even though we don’t like it, pain does often create change.
2 | Allow for growth through conflict.
Conflicts in a relationship are not and should not be portrayed as signs that the characters’ love isn’t real. They are instead opportunities to choose to act lovingly. The way a couple handles conflict can say a lot about where they’re at in the relationship—and showing them not handling it early on, and growing through that, is an epic way to bring reality to your story.
3 | Show realistic consequences.
I’m not a huge fan of the third act breakup for this reason, because what reasonable woman hates a man at 75% of the book and then is suddenly marrying him at the end? Granted, it can be done well, but I feel like it’s better to have the “big bad” at the end be something other than relationship drama or, if it is relationship drama, have it be anything but “I hate him because he just revealed he’s the wealthy handsome duke I’ve been writing secret letters to, and this breaks my heart.”
That random tangent aside, using real life as a guide, show realistic consequences for the actions your characters take in the story. And if you’re not sure what reality looks like for your characters, don’t be afraid to ask friends and family! Some of them have probably gone through something similar.
4 | Most of all: don’t portray love as some invisible but irresistible force!
Okay, okay, sometimes it can feel like that. I admit I’ve had a crush or two that have been something else: a sudden moment where my stomach hurts and I’m mysteriously sweaty and I can’t stop thinking about that one cute boy. (Honestly, it really sucks. 0/10, do not recommend, and I say that as someone who married probably my third or fourth crush.)
But that fades. I’ve had cases where it took a couple months to fade, and cases when it took years, but it does fade. And regardless of if it’s replaced by deeper feelings or if it just disappears on its own, there are choices that lead to that.
For me, crushes that faded happened because either the guy in question wasn’t all I thought he was, or because I decided I wasn’t actually as interested as I thought I was, and both of those are based on mental conclusions that involved a series of choices.
And from what I understand, from talking to others, the crushes that don’t fade come because you choose to invest yourself, mentally and emotionally, into said crush.
Yes, there are romantic ways to write this, but I argue that one of them is not the “love means we can’t help ourselves” route. That’s not based on anything real, and certainly it’s not based on anything biblical. We always have choices in life—it’s what we do with them that determines the kind of person we are!
In Conclusion
There’s a depth to the stories I’ve read that show both the butterflies and joys of relationships alongside the trials and the choices the characters make to love each other are the BEST.
In all honesty, it is those choices that give our stories the truly swoony romances where the hero or the heroine decides to do something difficult or unlike themselves to make their hero or heroine happy.
Thank you for taking the time to read this guest post, and thank you to Grace for hosting me here!
(Boy, it's been a long time since I did a blog tour. 😅)
Like the Air After Rain is a Victorian era historical romance novel, complete with a marriage of convenience and a (small) age gap, and is the second installment in The Hilton Legacy (which is the spin-off series of The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy). It just released last Thursday and is now available for purchase in ebook, paperback, and hardcover formats! You can also purchase it in a bundle with book 1, Like a Ship on the Sea, and receive a candle and bookmarks.
What if nothing’s left after the storm fades?
Aubrey Montgomery has three problems: the care of his adolescent sisters, the managing of his household, and his own loneliness. Over two years have passed since he was rejected by Cassie Hilton. Although he no longer trusts himself to love a woman properly, he could settle for an amicable partnership—if the right woman came along.
Lorelei Hilton only has one problem that she knows of: her manipulative and controlling father is arranging a marriage to a spineless boy in order to maintain the family business—and keep it out of her very determined, very female hands. But if Lorelei can’t force her way through a door, she’ll crawl in a window. To rescue herself and her sister, she sails off to England in search of a man with the gumption to stand up to her father.
After a chance meeting and an intense contract negotiation, Lorelei and Aubrey agree to a marriage of convenience. As they grow closer and struggle through the trials of their utilitarian arrangement, Aubrey is left with a question. Can the sacrament of marriage be entirely practical—or is there something otherworldly about it?
Like the Air After Rain is the second novel in The Hilton Legacy, a stand-alone trilogy featuring characters from the author’s first series, The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy.
And don't miss the opportunity to enter the two launch giveaways! Check out Kellyn or Wild Blue Wonder Press on Instagram for a giveaway, and enter the blog tour giveaway below for a chance to win paperback copies of all six books in The Chronicles of Alice and Ivy series + the first two books in The Hilton Legacy series. Open internationally.
If you're interested in reading Kell's other equally amazing guest posts, check them out below!
And if you'd like more content about Like the Air After Rain, follow the tour across blogs and social media.
Thursday, May 1st (LAUNCH DAY)
Intro Post & Giveaway at Kellyn Roth, Author (Lilacs & Reveries Blog)
Interview with Michaela Bush at Tangled Up in Writing (Blog)
Friday, May 2nd
Interview with Sara A. Thren (Instagram)
Book Review with M.C. Kennedy (Instagram)
Book Review with E.G. Bella (Instagram)
Saturday, May 3rd
Book Spotlight with Lydia Smith (YouTube)
Book Spotlight with Abby McKenna (Instagram)
Sunday, May 4th
Rest Day!
Monday, May 5th
Character Interview (Lorelei) with Courtney at Pens, Pages, & Pulses (Blog)
Guest Post (Writing Characters You Don’t Agree With) with Katja @ Little Blossoms for Jesus (Blog)
Book Spotlight with @reading_is_my_remedy (Instagram)
Book Spotlight with Abigail Hawthorne (Instagram)
Tuesday, May 6th
Guest Post with Lillian Keith (Blog)
Book Review with Jana T. at Reviews from the Stacks (Blog)
Book Spotlight with Olivia Godfrey (Instagram)
Guest Post with Grace A. Johnson (Blog)
Wednesday, May 7th
Review (Like the Air After Rain) with Sara A. Thren (Instagram)
Interview with Cate V. @ Southern Story Scribbler (Blog)
Guest Post (Writing Imperfect Characters with Purpose) with Emma Donovan (Instagram)
Character Interview (Lorelei) with Saraina Whitney (Instagram)
Be sure to follow Kell and connect with her through her website, newsletter, Instagram, and more! She's such a talented author and precious person, and I can't wait for you to discover her books if you haven't yet, or at least crack open her newest one.
Happy reading!
Thank you for sharing this, Grace! I wasn't sure what I was going to write so I just like, sat for a bit, thinking about my dumb characters, until an idea came into my mind! :P
But yes, I sooo love stories that position love as a choice! Yes, it can be romantic, and it can involve feelings, but it is not a universal but irresistible emotion!