Introduction
Welcome!
Today’s post will explore love languages and how we can use them in our writing to express characters’ emotions.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
Love Languages
Popularized by Gary Chapman in his 1992 book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, love languages are how people show their affection for others.
According to Chapman, everyone expresses and receives love in one of five ways or languages, which I’ll discuss next.
First up is Words of Affirmation, i.e. compliments. If this is your love language, then your heart flitters when your significant other says they love you or gives you words of encouragement. To you, words speak louder than actions.
Next is Quality Time. In this love language, it’s all about spending time with your partner and showering them with your undivided attention. If this is your love language, then a quiet night in with a candlelight dinner and massage would be your jam.
Third is Gift Giving, in which people show and express their love by giving presents. If this is you, then your heart swells at the thought of your partner dropping mad stacks on you, or you doing the same for them.
Fourth is Acts of Service, whereby you do things for others. For examples, growing up, my mother would often go without eating, so I and my siblings had enough to eat. On a less serious end, this could mean changing your partner’s oil, mowing the lawn, or doing the dishes for them.
Last is Touch, where you express your affections via hugs, holding hands, cuddling, kissing and sex.
While Chapman argues people have one love language, I am a mix of Touch and Acts of Service. But how can we use love languages in fiction to express our characters’ feelings for each other without having them constantly shouting “I love you!”?
I’ll explore this next.
Uses in Fiction
But why is it important to have your characters do and say things other than I love you to show they care about each other?
Several reasons.
First, it comes back to the old age of show don’t tell. If you don’t show us two or more characters love each other, then no amount of I-love-you’s or kissing fests will prove it otherwise. You must build the chemistry between the love interests, and this is where the love languages come into play.
Second, use of love languages allows you to show the love interests’ building relationship. You can start by having characters do acts of service for each other or hold hands, then transition to cuddling or hugging as they’re relationship intensifies.
Third, using love languages makes for richer reading.
No one wants to read endless pages of characters declaring their undying love for each other if that’s the only way they express their feelings. For example, in my debut novel Palingenesis, Travis expresses love via acts of service, while his boyfriend Josh expresses it through touch. This makes for complications as Travis is touch adverse.
Fourth, they allow you to flesh out character personalities. For example, you could have a stoic character whose love language is Words of affirmation, or you could have a shy character whose love language is Touch or acts of Services and makes a grand romantic gesture in public.
Fifth, we can use them to show how a character cares about someone by having their actions at odds with their words.
An example of this in anime/manga is the tsundere trope, where one character starts out gruff/mean to everyone else, but slowly warms to their love interest. Travis is this to a T, while Josh is a textbook yandere, a character that starts off sweet and innocent before morphing into an obsessive often psychotic one.
Another example from my childhood is Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold, who bullies Arnold, yet has a shrine to him in her closet made of his discarded trash. There’s even an episode where she sees a therapist who points out how obsessed she is with Arnold and asks if she loves him.
Helga blows her off, but it’s clear from her actions and words she loves Arnold.
Other examples of this include how the writers of Supernatural often had Dean and Castiel joke about being boyfriends or had other characters comment on their close relationship for ten years, culminating in Castiel’s confession to Dean that he loved him in the second from last episode of the series.
They promptly sent Castiel to super hell, but my point is the confession wouldn’t have the effect it did had the writers not used loved languages; most notable by having Dean and Castiel sacrifice themselves for each other several times over the years.
Contrast this with Harry and Ginny, whose relationship had zero chemistry or page time dedicated to it. Harry goes from not even noticing her in Order of the Phoenix, to being obsessed with her in Half-Blood Prince. Hell, Harry and Draco had more chemistry. And even though I’m a Harry/Hermione shipper, I readily admit Hermione and Ron had more chemistry than Harry and Ginny.
Sorry, rant over.
But this leads me to my next point.
Romantic Tension
As I mentioned above, we can use love languages can to build romantic tension, as done in series like The X-Files, Law & Order: SVU, Bones, and other shows built on will they or won’t they.
If Booth and Brenan didn’t rush into danger to save each other, if Mulder and Scully didn’t gaze longingly at each other, their eventual confessions of love wouldn’t have the same effect it did.
By using Touch, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, etc. the writers could keep audiences hooked for years.
But not all love need be romantic.
Ace/Aro Rep
We can also use love languages to express platonic relationships, too. One of my favorite platonic ships is Yusuke Urameshi and Kuwabara Kazuma. Heterosexual platonic life mates, they show their affection through Touch, namely fighting each other. Hie and Karama also get a shout out as demon bros for life. Goku and Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z are similar, in that they start out as rivals before becoming friends who would sacrifice themselves for the other.
But my all-time favorite platonic relationship is that between the boys from Stand By Me. There’s something so wholesome about watching them laugh and joke around with and stand up for each other. A lot of writers could learn from this movie.
But I digress.
Conclusion
Let me end this by stating emphatically, there is nothing wrong with having your characters say, “I love you.” But this shouldn’t be the only way they express their feelings for each other. Have them run the other a bath, do their taxes, rub their feet after a long day at the cash register, buy them feminine products when they’re low, give them a pep talk when they’re down, buy them their favorite chocolates or that outfit they’ve been eyeing, and say I love you!
Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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