Most everyone has heard of Pride and Prejudice. It is the go to example for romantic tension done well. Since being published in 1813, it has had several film adaptations. Many have tried to copy this idea of Enemies to Lovers: in books, in television, in movies, etc.…The same issue can be found in almost any of the more modern so called Enemies to Lovers relationships, which is why Jane Austen’s novel is still number one in my book for doing it right. Let’s take a look at why I think that.

You have to understand the necessary components of a Enemies to Lovers Relationship.

-Real Enemies to Lovers: One of the things most writers fail to do is give us a good example of two people who actually can’t stand each other but end up falling in love. You might say there’s lots of examples of male and female characters not liking each other and becoming a couple, (it’s all over television) but there’s a difference in the portrayal. What I usually witness in modern portrayals is a girl who meets a guy she finds incredibly attractive, but doesn’t like his attitude. Now you could argue Elizabeth finds Darcy attractive when she sees him and his superior attitude is what turns her off. There’s the key thing, though: His supercilious attitude TURNS HER OFF.

Other female characters stare at the guy’s looks and then, upon getting to know them a little better, claim they are turned off but their actions say otherwise. They continue to desire after the object of their so called hate. Lusting after a guy while turning your nose up at him isn’t real enemies to lovers and it’s one of the things I HATE most about bad overused tropes in media and Fiction. If you really hate someone, it doesn’t matter how attractive they are. Jane Austen understood this. Attraction is a feeling, but it can be overcome by a stronger feeling. Media overplays the feeling of attraction (so viewers can feast on sexual tension) but they underplay the actual hate part. You end up going from a Lustful relationship that badly feigns indifference to one of Sexual Gratification. Sexual tension should be underplayed (Less is More). If your characters are panting and staring at each other the entire time while bantering, I don’t buy the hate aspect of the relationship. They’ve been wanting to sleep with each other the whole show, so it’s no biggie when they actually do (no surprising line was crossed). All you’ve shown me at that point is characters giving in to desire.

You have to earn the right to a satisfying romantic conclusion by first having your character’s really hate (or dislike) each other. To transition from truly disliking someone to wanting them—that’s a tough and intriguing relationship to build.

-Real Reasons: Your characters need REASONS to hate each other. He accidentally knocked over my books in the classroom or he thinks he’s all that but minds his own business ARE NOT REAL REASONS.

• When Elizabeth’s sister says, Mr. Darcy has everything to be proud of, Lizzy responds with, “I could easily forgive his pride, had he not mortified mine.” She agrees Darcy has every reason to be proud: he’s wealthy, he’s handsome, he’s from a fine family, but he insulted her deeply. There’s her reason. Darcy mocked her in public when he didn’t even know her and she’d done nothing to him. She hates him because of this personal insult and proceeds to avoid and think ill of him for a large part of the novel. Her reasons are believable and not made up for convenience sake, so she can claim hate for attention’s sake all the while feeding a physical attraction. In other words:

  - Elizabeth doesn’t like Darcy because he’s rude, arrogant and insensitive.

  -She ISN’T pretending to not like Darcy all the while secretly harboring feelings or desiring him.

• Darcy is proud, he’s raised to be such. Therefore, he looks down on people and has no wish to socialize with strangers. “I do not have the talent of conversing easily with people I have never met before.” I always related to Darcy in this. At a party, I would most likely be the wallflower trying to avoid conversation so I get where Darcy is coming from. The women at every ball are also very interested in gossip and who has the most money, so his distrust is not entirely unjustified. Elizabeth’s family are no exception to this rather uncouth behavior so Darcy lumps her together with them in his judgment.

  -Real Transitions from one feeling to another:

• Like I said earlier, if your characters have been panting for each other the whole thing and then enter into a physical relationship, it’s not much of a jump. However, if your characters were supposed to hate each other and now they’re looking like they might kiss, we need to see what key moments in the story led up to the change. What did the characters do that made them start looking at each other differently?

• The “Oh, Mister Darcy, moment,” (the moment she realizes she’s in love with him) should be clear. Elizabeth’s transition takes place in the 1940’s version when Darcy explains himself, answering the charges she brought against him earlier on in her rejection of his proposal. The same stands true for the novel, except she reads it in his letter. Her opinion of him changes when she considers the possibility that his reasons were more justified than she thought. She also notices the respectful way he treats her aunt and uncle and the love he shows his baby sister. In the novel, Elizabeth really falls for him when she gets the news of her sister and he stays by her as a rock of support. She falls more deeply in love when she learns of what he did for her sister, in hunting her down and making Mr. Wickham marry her.

• Darcy’s transition is harder to pinpoint, but we see him paying more attention to Elizabeth over an indeterminable amount of time. It isn’t sudden. In his own words, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.”

  Neither character is perfect:

  As the name of the novel suggests, it deals with two kinds of faults: Pride and Prejudice.

• Elizabeth allows prejudice to blind her from seeing Darcy’s better traits and he lets Pride damage any chance he has with her. Both characters have a fatal flaw and the way their relationship plays out is a necessary consequence of those flaws.

• Elizabeth is not perfect. I’ve seen too many female characters in the hate to love trope striving for perfection. Lizzy makes mistakes. She judges Darcy too quickly; and, as a result, is too easily fooled by Wickham’s negative opinion of him. She’s ready to believe anything bad of Darcy after the way he insulted her so she jumps to conclusions and assumes his guilt in everything.

• Darcy has to be humbled by Elizabeth’s rejection in order to change. He may have done nothing wrong in his dealings with Wickham, but he did allow his pride to get in the way when he speaks to Elizabeth. He doesn’t realize how demeaning and insulting he comes off in the way he proposes.

• Also, CHARACTER’S MUST CHANGE BEFORE REAL LOVE CAN DEVELOPE. Darcy has to acknowledge his pride as a failing, as well as his initial aversion to Elizabeth and her family before he can become worthy of her affection. Unlike the Keira Knightly version, Elizabeth and Darcy never come close to kissing until one changes. If Elizabeth were to almost kiss Darcy when she believes he’s an arrogant jerk who hates her family, it makes her seem like she’s only being driven by selfish desire or physical feelings and not love. In the book, and in the 1940 version, Darcy must clear his good name with her and explain himself before meriting her respect or her affection.

  If you want us to believe your leading lady doesn’t want the jerk for his bad qualities, you need to show us she begins to desire him only when he exhibits good ones.

  Pride and Prejudice stands alone when it comes to Enemies to Lovers. It is one of my favorite stories, and my personal favorite romance. Others may make cheap attempts to be Elizabeth and Darcy but they only scratch the surface of what it means to get down and dirty with a REAL Hate to Love relationship.

  -Hannah