the vampire diaries fanfic writing tips

✧ bonnie bennett as a love interest

requested by mrsbennettromanoff

so i will admit, i'm not the biggest fan of most of bonnie's relationships so i'm not sure how great this will be, but i'll try my best.

so what i think is important in having a love interest for bonnie is taking into account how much bonnie cares for them vs how much she cares for other people.

because we all know that bonnie is willing to sacrifice herself for other people and sacrifice her happiness.

so one thing that really needs to be worked on is, is she going to put this person first? will she? will she not be able to?

now this might just be my opinion, but i don't think a relationship will last long if they don't put each other first, at least in the vampire diaries.

examples?

hayley and elijah. elijah couldn't put her before his family.

tyler couldn't put caroline first.

stefan and caroline struggled because stefan couldn't put her first. even in the end, he didn't, she respected that, but in the end they weren't together because of that.

couples that worked?

kol and davina. he put her above his family.

rebekah and marcel only after new orleans and her family were taken out of the equation.

if the love interest doesn't expect that, for example, camille didn't expect klaus to put her above his family, then it's not as much of an issue, but i don't think you'll get a unique fanfic or a unique version of bonnie if you do that.

now, she did try to put her foot down when damon asked for the cure from elena to use against someone in season 8 (sorry the details are a little fuzzy for me on that) because she was in love.

this was different because it's not something we really saw from bonnie. she usually did sacrifice her happiness for other people, but this time she stopped to think and was a little more hesitant. but ultimately she did agree.

and so i think when crafting a love interest, if you want them to become bonnie's number one, i think a strong connection needs to establish. one that rivals her connection to her friends.

maybe this is just my opinion, but i'm pretty certain that if bonnie had to choose between saving enzo's life or saving elena's, she'd choose elena.

and so i think that when creating a love interest with bonnie, you need to create someone who she has a strong connection with. someone who will become her number one and will fight for her.

and i think there's two ways that can be done.

1. they're childhood friends. a bit of an easy way. i don't think i need to explain. if they're childhood friends, they'll have that same connection.

2. you have someone who really makes bonnie think about her life/herself, who encourages her to be a bit more selfish, for lack of a better word. someone who helps her realize she doesn't always have to do everything for everyone.

and let me clarify something.

this does not mean that this person isolates her from her friends. that's not good and not what i mean. it's perfectly okay for her to have those friendships and for them to be strong, but to recognize she needs to think about her life and the person she loves too.

and this is why i think bonnie would benefit from being with someone who is a little more on the careless/selfish side. maybe not someone who is katherine pierce level selfish, but if you can make it work.

and i think it's why a lot of people ship her and kol. i never really got into the ship, but from when i see work from people who do, what i've noticed is that people who do ship them often do have him teach her to become less selfless in a sense. i would really suggest seeing what they've done or reaching out to them because they create whole fanfics based on like a two second scene. i never read one directly, but i've seen them appear in other fanfics or heard people talk about them, and they seem to have a good handle on it. much better than i do.

now the thing about bonnie is that her love life isn't as focused on as other characters. she has two main interests: jeremy and enzo. neither of which were given the amount of attention as say caroline and tyler or elena and damon.

which makes it very difficult to shape her as a love interest.

i personally didn't like season 7 and 8 so i only watched them once, but i do remember this weird flashback thing in season 7 and then suddenly bonnie and enzo were together, it was very messy in my opinion.

enzo does influence bonnie to take care of herself in some way, but it's kinda towards the end when she goes to see the world.

but i think that it would be good for bonnie to have a love interest who takes care of her and makes sure she focuses on herself too and thinks more about what she wants.

as a love interest, she's obviously loyal. sometimes to a fault, which is something that you could potentially explore. for example, a love interest might not like that she's risking her life all the time.

she doesn't seem to be dependent on anyone, but i think it would be nice for her to have someone she can lean on when she needs to. because she doesn't really have that in the show. she has friends, like elena for example, but elena also has like a hundred things to worry about at once, so i think having a love interest whose only concern is bonnie would be good for her.

with that in mind, you might consider giving her a love interest who isn't (or wasn't when they met) particularly close with her friends. just a thought. not necessarily someone who hates her friends though, i really don't know if she could be able to be with someone who hurt the people she loves.

she doesn't seem like the really romantic type. not in the sense that she doesn't enjoy it but that she doesn't usually plan big romantic gestures, but i think she'd like someone who did that. for example, enzo taking her to paris (i think it was paris) made her really excited.

i think a love interest who challenges her in some way could be interesting. someone who makes her see the world differently, and think about her life and what she wants, because that's not something she ever really does in the show.

i think that upon first meeting, bonnie would probably be nice, she doesn't seem like the most difficult person to win over as long as the person she's meeting doesn't give her a reason to not like them, i don't think it would be hard to befriend her. and i don't think she's someone who is really hesitant to trust, so i think if the initial meeting was special it would help you write them more easily.

but if you were going for a slow burn, i would definitely recommend it being with a person who she doesn't know if she can trust immediately, not necessarily someone who's evil, just someone who maybe comes in in a different context. for example, maybe they're a vampire because bonnie has been shown to be hesitant around vampires, especially in the earlier seasons. she was like that around her own friends (caroline). maybe when they meet there's a personality clash, something like that.

i hope this helps. if i think of anything else i'll make sure to do another chapter. if you need clarification on anything specific or have a question, feel free to comment and let me know!