What’s Your Character’s Love Language? (And Why Does it Matter?)

I’d like you to try this 5 Love Languages Quiz (it only takes a few minutes) and see what your love languages are. Once you’re done, think about a relationship you have with someone you love dearly—a family member or friend. Perhaps ask them to take the quiz to find out their exact love language. Now compare theirs to yours. What similarities do you possess, and can you see areas where there could be conflict?

For example, one of you might be an Acts of Service person while the other values Quality Time. What happens when the Acts of Service person spends a lot of time showing they care by doing thoughtful things such as doing the washing, doing the gardening or renovating the house for the Quality Time person, who would much prefer Acts of Service to sit down and be in the moment with them? Good intentions aside, this could cause an array of conflict and misunderstanding between two people.

This is where you can have a lot of fun devising various sources of conflict between characters. To discover your character’s love languages, take the quiz on their behalf and compare the answers to other characters in your story. This may help you find ways to make them allies, or you might find new ways to create barriers between them.

Love languages can vary depending on who your character is with. For instance, the protagonist’s main love language at work might be Words of Affirmation while their love language with their sister is Acts of Service. With their spouse it might be Physical Touch. The character may deeply love each of these people, but the message can get lost if they’re not speaking in a language that the other understands.

Love languages can also change based on the character’s stage of life. For someone who’s dating in their twenties, Physical Touch could be their love language. But in their forties, with a young family and a hectic work life, it might shift to Acts of Service.

Misunderstandings can easily occur when people are speaking two different verbal languages. You get the same result when people express and receive love differently. So taking some time to figure out the love languages for the important members of your cast can give you great ideas for how to bring them together or pull them apart.

What love language do you or your characters speak? Did the answers surprise you? 

Happy writing!

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