If you’ve ever found yourself in a new romantic relationship, you probably know that there are three tiny words that can make or break it all: “I love you.”
Those three little words can wreak havoc on anyone.
Should you say, “I love you”? What if the person doesn’t love you back? What do you do if someone says “I love you”? Do you have to say the same? What if you’re in the friend zone and you want to tell the other person? Should you?
Will those simple words create a lifelong love affair, or will they ruin the friendship forever?
So many agonizing questions. So many emotions.
Thankfully, you don’t have to deal with any of that right now. Your only task is to write about love, not actually worry about the messy process of being in love.
Though writing about love can be just as messy (and sometimes just as painful) as being in love, I’m here to ease the pain by providing a few tips on how to write an essay about love.
I’ve also included topic ideas to get you started with an awesome essay (which will hopefully ensure you don’t end up broken-hearted when you get your essay back).
Tips for Writing an Essay About Love
If you’re writing an essay about love, it can be easy to just write gushing, flowery prose about someone you love, but these types of papers can turn into a long, rambling, cheesy mess.
To avoid this pitfall, follow the two important tips below.
Don’t be too sappy or too bitter
If you’re in love, everything can seem dreamy. It can feel like walking on air, like floating with the clouds, as sweet as strawberry cotton candy.
If you’ve just fallen out of love (or if someone has just fallen out of love with you), it can be quite the opposite. It’s more like wallowing in a muddy pit of self-pity, like you’re enveloped in despair, like you’ll never climb out of the abyss that is your broken heart.
Yeah. It can be pretty melodramatic.
But you’ll sound more than a little sappy or bitter if you write about love in this way.
So how can you write about love if you don’t write about every gut-wrenching feeling you’ve ever had? Try looking at things a little more objectively.
No matter how awesome your new love is, no one is perfect. Include, or even focus on, something a little less sappy and a little less positive, like how your love’s habit of always checking Instagram at lunch drives you insane.
Writing about these characteristics makes your love a little more human and your relationship a little more realistic.
If you absolutely can’t write about your love (or former love) without spilling out every emotion, you might consider another angle for your essay about love.
Write about something other than romantic love
If your assignment states that you absolutely must write about romantic love, well then you must. But if your assignment guidelines are a little more open, then consider writing about another type of love.
Think back to when you were a child and how much you loved your teddy bear, truck, or blanket. Think about how you loved a superhero so much that you actually wanted to become that superhero.
Did your favorite toy help you through some tough childhood days? Did your superhero teach you something or even help shape you as an adult?
Consider the love you have for your parents, grandparents, siblings, or friends. Sure, sometimes these relationships can be love-hate relationships, but they certainly impact you and shape your views on the world.
And of course, what about the love you have for your pets? Pets are often considered family members (and, let’s face it, are sometimes even more lovable than actual family members).
The point here is that the topic of love is wide-reaching, so look for unique ways to approach the subject.
Stuck? Can’t think of anything original? Keep reading for a few topic ideas organized by essay type.
Topic Ideas for an Essay About Love
This list includes three different essay types and topic ideas for each type of essay. Keep in mind that many of these topics can work for a number of different types of papers, so feel free to rework the ideas to fit your assignment.
If you’re in need of even more inspiration, I’ve also linked to a few example papers.
Argumentative/persuasive essay topic ideas
When writing an argumentative essay or persuasive essay, your goal is to convince your audience. You might convince them through use of personal examples or use evidence from sources (depending on assignment requirements).
Here are a few topics to consider:
- Is love a real emotion or merely a chemical reaction?
- Are people happier when they’re in love?
- Is being in love worth the trials and tribulations that come with it?
- Can arranged marriages ultimately become love marriages?
- Do teen romances affect future romantic relationships?
Descriptive essay topic ideas
Descriptive essays, of course, describe something or someone. Descriptive essays usually don’t focus on visuals alone, though. They include additional senses, and if you’re describing a person, you’ll likely describe personality and character traits.
Read How to Write a Descriptive Essay That Is Expressive and What Is Descriptive Writing, and How Can It Improve Your Essay? to learn more about writing a great descriptive essay.
Here are few options for things you could describe:
- The love of your life: Move beyond physical description. Consider describing traits like her generosity, her kindness, or her quirky sense of humor.
- What it feels like to be in love.
- Your ideal love: Does your ideal love meet a specific physical description? Should your ideal love have specific personality characteristics? Are there traits that he or she should definitely not possess?
- Your first love: Here, you might consider writing about how much you loved a toy as a child, the time you were in love with a celebrity, or your actual first crush or relationship.
- How you viewed love as a child: You might consider how media influenced your views or how your parents’ relationship affected your views or your own relationships.
Literary analysis essay topic ideas
When you write a literary analysis, you need to do more than write about the plot. You need to take apart the literature and analyze it, bit by bit, to see what it all means.
In need of a quick refresher on writing an effective literary analysis? Check out How to Write a Literary Analysis That Works and 15 Literary Terms You Need to Know to Write Better Essays.
Here are a few topic ideas:
- Explain various types of love portrayed in Romeo and Juliet.
- Compare and contrast how different characters experience love. (See the example essay Women’s Experiences of Love in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Wuthering Heights to see how one writer tackles the topic.)
- Analyze the Romantic Era and love poetry.
- Examine both love and jealousy in Othello.
- Analyze love in dystopian literature.
Bonus tip: If you’re writing a compare and contrast essay, you might compare your love to someone in literature or compare your relationship to a famous literary couple.
An Everlasting Love
I’m sure there are at least of few of you who haven’t exactly fallen in love with writing essays and don’t love spending hours crafting the perfect phrase.
If you don’t, that’s quite all right.
Check out 5 Hacks to Make Writing an Essay Way More Fun. Hopefully, these tips will help get you through essay writing, so you can at least love the grade you get on your assignment.
Finished your essay but still aren’t in love with the finished product? Send your paper to the editors at Kibin. We love words, writing, and most of all, helping students craft the best essays possible.
