Writing Love

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I just think that the idea of a romantic relationship never being unstable is completely unrealistic. There's always something going on that could lead people to separate. Always. Even outside influence such as a family member's death. Anything could cause it, really. But I rest my case.

True. But the story need not include or focus on that.

 

[FifthView]

I just think that the idea of a romantic relationship never being unstable is completely unrealistic. There's always something going on that could lead people to separate. Always. Even outside influence such as a family member's death. Anything could cause it, really. But I rest my case.

About fifteen years ago, maybe a little less, I was with my mom and I suddenly realized something, so I asked her, "Have you and Dad ever fought? I can't remember you ever really fighting?"

And she said, Nope. Although she did add that they'd had maybe three big disagreements. But these weren't relationship-threatening, apparently. And three big disagreements in what would have been about 30 years of marriage at that time is rather remarkable. I thought so, at least.

Supposing that the world is chockablock full of potential spoilers, it's reasonable to create a fictional marriage and throw these things at it, with the goal of exploring those aspects and possibly ending that fictional marriage. But I don't think it's reasonable to say that every marriage will encounter an irresolvable, marriage-ending catalyst, nor even that every marriage is riddled with fault lines and only the very lucky ones avoid splitting. A fictional story only need span a reduced timeline in any case, i.e. not encompass 70 years of life for the characters, and I don't see the absolute need for throwing these things at the marriage in order for an entertaining and enjoyable story to be created.

 

[TheKillerBs]

True. But the story need not include or focus on that.

It wouldn't be a story about the relationship in that case though.

 

[FifthView]

It wouldn't be a story about the relationship in that case though.

Is the only thing interesting about any relationship its instability, or the fact that it can end? I don't think so.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

It wouldn't be a story about the relationship in that case though.

I disagree.

A story could explore the relationship between two characters without anything ever coming within range of tearing them apart. It might focus around the evolution of their relationship and how they both adjust. It might focus on how they both react to an outside force. It might be about how they discover new things about each other and grow closer to each other. It might just focus on the ups and downs of their relationship without any of the low points being low enough to snap the relationship in two. It might be on the surface a story about how they defeat an evil overlord, but really it would be about their relationship.

All these things probably would involve strain on the relationship, and struggle to coexist peacefully or be happy and satisfied. But any of those conflicts within the relationship might never come close to ending it.

And the conflicts might not even be within the relationship. They might come from outside, and still affect the relationship.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

About fifteen years ago, maybe a little less, I was with my mom and I suddenly realized something, so I asked her, "Have you and Dad ever fought? I can't remember you ever really fighting?"

And she said, Nope. Although she did add that they'd had maybe three big disagreements. But these weren't relationship-threatening, apparently. And three big disagreements in what would have been about 30 years of marriage at that time is rather remarkable. I thought so, at least.

Supposing that the world is chockablock full of potential spoilers, it's reasonable to create a fictional marriage and throw these things at it, with the goal of exploring those aspects and possibly ending that fictional marriage. But I don't think it's reasonable to say that every marriage will encounter an irresolvable, marriage-ending catalyst, nor even that every marriage is riddled with fault lines and only the very lucky ones avoid splitting. A fictional story only need span a reduced timeline in any case, i.e. not encompass 70 years of life for the characters, and I don't see the absolute need for throwing these things at the marriage in order for an entertaining and enjoyable story to be created.

I think it's sad that in modern society we think of marriage as something of a ticking time bomb ready to go off.

 

[TheKillerBs]

I disagree.

A story could explore the relationship between two characters without anything ever coming within range of tearing them apart. It might focus around the evolution of their relationship and how they both adjust. It might focus on how they both react to an outside force. It might be about how they discover new things about each other and grow closer to each other. It might just focus on the ups and downs of their relationship without any of the low points being low enough to snap the relationship in two. It might be on the surface a story about how they defeat an evil overlord, but really it would be about their relationship.

All these things probably would involve strain on the relationship, and struggle to coexist peacefully or be happy and satisfied. But any of those conflicts within the relationship might never come close to ending it.

And the conflicts might not even be within the relationship. They might come from outside.

Actually, it seems like you agree with me. You're talking about elements impacting a relationship. How those elements can influence the relationship can be positively or negatively. But as the reader, I cannot know what the end result will be until the resolution of the story/arc.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Actually, it seems like you agree with me. You're talking about elements impacting a relationship. How those elements can influence the relationship can be positively or negatively. But as the reader, I cannot know what the end result will be until the resolution of the story/arc.

Well...oops? lol.

 

[Nimue]

This conversation doesn't make any sense. This digression started by Dragon saying that a story with a married couple means their relationship would be stable and its ending status predictable. People: Not necessarily, the relationship could be unstable in these ways. Other people: No, we're talking about a stable relationship. Why does it need to be unstable? ...This misses the reason Chess was talking about the possibilities of instability in the first place. Now it's is an argument about the nature of marriage? Why?

 

[Russ]

I disagree.

A story could explore the relationship between two characters without anything ever coming within range of tearing them apart. It might focus around the evolution of their relationship and how they both adjust. It might focus on how they both react to an outside force. It might be about how they discover new things about each other and grow closer to each other. It might just focus on the ups and downs of their relationship without any of the low points being low enough to snap the relationship in two. It might be on the surface a story about how they defeat an evil overlord, but really it would be about their relationship.

All these things probably would involve strain on the relationship, and struggle to coexist peacefully or be happy and satisfied. But any of those conflicts within the relationship might never come close to ending it.

And the conflicts might not even be within the relationship. They might come from outside, and still affect the relationship.

You could choose to write about a relationship that was evolving that did not come close to falling apart. You could also write about my choice of what to have for dinner tonight. It would be missing a certain excitement.

Good fiction requires reader investment in good characters with something at stake. People care about high stakes. They don't want to watch me play $5 blackjack they want to watch million dollar poker tournaments where there is a lot at stake. That is why at the end of the apprentice someone gets fired not demoted or put on probation.

Readers like high stakes. If the relationship is the a subject of the fiction, putting it at risk keeps the stakes high. I think it is one of the reasons where you rarely see fantasy fiction without violence. Life and limb are stakes people will care about.

 

[Russ]

A fellow Indie shared some stats that she put together (on another forum) and it showed Thriller & Suspenseful romances being the highest selling ones. So...here's an idea for you.

I don't have what it takes to write romantic suspense, but I am at peace with that.

I really believe that people miss out when they downplay or don't consider the romance genre from either a technical writing or business perspective, especially people who are going indy. The techniques used to market indy or small press e pubs in romance and erotic have been proven time and time again to be incredibly effective.

For instance I have spent some time talking with Lexi Blake and have seen her do a great presentation on how to be a successful indy writer in genre fiction that was not at all related to romance in general. And she has put how many books in the NYT top ten as an indy writer? Her business model is awesome. Polished and professional, logical and not that hard to emulate. Well worth the time to learn about it if you want to do structurally sound writing and make a living at writing. I would say the same thing about CJ Lyons.

Even if you never want to write romance, there is a lot to be learned from it and I think you miss out if you don't make the effort to learn from them.

There are flashier and more controversial people talking about indy publishing (holding back rant here) but there are few doing a better job systematically than some of the indy and small e presses in the romance and genre field in keeping their clients happy and creating an income stream. And you don't even have to name your character after a popular alcohol.

 

[FifthView]

This conversation doesn't make any sense. This digression started by Dragon saying that a story with a married couple means their relationship would be stable and its ending status predictable. People: Not necessarily, the relationship could be unstable in these ways. Other people: No, we're talking about a stable relationship. Why does it need to be unstable? ...This misses the reason Chess was talking about the possibilities of instability in the first place. Now it's is an argument about the nature of marriage? Why?

Well, to be fair to DOTA, that original comment included "married love" in quote marks. And, "it's stable. There's no question over whether the characters will be together because they're already together."

That's a far cry from saying a couple being married means the relationship by definition is stable. DOTA was referencing my own post in which I gave an example of an established relationship in which the question of its existing is not a question. DOTA was referencing a specific case.

Now, for my part, I've mostly been thinking in terms of having such a couple and not of writing a story about such a relationship, i.e. the primary focus of the story isn't the relationship. (So....the "married" couple are focused on an exterior antagonist, together, or looking outward together and engaged in a common endeavor.)

I do think we sometimes run into problems when using the word "about" in this way. Is Romeo and Juliet about love, or is it about civil dysfunction, or about both of these things in conflict? Same with Brokeback Mountain: Is it about their love or about the social and internalized barriers to that love or about both at the same time?

Edit: So, to complete the thought, heh, are the Nightrunners books about each of their central plots involving various antagonists, or are they about the married couple engaged in fighting against these villains and thus also to some extent about such a relationship? It can be a complicated question and I wonder if that word "about" might sometimes cause unnecessary confusion.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

You could choose to write about a relationship that was evolving that did not come close to falling apart. You could also write about my choice of what to have for dinner tonight. It would be missing a certain excitement.

Good fiction requires reader investment in good characters with something at stake. People care about high stakes. They don't want to watch me play $5 blackjack they want to watch million dollar poker tournaments where there is a lot at stake. That is why at the end of the apprentice someone gets fired not demoted or put on probation.

Readers like high stakes. If the relationship is the a subject of the fiction, putting it at risk keeps the stakes high. I think it is one of the reasons where you rarely see fantasy fiction without violence. Life and limb are stakes people will care about.

Might the stakes in a story primarily about a relationship center on something external, for example, the goal they are both trying to achieve?

I consider my MCs' relationships central to my stories...but, that doesn't mean the relationships themselves are threatened.

You could argue that the story isn't really "about" the relationship if the main conflict isn't centered around the relationship, but I don't see it that way. If both characters are central to the story and fighting/suffering/struggling together, the main conflict might be external. But the main transformation, the emotional journey, might center around their relationship. In my view, that would be the deeper point of the story, or what the story is really "about."

This conversation *is* going in confusing directions...

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Well, to be fair to DOTA, that original comment included "married love" in quote marks. And, "it's stable. There's no question over whether the characters will be together because they're already together."

That's a far cry from saying a couple being married means the relationship by definition is stable. DOTA was referencing my own post in which I gave an example of an established relationship in which the question of its existing is not a question. DOTA was referencing a specific case.

Now, for my part, I've mostly been thinking in terms of having such a couple and not of writing a story about such a relationship, i.e. the primary focus of the story isn't the relationship. (So....the "married" couple are focused on an exterior antagonist, together, or looking outward together and engaged in a common endeavor.)

I do think we sometimes run into problems when using the word "about" in this way. Is Romeo and Juliet about love, or is it about civil dysfunction, or about both of these things in conflict? Same with Brokeback Mountain: Is it about their love or about the social and internalized barriers to that love or about both at the same time?

Edit: So, to complete the thought, heh, are the Nightrunners books about each of their central plots involving various antagonists, or are they about the married couple engaged in fighting against these villains and thus also to some extent about such a relationship? It can be a complicated question and I wonder if that word "about" might sometimes cause unnecessary confusion.

I learned about the importance of defining one's terms in my study of logic, but nothing has hammered it into my head like spending time on this forum...

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It is amazing how often I find myself saying some variation of... depending on how you define it, heh heh. Language and communication are a B, but of course, if they weren't, writers wouldn't have a job... depending on how you define job... and writer... oh goodness.

I learned about the importance of defining one's terms in my study of logic, but nothing has hammered it into my head like spending time on this forum...

 

[TheKillerBs]

I learned about the importance of defining one's terms in my study of logic, but nothing has hammered it into my head like spending time on this forum...

It's the internet. Miscommunication will happen. Don't sweat it.

 

[Heliotrope]

FifthView,

The example I gave on that post was Richard and Khalan from the Sword of Truth series. I know, I know, people will give me a hard time about liking the series (sheepish face) but as a kid I LOVED it.

Richard and Khalan had that sort of 'married' love you speak of. I think they did get married in later books. But the focus was not on their relationship (which added nice characterization and stakes to the plot) it was on saving the world. So the 'love story' was a really nice side plot, similar to the love story between Han Solo and Princess Leia. Star Wars is not a romance, but it has a nice little love story sub plot that adds a nice human dimension to the characters.

Richard and Khalan often had to fight to stay together, or had to split up to beat the bad guy, and sometimes they fought and questioned their relationship and to me (as a teenager) it felt very real. But that was not the focus of the story.

Often time the "love story" b-plot is what carries the "theme" of the story. So if I'm using Blake Snyder's story types:

HUNGER GAMES was a "Dude with a problem" with a "buddy love b-plot."

The theme: There is more to life than simply survival.

In the first act Katniss (and Gale) believe that life is simply about survival. They must hunt, feed their families, do what they need to do to survive. They believe if they get picked for the games it will be no different than hunting in the woods. They will just kill off the opponents and do whatever they need to do to survive.

Prim is picked for the Games, and in survival mode, Katniss volunteers for her sister, knowing she can survive better than Prim can. She fully intends to simply win, then come home and forget it ever happened.

B-Plot: Peeta (the love story) carries the theme. He believes there is more to the games than simply survival. He wants to show the capitol that they can throw him into an arena, but they can never make him a monster. They can never change him. He knows he is not going to survive and he doesn't care. He isn't going to go out swinging. He wants to go out as himself. He wants to stay true to his beliefs of goodness and kindness. We are shown that he took a beating from his mother once simply so that he could share some bread with Katniss a few years earlier. That is they type of person he is. He believes in humanity. Katniss does not understand this mindset.

They are forced into the Games, which is the main plot. The main goal for Katniss is to survive. But over the course of the games she begins to make alliances, she learns to "play the game", she is forced to spend more time with Peeta, where she starts to fall for him for real, and she learns that life can't just be about survival. It has to be about something more. It is not so black and white as she and Gale once believed. She begins to admire Peeta's view of the world and himself.

So by the end she has learned the lesson she needs to learn. Life is about standing up for what you believe in, trying to make change, caring about more than yourself. And that is why she and Peeta win at the end.

So the story is "Dude with a Problem" (Katniss must survive the Hunger Games) and the "buddy love" romance b-plot is what carries the theme.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I've totally lost track of the discussion.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I've totally lost track of the discussion.

Me too. Sorry

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

FifthView,

The example I gave on that post was Richard and Khalan from the Sword of Truth series. I know, I know, people will give me a hard time about liking the series (sheepish face) but as a kid I LOVED it.

Richard and Khalan had that sort of 'married' love you speak of. I think they did get married in later books. But the focus was not on their relationship (which added nice characterization and stakes to the plot) it was on saving the world. So the 'love story' was a really nice side plot, similar to the love story between Han Solo and Princess Leia. Star Wars is not a romance, but it has a nice little love story sub plot that adds a nice human dimension to the characters.

Richard and Khalan often had to fight to stay together, or had to split up to beat the bad guy, and sometimes they fought and questioned their relationship and to me (as a teenager) it felt very real. But that was not the focus of the story.

Often time the "love story" b-plot is what carries the "theme" of the story. So if I'm using Blake Snyder's story types:

HUNGER GAMES was a "Dude with a problem" with a "buddy love b-plot."

The theme: There is more to life than simply survival.

In the first act Katniss (and Gale) believe that life is simply about survival. They must hunt, feed their families, do what they need to do to survive. They believe if they get picked for the games it will be no different than hunting in the woods. They will just kill off the opponents and do whatever they need to do to survive.

Prim is picked for the Games, and in survival mode, Katniss volunteers for her sister, knowing she can survive better than Prim can. She fully intends to simply win, then come home and forget it ever happened.

B-Plot: Peeta (the love story) carries the theme. He believes there is more to the games than simply survival. He wants to show the capitol that they can throw him into an arena, but they can never make him a monster. They can never change him. He knows he is not going to survive and he doesn't care. He isn't going to go out swinging. He wants to go out as himself. He wants to stay true to his beliefs of goodness and kindness. We are shown that he took a beating from his mother once simply so that he could share some bread with Katniss a few years earlier. That is they type of person he is. He believes in humanity. Katniss does not understand this mindset.

They are forced into the Games, which is the main plot. The main goal for Katniss is to survive. But over the course of the games she begins to make alliances, she learns to "play the game", she is forced to spend more time with Peeta, where she starts to fall for him for real, and she learns that life can't just be about survival. It has to be about something more. It is not so black and white as she and Gale once believed. She begins to admire Peeta's view of the world and himself.

So by the end she has learned the lesson she needs to learn. Life is about standing up for what you believe in, trying to make change, caring about more than yourself. And that is why she and Peeta win at the end.

So the story is "Dude with a Problem" (Katniss must survive the Hunger Games) and the "buddy love" romance b-plot is what carries the theme.

I was reading this and I thought, "I wish The Hunger Games was as interesting as she makes it sound."

I found that book so disappointing.