 Romance/Love: October 21, 2015 Issue [#7272] |
  Romance/Love
This week: Abracadabra Romantic Alchemy Edited by: Mrs. Nixie Clause  
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Hello all you readers with romantic hearts, I'm a guest editor. In this newsletter we'll be investigating positive and negative character traits. Learn about objects that scream romance and create conflict. Romance is more than what happens between your characters.
"Love . . . it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be." Kahlil Gibran
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One of the producers of the science fiction series Farscape stated that he hoped viewers would realize that at its core, the story revolved around romance. I considered this for a long time, and decided love reached beyond the character's relationships.
 So where is romance?
Can objects be romantic? Yes, and you can use them to create conflict.
Easy example we're tired of hearing. Love me. Love my goldfish.
I find mystique and a type of romance in the texture or indentations of stones.
I fell in love with a man who understood my rock romance.
I see romance at the grocery store.
Is your character shopping to prepare dinner for her lover?
Can your character pick up a date in the produce aisle by asking questions?
Can your characters squabble over cooking?
Music is made from romance.
She likes rock, he likes jazz.
Arguing over music can lead to romance.
She loves the Urn on the mantle, containing her mother's ashes.
He detests the Urn and accidentally/on purpose breaks it.
Even at a platonic level, romance hovers.
She's his 'work-wife', and he knows she loves hot chocolate.
She secretly loves him, and hot chocolate gives her gas.
The diamond ring.
He wants it back.
She flushed it.
Holidays spark romance.
I remember my dad singing, in his rich baritone, Christmas carols. He was normally a reticent man, but he came alive when we dressed our tree. I'm not talking about precise romantic love for a father, rather the ambiance of the moment, the family gathered and moving as one.
Enter conflict. Your character has remarried. The ex shows up.
 Great, Nixie. Now where's the Abracadabra for writing characters? 
Oh, you took me seriously?
Okay, let's take a peek into:
The romantic story book character
I simply cannot resist complaining about stereotypical romantic figures. Targeting the feminine reader, romance novels are usually predictable, despite the genre.
The TDH (tall, dark, handsome man) meets the BBB ( beautiful, blonde, busty girl)
The male characters are rough but gentle (bad guy with the good inside) (secret dark past) who win over the recalcitrant heart of the gorgeous heroine--who is also typically wounded and distrustful in some profound way. Or prideful, or prickly, or arrogant.
Our tragically flawed man steps into the heroine's life and breaks down all her barriers. The two become one.
And the opposite scenario is equally popular.
Our headstrong women, (supposedly immune to the TDH's), finds the male's buried wound and gently coaxes him back to the present, and into her arms.
We're all human.
It's a natural human characteristic to be drawn to attractive people. In one psychological experiment, first graders were taught the exact same lesson by first, a nominally attractive, or unattractive teacher, and then by a beautiful teacher. When asked for their favorite, all the children chose, guess which one? Yup. The pretty teacher. And, they learned and retained more from Miss Gorgeous than from Miss Ordinary.
Personality?
Anthropologically speaking, this inherent attraction was essential to humans reproducing. I don't know, though. I can't imagine an attractive Neanderthal, but I can pretend there was a Neanderthal with a winning personality.
In terms of entertainment, let's be honest here, the gods we worship (actors and actresses who star in our favorite television shows), are beautiful. It's often the attractive character that guarantees watcher loyalty. On the flip side, have you ever been romantically drawn to the common-appearing character? Or the quirky? The geeks? The loser?
A character who makes a person laugh can become a favorite.
Incredibly intelligent characters are attractive, but after eight seasons of "Bones," even brilliance can be overdone. I'll have to add another acronym to the list. (IIC).
The link below offers twenty examples of how to create winning characters. Honestly, I rolled my eyes at most of them. Her suggestions on how to develop characters were even more stereotypical and forced than any TDH or BBB.
Romantic Heros
However, I was drawn to one quote.
"But a hero needs more than brawn to satisfy your reading audience. In fact, in polls conducted by Romance Writers of America, readers often rank intelligence and humor as the top two traits that they prefer in their Romance heroes. On a scale of 1 to 10, “physical attractiveness” often ranks dead last!"
The dark side
When writing romance, whether it's about nature or people, do you tend to create the perfect character? Does all your prose or poetry generate positive, crystalline images of nature?
Just as all people have dark sides, the same is true of nature in the form of a hurricane. The hurricane and the character. Both are perfect in the way they express themselves. A hurricane destroys, that is its purpose.
Can you love the ugly part of a person's psyche? Feel free to disagree, but like hurricanes, people can't change their central core.
Negative romantic elements
Greediness (especially the quest for money)
Needing to be victorious
A glory seeker
Romance stemming from survival
Power
Possessiveness
I'm just asking. Has the word love lost its meaning?
 I love your dress/hair/shoes etc...
I love my car.
I love your story.
I love my new cell phone.
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Before we part, let me ask one more question. Are you in love with a story you wrote, or one you're working on? What parts do you love? The process, the word choices, your characters, the unique plot? No need to feel embarrassed. These are not trivial feelings. Romance runs through our veins, and that's where strong stories come from. Don't hold back. Fiction is meant to be dramatic.
Go ahead and fall in love with your characters. You'll be in good company. |
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