Writing For G.O.T

In Love-- Fun (non-political) Article- B&W

590 Words

Falling in love has been around since mankind was created. To the ancient Greeks, Aphrodite was the best-known goddess, the goddess of love, and according to the Iliad, Helene's falling in love with Paris started a string of dramatic events and a major war.

The problem with falling in love is that it messes you up. No wonder phrases and sayings such as lovesick, head over heels, blind in love came into being. They were coined because humans act demented, obsessed, and maniacal, and with sighs, serenades, and compulsive efforts, they go after the other person, their love object, with their actions bordering on stalking.

Even the serious and the steadfast feel a palpitation, a new effervescence, and a strange mix of pain and joy, no matter how much they try to hide their feelings.

Love makes people act dumb because they are less able to focus on and perform tasks that need their full attention. Unfortunately, the worst time love strikes is when people are still in the earlier stages of their lives when they are either in high school or going after a higher education.

Yet, who cares, since love makes people feel high and euphoric or, when love is unrequited, way down low, and many emotional variations exist when people feel love’s attraction for the first time.

I believe our brains have a lot to do with our reactions to a love object. Medical research points to the fact that love can make people feel pain less. Accordingly, the same area of the brain that responds to pain medication is the area that intense love is located.

Even more comical is the research on men who are in love. Love makes them adjust their walking pace to their romantic partner’s, which they do not do with only friends.

As to women, their voice goes up to a higher pitch in the presence of men they find attractive.

Then, for both genders, people’s pupils grow and their heartbeats match their love interest’s. Also, people turn into reckless and intrepid beings who risk everything for the beloved.

As for writing about characters who fall in love, one way to capture the lunatic behavior in such people is to look for the emotion and the unsaid, hidden meaning in each person. Some characters may think they behave as they always are, while others are not the same inside compared to the way they appear on the outside.

In Shakespeare's As You Like It, Rosalind wants to find a lover but does not want to lose her serious self and act crazily; however, when she enters the Forest of Arden, she discovers the love poems Orlando has hung on the trees. She loses self-control as she reads them one by one.

On the other hand, all characters have to be impressed by their families, backgrounds, and their successes, failures, and life-induced wounds. Yet whatever happens, their behaviors change in varying degrees when they fall in love.

A writer needs to activate the readers' emotions so they can empathize with the characters and can follow them through the act of falling in love. Anything true in life is also true in a work of fiction or poetry, and writing the falling in love scenes with realism determines the success of a love story. In the same vein, romantic fiction can uplift a person’s mood much higher than a serious, gloomy one.

As Dr. Seuss said, “You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

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Prompt: How do people act when they first fall in love and how can this reflect in writing?