 Romance/Love: January 09, 2008 Issue [#2160] |
  Romance/Love
This week: Edited by: Fyn-elf  
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The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.--Dante Alighieri
“The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself.”
--Garth Brooks
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.--Saul Alinsky
Woman is also the element of conflict.--Marcello Mastroianni
When you are in deep conflict about something, sometimes the most trivial thing can tip the scales.--Ethel Merman
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.--Thomas Paine
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.--Plato
There is a contest old as Eden, which still goes on - the conflict between right and wrong, between error and truth. In this conflict every human being has a part.
--Matthew Simpson
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you always got.--Mark Twain
I am Fyndorian and I am pleased to bring you this week's Romance newsletter. |
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The Fyn Condensed Version is this: My other half and I met twenty some years ago, were in love with each other by the end of our first dance, and some time after that made plans to marry. All was happiness and roses. Then we woke up. We each had kids and a house and neither wanted to uproot our children. We'd become instant parents to five kids under eight. We lived fifty miles away from each other and worked opposite shifts. We tried, but events continued to conspire against us and eventually we realized that we both needed to focus on our children. Thus we parted friends, but went our own separate ways. I went to college and began work on my Master's in Canada. I then moved my brood to New York and ended up in Massachusetts.
Life went on. Some twenty years later, empty nested and foot loose and fancy free, I again ended up in Michigan. All of my friends said to 'Call Ken.' The word spread. All he heard was 'Call Robin.' A couple of months later we finally hooked up and after spending three hours on the phone, he invited me over to his place. From the first word, it was as if we'd only talked a day ago. Instantly it was just like it was before.
Four months later I moved in. That was almost three years ago. Now our grandchildren play together. Life is good. All our friends think we should be married, and I expect, one of these days we will be.
A good friend of mine thinks we are the perfect romance story. I had to tell her that not only were we not a paperback romance, I wouldn't want us to be. Things are going well. If we were to be that storybook romance we'd have all sorts of conflicts: Us against the world...or against each other....or with our respective exes....or....spent the last twenty years yearning for each other. Facts are we weren't, we didn't. It was all ancient history. Life just sort of moved us within the same realm again and that wasn't even a part of the plan when I moved back. It just happened...happily.
Conflict. Us? Heck, we haven't even had an argument since we've been back together. What conflict? We may have a romantic story but as a 'Romance' we don't make the grade. We are basically an old, boring, happily together, 'it's your turn to make the coffee' couple who act like we've been together forever and have no where else we'd rather be..
There must be conflict and lots of it for a Romance to work. Now if we'd both been fighting the world to be together, we might qualify. If one of us overcame a life threatening injury after fighting the whole world, we might qualify. If we also had had a child kidnapped by an ex and fought the world to get him or her back all the while recovering from that life threatening injury or illness, well, then we might qualify. But we haven't, didn't and aren't. So no. We don't qualify. Works on the best girlfriend level, but 'it don't play in Peoria!'
Conflict. In Romance writing, if things are going well, make it worse. If it begins to get better, make it worse again, and then, go ahead, add insult to injury and make it really bad! Overcoming all the conflict you can throw their way is what makes our heroines strong. It is what keeps the heroes heroic. Add additional conflict for them to overcome to get together, to want to be together more than they want to be apart.
Once this stage is reached, then make something beyond them tear them apart again.
Because it is in their overcoming all that we as writers can throw at our characters that keeps the reader cheering them on and wanting everything to end 'happily ever after.' Conflict and its resolution is what keeps it interesting. It is the journey we are interested in, not the aftermath.
Ever notice how on TV Dramas the two leads finally get together and the writers break them up? It is because once happily ever after arrives, interest dies. The aftermath is likely dull and boring and not much more exciting that who will actually be the one to sit down and pay the bills and do we get to out to dinner this month. Boring! Nope. Gotta have conflict and problems and issues and temperaments and the occasional love scene sparked by all the emotions flying in the face of disaster!
This is the stuff that brings the fantasy (which is what romance of the romance genre really is, after all, ) to the edge of our heartbeats and keeps us reading.
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It is winter, tis cold and a perfect time to print out some stories and curl up in your favorite chair. Perhaps you are in front of a roaring fire or stretched out on the couch with your cat purring at your feet. Perhaps you have a steaming mug of coffee or cup of hot chocolate nearby on the coffee table. Relax and enjoy some really good reads!
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| |  | The Box (E)
This is one of my favorite short stories. It came easily and I really enjoyed writing it.
#1069218 by Margaret Kerr  |
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 Sweet Musings ~Fyn this was a great newsletter and your real life examples really brought out how much details are needed when writing. The sample of you and your sweetie dancing and the older couple are ripe for starting stories of their own. Thanks for a some great ideas.
I have often found that many of the details than can enrich one's writing can be pulled from one's own experiences!{/i~}
larryp~Details are very important, I believe in any story. I am not much of a detail person, except in my writing. I think details add to the setting and plot of any story.Thanks for featuring my story "Lijemon" Larry
Very true, Larry. It is all in the details!
Tehanu ~ I felt like I was at that Christmas party with you. Thanks for sharing all the details - and reminding us what is important for our readers.
Oh. That wasn't you curled up in the chair near the fire? Hmmmmm. Maybe next year then *grin*
tenae~I've been kind of out of Writing.Com for a while suffering from school, life and writer's block. Thanks for the great 'detail-oriented' newsletter!
Well, welcome back! When I've gone through one of those times cracking my poor head up against that darned ole block, sometimes i've found that doing some reviewing will spark the muse, catch the block on fire and get me writing!
Helen McNicol ~A wonderful newsletter, and so true. As writers we should feel obliged to sit outside the picture and take note of these details to 'capture for future use' as you put it. I always keep a notebook and pen in my handbag. Often when I'm sitting waiting for my son to get his haircut at the mall I will observe people and write notes.
Excellent! I'm sure you've used some of those details in your writing! Description and details are what allows the reader to become involved.
spazmom ~This was excellent. And soooo what a writer's life is all about. I'm the same way...I watch people all the time, thinking that would make a good story, or, I need to remember how that person looks for a character. It is all in the details. Good job!
Thank you *smile* Given that we do not live in a vaccuum, it would be a shame to not take advantage of the plethera of details we see every day!
carebear306 ~Terrific newsletter, you make a great point and did an awesome job delivering it!
Thank you...
Raine ~Smells are vitally important and yet so often forgotten. Many of us write as if watching a movie inside our heads. Like a movie, we see colors and movements, hear the sounds. Yet a movie remains two dimensional. Why? Because we can't touch it and we can't smell it. By sprinkling details like that through your writing, you draw the reader in deeper, make the scene more real and vibrant.
Exactly!
SHERRI GIBSON  ~Thank you for posting my entry in your newsletter, Robin. As always, the newsletter was insightful I couldn't agree more that details are imperative when writing a story. The more, the better, in my opinion.
In my opinion too!
That about wraps it up until next time...You all keep some sort of journal or notebook, right? Right? For the next space of time, try to write down at least one descriptive detail a day that you've noticed! You never know when it might come in handy *smile* |
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