Monday, April 30, 2007

Wrtiing Life

At the moment I'm in the obsessed by story stage. Mainly I'm wondering if the new heroine has enough issues. True love can not run smooth. Boy meets girl, falls in loves, and lives happily ever after doesn't make a good story. Nice if they are your parents or best friends. But not the stuff of great fiction.

What makes a story delicious are tortured characters. Outer conflict is all well and good and critical to keeping the tale moving along at a good clip. However, inner conflict is what rivets the reader, forcing her to stay up too late because she can't sleep until the real story question is answered.

In romance the heart of the question is always the same. What keeps the heroine from loving the hero and living happily ever after with him? By the end of the second act she usually admits, at least to herself, that she loves him madly. Yet, there is still something standing between her and happiness. Some issue that is believable for this particular couple and yet ultimately resolvable, through growth, sudden insight, or a twist of fate. Hmmm.

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