This is going to be a short post - because I am late to get started today after shooting a sweet 78 in the third round of the President's Cup. Nice.
In my current project I have just written the first scenes with my "love interest." He is brought onto the stage just after the act one break. This is usually where a romantic subplot belongs when you are writing anything other than a romantic comedy. In a romantic comedy you have to introduce both of the characters up front because the story is about their path to love.
In other stories where part of the main character's journey is finding love, you can delay introduction.
But what is key to writing any love story is giving the two people involved something to learn from each other. And if you can make what they have to teach each other mirror images of what they need to learn themselve - well, Eureke.
In my current project, the main character is controlling and has to learn to let go. She has to learn that no matter how much planning she does, she can't sidestep all the bad stuff that happens in life. If she tries, she'll only succeed in missing out on a lot of good stuff; she'll be limiting her possibilities.
The love interest can show her the way because his problem is the opposite. He's got "go with the flow" down - but he's doing it to such an extreme what he's really doing is running away from the bad stuff as well. So the gift she can give him is the ability to commit, to be vested.
Everyone is arcing and everyone's arc is pushing the other out of the comfort zone. Pretty cool how that works? I hit on this revelation over a birdie putt on number five. Nice.
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