Choices

This subject began with a dream. I saw three men vying for a post at the Air Force Academy (remember it's a dream and hence does not have to be historically accurate for names or anything). The obnoxious one, with a terrible smile, won the opportunity to get his education there. These were high school age guys btw. 

I woke up thinking how Ranch Boss had done that and lost out to another guy, though he'd gotten close before that happened. I hadn't actually thought of this before; but his choice to try for that school would have meant we'd have never met as we did in our reality. If he had gone elsewhere, both of our lives would have been so different without the same children we later had after marriage. So much would have been different for him especially with likely a career in the Air Force.

I'd have married someone else, as there had been someone else before him, who was still around in an off and on sense. My life though would have not been the same. There'd have been a different family, and it'd be unlikely I'd be typing at this house in Arizona right now. 

Choices are what life is about. Many are tiny. Others big. We often have no idea where a choice will land us. Turn down one road and we get where we're going. Turn the other and some idiot runs as red light. 

Often, we have no idea how choices will impact our future. Marry wrong person and divorce or worse. Marry right person and celebrate over 50 years of marriage. Do we totally know when we make that choice. We try to make it on facts and experience. Sometimes though, it's emotions or even limitations based on our culture.

Writing romances is a lot like that, other than we might have more control over the outcome, but not if the characters dictate the results. I've mentioned how themes play into what we write, followed by a plot to get our story there. Characters are a huge part of that. With that theme, what kind of characters will work with the plot. Will they feel right to us or the later (hopefully) readers.

I do generally have a theme in mind but choosing the right characters, especially the primary protagonists, that's where real thought comes into play. There are several ways the need for a certain type of characters emerge especially in romances. One of the popular tropes is enemies to lovers. I don't use that, but it could work for me when it's two different cultures or tribes-- something outside the couple. When it's though supposed to be between the two of them as enemies to lovers, I don't buy it for what I will read. I think it's a big mistake to write a romance where one person 'fixes' the other. It doesn't encourage healthy ideas for life as it doesn't tend to work out there. People fix themselves, or it doesn't happen from what I've seen.

For my books, sometimes it's friends to lovers. As in, couples who grew up together and then realize-- wow, it's more than friendship (Round the Bend). I have some where the couples broke up and come back together-- or not (Bannister's Way) Mostly, when it's a case of meeting for the first time, physical attraction is a factor. Let's be honest, that begins a lot of so-called real life relationships. It might not be what someone  else regards as good looking (happened in my Desert Inferno) but it's attractive to the smitten one. 

What attracts us in the beginning is not what makes a relationship work. Physical attraction only carries the relationship so far in real life or books. There has to be something else that cause a couple to make it work for a happily ever after. Books need that to satisfy readers. I read a lot of negative reviews for books and that's a big one to irritate a reader.

Ranch Boss and I are very different for how we see things. He's the scientist ,and I'm the artist. When the kids asked once what makes fog. He went into a scientific explanation. I said it's clouds stuck on trees. 

If we didn't respect each other for our differences, that could have been a big problem in our choices, but we did. Something else became important. We want the same things out of our life together, the same kind of life. We just came at our choices different ways. We had another advantage in that we came from similar backgrounds. Different backgrounds can make for interesting stories but also can make for a lot of complexity in what we call real life.

With romances, I think there has to be some similarities and differences for the two primary characters to be believable and interesting. How, as writer, does someone pick those people and then make what they go through work for them. Romances usually have difficulties from outside which could be the black swans of life, a villain, but also those differences between them where compromise has to happen or it's all over-- in fiction or life.

Next blog, I'll discuss some of my characters and how I decided on them as well as how it would make sense they would get a happily ever after, which romances require. I should add-- on only one of my 30 books did my hero and heroine not get that guaranteed happily ever after as I just saw too many problems for them in the future. That book was Sky Daughter. It ended well but with the understanding it might not be permanent due to major lifestyle differences for where they could live or do their life work.