Ask a male author about your male character traits or thoughts.

Amazon links to my stories: The Chess Master, Cinnamon & Sugar, Autumn Breeze, A More Perfect Union, Double Happiness, The Wolves of Sherwood Forest, Neanderthals and the Garden of Eden can be found down the right side of the blog. Another site very useful in categorizing books in their proper order is: https://www.booksradar.com/richard-rw/richard.html


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Sunday, May 4, 2014

Soulmates need to be handled expertly

There’s a small amount of controversy about using soulmates in romance novels. A soulmate as a feature of life is an abstraction. Writing gurus don’t recommend writing in the abstract. So what to do? The author either believes in soulmates and/or wishes the character(s) to believe in it.

We don’t prefer to write in abstractions because it avoids the senses which is the best food for any reader. There’s only one solution (for any abstraction, such as philosophical, religious, political beliefs). The characters can talk about these abstractions, yes. But, it’s so much better to show the characters in action living their beliefs.

So what’s a soulmate? Let the characters find their own way. Be true to their stories.
 
Maybe finding that right person is just an accident, or an act of scientific study (online dating). Maybe when two people meet they just know. Perhaps, for the most of us, it’s a matter of caring for another person who suits us in many ways.
 
ALL OF ME by John Legend, 2013, 5 min.

 

2 comments:

  1. Well-said, Bob.
    Let the reader decide if the H&H are soul mates.

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  2. Soul mates, in my opinion, are in the eye of the beholder. When a woman meets a man, (or vice versa) if he seems to embody the qualities she's been looking for, she may think he's her soul mate. Maybe yes, maybe no. But hope springs eternal.

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