What
drives men?
Before
I answer this question from the male POV, consider another question.
What
drives women?
What
. . . do I hear rumblings? You can’t put us in a box, Bob. Well the same thing
goes for guys. And writing romance is all the better for it.
In
most romances I have read the guy is either romantic or comes around to
appreciate romance. I’ve always found the ‘coming around’ arc hard to believe
because a boy’s teenage years are all about mapping out their hopes and dreams,
their lives. For a boy or man to not do this type of thinking would be
thoughtless or worse non-romantic. The non-romantics may look at life in a more
pragmatic way. They might decide what is right or wrong based on the situation
and how it benefits them. If they marry, it will be for many reasons, but not likely
love. Because to them love doesn’t exist, just survival. They’ll often divorce,
once the marriage no longer benefits them. Ego-centric thinking is so
monochromatic. Those who engage in it miss so much of what life has to offer.
Yes
a man could have an epithany, an enlightenment. I’m just suggesting that
something doesn’t come from nihilism. This writing blunder (a man who never
considers love or that love exists) is easily fixed with backstory, especially
in his teenage years.
Yes,
you can have your heroes be driven by success or competition, even when it
comes to competing for women (which shows passion). And many men are driven to
compete, to excel. But aren’t women like this too?
So
write your success driven hero with a heart, with dimension, with an inner
drive to find that someone special someday. Perhaps he had put if off for various
reasons until a special woman causes him to rearrange his priorities.
Jerry Maguire, 1996 is a fair representation of a driven man who has some backstory and backbone. Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger are driven by a deeper meaning in living their lives. They rsik it all. This drives the movie and makes the plot and their romance work.
Jerry Maguire, 1996 is a fair representation of a driven man who has some backstory and backbone. Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger are driven by a deeper meaning in living their lives. They rsik it all. This drives the movie and makes the plot and their romance work.
