Décor

Décor

On the average, boys becoming men choose disarray. Girls becoming women choose order.

Walk into any college dorm and be witness.

When men move into their first apartment, they decorate in what mom and dad gave them plus what they saw discarded on the street. Women need to color coordinate or it’s no thanks mom and dad.

When men move into their first condo or home, they might have a little money left at the end of a pay check to pick a recliner, card table and a huge TV.

When women move into a condo or home they build a nest.

Of course, our renaissance man has an eye for beauty.

Many men start thinking at this point, what can I do to attract a female? This is the stuff of comedy, because they think their good looks or great job will win the day. They don’t think about decorating.

Finally and somehow married a man retreats into an area he has learned is called a man cave. The wife retreats to her friends wondering what she was thinking when she married this slob. He forgets the toilet seat, leaves clothes on the floor, puts rotting food everywhere but the trash, etc. Basically, she becomes a mom without giving birth. She educates and the man who loves her listens and learns. Sometimes. Ever wonder why there’s a huge divorce rate besides infidelity?

All this doesn’t have to be in real life if the girl/woman chooses a metro-sexual or Renaissance man. In the movies and romance novels this stuff just makes us smile or laugh. It is also one more barrier to overcome before we reach a neat and tidy HEA (happily-ever-after).

The moral of the story for any author is that the descriptive details and the heroine’s reaction to them is priceless. But don’t force it. If the hero wants to be or is an architect or any other type that celebrates the beauty of all things, use it to your advantage once again in the descriptive assessment of the heroine.

Happy Holidays...

Alpha revisited

The Alpha male revisited

I have promoted Beta males for romantic leads. A Beta male is someone who is sensitive and celebrates the needs of other people. Often described as a renaissance man. The publishers often ask for Alphas, particularly Harlequin. Why? Using the Alpha formula for story often writes itself. The stakes are raised scene by scene, the internal war to become a better man is intense, because he’s in an environment that challenges his beliefs. The beliefs can be considered strange to most normal human beings. The Alpha lives in an egocentric universe in which everything he thinks and does is correct and right. There is no moral right or wrong. It’s his way or the highway.

I have accepted a challenge from myself to write the ultimate Alpha, since my heroes are typically Betas. I’m enjoying it to no end. For me, it is so easy to write into every scene a shift or change in how the hero experiences the world. His heroine is everything he hates and visa-versa. This is extreme, a baptism of fire for me. But when I’m done, I’ll feel like I accomplished a great deal. I already feel like I’m saving two (imaginary) souls. This overboard feeling is warranted when a reader feels uplifted by the story, when a reader changes his or her life because of a piece of fiction.

Flirting

Flirting

From the male POV, flirting is the first step to having sex.

When a female flirts, it means she likes the male.

These are, of course, gross generalizations, but they’re useful when writing in any genre.

Since men are more visual on the average they are primarily attracted to a female who looks good. In a flirt, if the flirt is returned, he decides how to advance, given the words and body language he observes to guide him.

A woman flirts. If the man returns the flirt, she immediately receives validation of her attractiveness, which is often enough. She is also showing the male her attraction.

I’m sure nearly all of us recognize that when the opposite sex walks by there is a difference in the way the opposites look at each other in comparison to the way the same sex look at each other. For the opposites, there’s an acknowledgement, much weaker than a flirt that what they see is attractive or at least an acknowledgement of the way God made us.

Conflict in flirts comes from the difference in the way men and women think. It is often shown in the reactions to a cute meet by an expert writer. Flirts don’t end after a cute meet or any other initial meeting. Couples often flirt with their mate to encourage or show a need for sex. Here the male and female response is closer in purpose. Realize the a female flirting with her mate might also be rewarding him for his love.

Let me finish where I started by saying that these simple rules are meant to be broken, when it serves the story and reality.

Purpose

Purpose

What do they teach us to do as writers?

Make sure to address the Who, What, Where, Why, When and How of your story.

The Why is closely linked to Purpose. The story and its characters must have a purpose. Often the hero and heroine’s purpose shifts during the story, scene by scene. This shifting purpose is similar to the arc but isn’t. An arc is change. Purpose is direction or philosophy. Humans without purpose have a diminished life. If your character(s) start out this way they had better come around to it or you have no story. If their purpose is faulty when compared to societal norms, this is okay. It depends on the story the author wants to tell. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe the purpose was to show us that things fall apart.

In the movie Casablanca, the purpose for both Rick and Ilsa was to show that they didn’t amount to a hill of beans when compared to the higher purpose of defeating Nazism.

In romances with a traditional happy ending, the purpose is to show that the hero and heroine have each other’s love as a purpose for living. In a Christian romance we are taught that love is the purpose for living (love thy God and neighbor).

Tweaking tropes

Tweaking your tropes
In a recent Hallmark movie, the hero and heroine who have not met yet, are standing in line for coffee. A different two, run into each other spilling their coffees on each other. The hero feels compelled to strike up a conversation with the heroine about the meet-cute they just witnessed.
Tweaking tropes alert.
The actual meet-cute in the movie was the hero and heroine discussing the meet-cute they just witnessed. The writers must have had fun with this twist.
It is our solemn duty to find ways to tweak our tropes. I wondered when I watched this twist if anyone but a writer would spot it. Probably not. But it doesn’t matter to the reader/watcher. They’re just enjoying the book/movie. They might sense that the characters feel more real or that there’s a natural connection happening. In any case, the scene is at least funny.
Homework: consider a trope and then tweak it and report back to me. Or give me any trope and I’ll tweak it.

Advanced body language

Fight, flight or surrender
In a wrestling match and other one-on-one contests the expression square-off is used. Most people, I assume, don’t have a clue what that means. I never thought about it until this concept grabbed me as a blog opportunity. I now recall the words of my wrestling coach in high school. Form a square or rectangle with your opponent. The coach also taught math. The expression square-off means face your opponent don’t let your body give away your next move. In this way you can move either direction in response to your opponent. For those who don’t see this picture your shoulders, hips, head and feet in a square with your opponent. In wrestling, we lean slightly toward our opponent and plant our feet outward at 45 degrees. These last two points don’t hold true in romance.
When a woman or man faces their opposite and assumes and holds a squaring off position they are saying many things. First, they have no fear that this war like stance could be misinterpreted. They are showing complete love and trust in their opposite. They are offering themselves completely to that person. They are assessing rather openly their willingness to commit to this person. They seek surrender and victory at the same time with the same body language.
Am I making too much of this? No, as a writer, it is your duty to the reader to show such subtleties. Enrich your story or risk being dismissed as unwilling to work hard or creating a hackneyed product or clichèd novel.
About the male POV: It is quite an accomplishment for a man, as warrior, to square-off with the heroine. He is a self assured, totally open, loving hero who is saying “I’m yours”.

Square-off and choose to surrender and win at the same time.

Vote for love

Vote for love
We, as writers, wrestle with love in every story. Romance writers always vote pro love.
Tuesday, we have much to consider when we actually vote for real life improvements. Some critics of romance say happily-ever-after is not the real world. Some also say that people choose what is in their best interest. Interesting, there is much philosophy to suggest our best interest is in choosing what is best for the group. In the movie, A Beautiful Mind, the men walk into a bar, notice a group of ladies. They all choose the blonde. The blonde rejects them all, so as to be in solidarity with her friends. If they talked it out before acting like fools they would have all gotten dates.
So what is in your hero or heroine’s best interest and what is your best interest on election day?
Here’s a dose of philosophy/theology for today and I might recommend, a lifetime.
Christian: Treat you neighbor as you would yourself (every human being is your neighbor).
Jewish: “I do not want followers who are righteous, rather I want followers who are too busy doing good that they won’t have time to do bad.” Rabbi Menachem Mendel Of Kotzk
Moslem: Certainly will the believers have succeeded. They who are during their prayer humbly submissive. And they who turn away from ill speech. Quram 23:1-3
Atheist: “Being a humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishments after you are dead.” Kurt Vonnegut
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We have much work to do, so please vote. Listen to the words of a very smart man before you choose.
Einstein: “There are two things that are infinite, the universe and man’s stupidity... And I am not sure about the universe.”
So when you vote consider the greater good or in other words that which will be the most good for a majority of people. You’ll make out better because you are not alone. Besides, getting back to the bar scene, the redhead is prettier.