Sunday, February 20, 2011

Love in Context

Emily Dickinson wrote a line about leaving your heart ajar for ecstasy. Pretty sure she wasn't talking simply about you-know-what.

I heard the full quote today and connected it to some issues rolling around in my head about writing romance. Characters in fiction need to live and breathe and feel and think vividly, and love plays a big factor. Love of self and of life and of the tangible, and in romance, the intangible.

A reader of mine asked me a difficult question about my female protagonist. Why did she fall in love with the male protagonist? Hard question when the attractive qualities and reasons seem obvious to me. I've had to sit quiet with that question for a while and ask myself the same. Why do we fall in love? What are the reasons a person tumbles into the emotion and attachment? Save me the science. I want the ethereal.

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