Love at First Sight
Do you believe in love at first sight?
As a novelist, I have 300 pages, give or take, to tell a story. Sometimes, by necessity of plot, I need my two main characters to fall for each other fast. I facilitate this usually by having the world conspire against them. When intense traumas and obstacles are in our path, we react one of two ways usually. We turn against those we love and draw inward. Or we turn toward those around us like desperate shipwreck survivors searching for life rafts. I tend to let my characters do the second, and thus speed up what, in real life, would take considerably longer.
Or would it?
I once made the foolish mistake of agreeing to marry a man I knew just a few short weeks. The mistake was readily apparent by, oh about five minutes into the marriage.
Prior to that whole fiasco, I believed in love at first sight. Aterwards, I wasn't so sure. After that, still more, I started reading books to a blind man as a volunteer. He couldn't see at all and HE believed in love at first sight. Love at that first connection. Chemistry? Looks? Lust? Past lives? How do we explain it?
Over the years, a lot of bad mojo has filtered into my life. Crises and health issues . . . just tough things all around. I stopped believing so much in love at first sight and started to realize that love was more likely the guy who didn't mind changing the sheets and blankets after an Exorcist-like spewing of a child with the stomach flu. Or someone who didn't look at me entirely askew when I started writing to adoption agencies and thinking "Six is such a nice round number for children." Love started to look a lot more practical. I became a lot more pragmatic. Sort of.
In and out of my life people have come. And each helped me learn more about myself. But as a novelist, I still go back to that image of lovers under fire, in crisis. In BLOOD SON, my paranormal about a dhampir, due out in February from Nocturne, I chose two people who have NEVER been in love, and thus their falling for each other even as around them serial killers and vampires abound, is that much more intense. It has the hottest sex scenes I've ever even contemplated writing, and I was surprised to find it fit the mood of the book.
So how about you? Love at first sight? And with your characters . . . how do you have them fall?
As a novelist, I have 300 pages, give or take, to tell a story. Sometimes, by necessity of plot, I need my two main characters to fall for each other fast. I facilitate this usually by having the world conspire against them. When intense traumas and obstacles are in our path, we react one of two ways usually. We turn against those we love and draw inward. Or we turn toward those around us like desperate shipwreck survivors searching for life rafts. I tend to let my characters do the second, and thus speed up what, in real life, would take considerably longer.
Or would it?
I once made the foolish mistake of agreeing to marry a man I knew just a few short weeks. The mistake was readily apparent by, oh about five minutes into the marriage.
Prior to that whole fiasco, I believed in love at first sight. Aterwards, I wasn't so sure. After that, still more, I started reading books to a blind man as a volunteer. He couldn't see at all and HE believed in love at first sight. Love at that first connection. Chemistry? Looks? Lust? Past lives? How do we explain it?
Over the years, a lot of bad mojo has filtered into my life. Crises and health issues . . . just tough things all around. I stopped believing so much in love at first sight and started to realize that love was more likely the guy who didn't mind changing the sheets and blankets after an Exorcist-like spewing of a child with the stomach flu. Or someone who didn't look at me entirely askew when I started writing to adoption agencies and thinking "Six is such a nice round number for children." Love started to look a lot more practical. I became a lot more pragmatic. Sort of.
In and out of my life people have come. And each helped me learn more about myself. But as a novelist, I still go back to that image of lovers under fire, in crisis. In BLOOD SON, my paranormal about a dhampir, due out in February from Nocturne, I chose two people who have NEVER been in love, and thus their falling for each other even as around them serial killers and vampires abound, is that much more intense. It has the hottest sex scenes I've ever even contemplated writing, and I was surprised to find it fit the mood of the book.
So how about you? Love at first sight? And with your characters . . . how do you have them fall?
posted by Erica Orloff at 2:32 PM
16 Comments:
With all the special people in my life, I always felt something when I first met them. My husband. My best friends. People who burned me. I think connection is an instinctive thing.
As for my characters, the only who fell at first sight was Will Benavides from Hot Tamara. He knew from the minute he met Tamara that (to quote Frank Sinatra) he'd never get her out of his plasma.
Mary
Hi Mary:
I suppose I, too, "know" people who will be important to me. I can meet a woman and know in five minutes if she and I will ever be friends. And, beyond that, if we could be soul sisters.
E
I believe in LAFS (Love At First Sight). I do because the very first time I saw this man sitting on a concrete picnic table, wearing black pants and an oversized white Nike sweatshirt I was hooked. I loved the way he wore that old blue baseball cap backwards. The way his eyes looked at me for the first time made me a puddle. And that was BEFORE I smelled the cologne he wore...
And 8 years of marriage later he is still hot with a capital OMG.
charity:
Way to go. A LAFS with an HEA!
:-)
E
I need a HEA.
Maybe someday.
So different, yet not so different after all.
My character's conflicts arises from who they are, yet who they are fosters the love that grows between them.
You can't fake true Chemistry on the pages or in real life.
In the past, not trusting my initial instincts led to some uber-errors in judgment for me.
Now, if I get that niggling of discomfort or someone gives me the heebie-jeebies, I steer clear.
Not sure that I believe in love at first sight...chemistry, and then once the hormones level out, love is given a chance to blossom.
Jude:
HEAs aren't easy to come by.
E
kathy:
I think most of us struggle between wanting to give people a chance and not judge a book by its cover and all that . . . and really trusting our gut when it says "RUN THE OTHER WAY!" :-)
E
Erica, I married my HEA when we were kids really, I was 19, he 20. We've grown up together basically. lol. But, our major common thread--our center--has always been family. Sure, there were fireworks, the "I know this person is going to be the one," thing going on. Still does. lol But when the girls came, bills, life, we hung on for the ride. We had about 8 couples we were childhood friends with. We're one of three who survived. Honest. We're talking 70's, 80's here. In my books, inner conflict is what I do best. I love emotion. Relationship books, I guess. We all have something to offer. And I loved the comment about the man you read to, and how he belived in LAFS. Heartwarming.
I can tell pretty much straight away if i'm going to like someone - I just get a sort of feeling. Difficult to explain. And if I'm wary of someone, that wariness will stay with me, even if we do become friendlier.
LAFS - I don't go with that. Strong attraction, maybe. And I'm with you, Erica, on having someone around who will mop up the kids vomit, or who put up with you warts and all. I once knew this girl who'd been married for years, and would worry if she hadn't got all her make-up on in front of her husband. WTF!!!!
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to adequately articulate what I believe about LAFS, but I'm going to try. :) (Big surprise, right? LOL--Erica, I swear, no one provokes me to respond to as many of their posts as you do *g*)
I think LAFS is a lot like nature vs. nuture. I think it's pretty well established that who we are is a bit of both (nature and nurture). Two people can grow up in similar circumstances and react to them in completely different ways, right?
I think love at first sight is possible. I don't think it necessarily means "perfectly matched forever." The basic connection, the chemistry, the KNOWING a person is right for us can be there, and can be CORRECT. But circumstances and the choices each of us makes determines whether or not it lasts.
Because it exists, it can be easy for us to identify it inaccurately, and when we make those mistakes, they in turn can cause us to consider belief in LAFS foolishness.
Does that make any sense?
Sara:
Makeup 24/7? Oh . . . I don't think so! LOL!
:-)
E
Natalie:
I think you said it perfectly!
E
I went on a blind date once. I looked at the guy, and fell in love. I called my mom that night and told her he was the one. One year later, we were married. 18 years later we are still married. :-)
I just started writing a story about a hero who hates the heroine (she tried to kill him once). But right away, she spills a love potion over her, and the hero falls immediately in love with her. So how to make this work? He hates her, but he loves her. But he doesn't really love her, but maybe...
Should make for an interesting write!
M
I'll go with the LAFS... that's what happened for me when I met my wife. I didn't think I was going to marry her the moment i saw her, but it was definitely a moment I will never forget.
In my WIP, neither of my MCs likes each other at first, but they are forced to rely on each other, to test each other. They move into respect and then like and finally love by the end of the story. Oh yeah, there is a bunch of lust in there too, but it doesn't get in the way.
Michele:
I love those LAF stories! The real-life ones.
E
Post a Comment
<< Home