For all that I’ve been happily married and deeply in love for more than 15 years, now, this was the first I considered what, specifically, it means to love and be loved. My father decided to divorce my mother after 42 years, despite her objection. It’s been a challenge to understand why, and even more difficult to watch my mother fight through her broken heart.
As we’ve retraced history, trying to find meaning in the incomprehensible, we’ve run across various books and articles that try to point the way to some objective measure of love. I had always appreciated that the Greeks had a collection of words that mean love to convey the range between brotherly love, spiritual love, and lust. I had also mistrusted the French concept of the “coup de foudre”–love at first sight. So what is it that makes for a loving relationship? What external evidence can we point to for deep and lasting regard?
The thing that made the biggest impression on me was the 5 As: Acceptance, Affection, Appreciation, Approval, and Attention. This list was developed by Dyan Yacovelli in something of a textbook context, but it has now formed the basis for understanding character development, as well as the gem I have in my husband.
So my main character gets to have that moment of analysis that breaks through to her heart based on this specific insight. This means book 2 of Red Slaves migrates much further into Paranormal Romance than book 1 readers might anticipate–though Anne and her group still get their adventures.
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Indeed. Thanks, guys, for stopping by and commenting. In fiction, as in life, it’s difficult to pinpoint the expression of a profound emotion, so having a road map to help avoid the “telling” as well as recognizing what the “showing” symbolizes feels useful to me.
It’s so incredibly sad when decades-old relationships crumble, even more so when one half of the relationship is taken completely by surprise. How brutal for your mother.
As for your book, adventure plus romance–that’s win, win, win!
Makes as good a sense as anything else I’ve read on the subject of ‘love’ — sorry divorce has hit your parents…never easy at any stage, on them, and kids.