On Writing Romance

[crystalrmartin]

As you all may or may not know I am currently in a creative writing class. The other night my professor said something that made me think. He said, "Falling out of love is much more interesting than falling in love." In a sense he does romance writing a dis-service. I disagree with his thoughts because, romance writing is not necessarily just about

Comments

[februaryfour]

*laughs* Well, see, the way I see it, falling _in_ love just requires that two strangers meet and get along a lot better than most others do. It doesn't take all that much, once there's some physical attraction in the mix.

Falling out of love is a lot more interesting, because you're no longer _strangers_. You have human backstory. Every single interaction between them speaks volumes about what their lives has been like up until then.

Eg:

Scene:

She hadn't been trying to stay awake, but when Kenji's key clicked softly in the lock, Marsha heard. The alarm clock in front of her showed it was one in the morning.

At least this time he'd managed to make the last train. She continued to lie on the futon, pretending she didn't hear he'd come in, and listened to him move slowly around the apartment, the sound of the fridge door opening and closing, the hum of the microwave. Good, he'd found the leftovers.

Her flight was tomorrow. She would call him from the airport to say goodbye. That way there would be no painful scenes, and he could get on with his life.

Now, the backstory:
Marsha and Kenji have been together three years. They met in university in the USA, were going to get married, and then Kenji went back to Japan and Marsha went along with him. Back in Japan, they keep trying, and trying... but eventually, they just gave up and Marsha left him.

When you read the paragraph above, so many questions come to mind! Just the first five to pop into my head:
- did they ever try to work things out?
- why didn't she get up to talk to him? or did she do that in the past? why'd she stop?
- what does Kenji think of all this? is it just "try to fit in, Marsha will always be there for me"? Is it "Marsha needs to learn to be Japanese"? Is it "I'm tired of Marsha but I have responsibilities towards her because I brought her here"? Something else?
- does she still love him? She left him food in the fridge, and obviously Kenji's used to finding it there. Then why aren't they showing affection towards each other; why the distance?
- what will happen afterwards?

Just some questions. Falling out of love can also just lead to falling into love again, more deeply... ^_^