Scribbles & Munch

      My friend Camela Thompson, author of "The Hunted" series, wrote a blog post the other day about love and relationships in fiction. It's an excellent post, and I recommend reading it in its entirety. I will offer a brief summary: popular fiction often depicts dramatic, passionate love, which would be very, very unhealthy - even psychotic - in real life. Most readers know the difference, but some don't. Then she asked if authors have an ethical responsibility to portray healthy relationships in certain genres.
      Honestly, as a writer, this is a question I wrestle with. I know I have taken many of my moral and practical life cues from fictional characters. I've been inspired by Elizabeth Bennett's ability to admit her mistakes. I've worked to adopt Anne Shirley's knack of meeting hardship with humor and philosophy. I've been emboldened by Hermione Granger's unwillingness to suppress her genuine personality even when it made her unpopular. All of those heroines overcame obstacles and found a loving life-mate, and I have yearned for that, also. If I ever get published, who knows what readers might be influenced - consciously or unconsciously - by my characters?
      I believe writers have an ethical obligation to depict healthy relationships in the same way all human beings have an ethical obligation to choose an environmentally sustainable diet: yep, it's there, it's real, and we regularly ignore it. It's not as interesting, and it's definitely not convenient. Another concern is that it can be self-defeating; I don't think stories about healthy relationships garner as much interest, and if nobody's reading it, then what's the point?
      Readers are drawn to stories and characters with whom we can relate. The biggest common denominators among human beings are, in no particular order: family, food, love, and sex. Almost everyone has felt the emotional swells and descents of passion in their adolescent years. Wise adults realize that they wouldn't really want that brand of romance every day for the rest of their lives--but in retrospect, it sure was fun! Reading about those dramatic, unhealthy relationships is a way of dipping our toes back in without getting swept away in real life. Obviously, some people do decide to dive back in head first, ditching or disregarding healthy partners in pursuit of those impassioned states. But most readers do not. They just want to use their imaginations to wade every now and again.
      That all being said, healthy, mature love is not entirely absent from fiction, just...rare. Because it's one hell of a challenge to write. True love does not look like the early radiant emotions of "The Princess Bride"; it looks like the plodding companionship of "Date Night."* And making that interesting requires some pretty bizarre plot twists. Nobody wants to read about the patient and mostly contented state of a happy, healthy marriage. That love is real, and deep, and abiding because it has withstood so much--not the dramas of war, famine, or financial ruin, but the wearing, painful grind of everyday life. And why the hell would anybody want to read about every day life when we live it...well...every damn day?!
      Writing about this kind of love and making it interesting is hard. Really hard! In fact, it's a straight up challenge! And it's a challenge I hope every serious writer will strive to undertake at least once in their career. Ok, you're not eating local, sustainable, environmentally sound food 100% of the time, nor will all of your stories have protagonists that epitomize the healthiest relationships. But if you can at least work it in there a little more, maybe that can make a difference. The writing would be hard, but I bet it would also make us all a little wiser.



*The two best love stories on film - in my personal opinion - for the very reasons stated above.