Turning the 10 Biggest Marriage Fears into a Romance Novel, Part 1

Here you go! For free. I am giving you story premises and concepts for you to flesh out and turn into a blockbuster book. How’s that for a gift?

Well, the blockbuster part is up to you, but I came across an article (“How to Conquer Your 10 Biggest Marriage Fears”) by Jane Greer, PhD a marriage and family therapist.

To me, that signals book ideas! You, too, right? The premise is the header in bold face. The concept follows and develops the premise. So here goes:

"We'll eventually have nothing in common."

Dick and Jane were childhood sweethearts. After high school graduation they married. Jane worked in her dad’s company to support them while Dick got technical training to be a plumber. Once Dick had a regular plumbing job, Jane stayed home to rear the kids. She was very involved with school activities for the kids. Then Dick got a hankering for a new job that required more schooling. Eventually, Dick was a white collar worker who traveled a lot. Jane worried that Dick had moved past her, that she was part of his old life. She didn’t know how to talk to him about his life now. Was he looking for someone who was a better match? What clues did she find, or think she found?

"If I get sick, he won't be able to hold it together."

Even when they were dating, Chuck would become frantic if Cassie got sick. Common colds had him showing up at her apartment with chicken soup and hot lemonade. She tried to conceal her minor illnesses so he’d stay calm. Most of the time he was a perfectly logical and reasonable fellow, but if she fell ill, he freaked. That’s why when the doctor told Cassie that she had a particularly aggressive kind of brain tumor with a low survival rate, she delayed telling Chuck. Could he handle serious illness? Would he step up to the plate and stay calm for her sake? She doubted it and fretted about when and how to tell him the news. Or even, if she’d tell him. Does he figure it out on his own?

"I don't want to end up like that couple."

Engaged Karen and Michael laughed at couples they observed when still dating. They’d go to restaurants, the park, or other such places couples frequented. They’d watch and make up for one another the dialogues they imagined from the body language. The angry and happy ones were easy. It was the silent partners or the emotionless couples who drew their attention the most. “There’s no passion. No there there,” Michael would say. “I don’t want us to end up like that couple,” Karen would add. “Give me passion, good or bad, but I don’t want to be emotionless when we’ve been married five years.” So what happened when they got drawn into a friendship with one of those couples? What secrets did each of the four have that impacted their entwined relationships?

"I'll forget about the person I once was."
Highly successful, independent, and financially secure Kendra meets Levi at a beach resort in Belize. She has given herself this trip in an attempt to forget a failed relationship and increasing stress at her high-powered job. Levi left all that behind four years ago and “retired” at age 32 to Belize to live a better life. Kendra admires the loose and easy way Levi lives his life and in a moment of madness phones her boss and joins Levi in the tropical life. All is well for a while, but Levi’s indifference to money, planning, and relationship commitment gets to her. She is torn because part of her loves her new lifestyle without schedules, killer heels and professional suits, but part of her yearns for the challenges she conquered and the power she yielded. When pregnant, she must decide whether to stay with Levi or return to her profession. Even if she goes back to the New York lifestyle, a child may cause her to forget about who she once was. If she stays in Belize, she must forget that person. Kendra realizes not matter what she is in danger of losing her sense of self.

"Sex will get less exciting and frequent."
Freddie is an amazing lover to Georgia, their sex frequent and passionate in their early months of marriage. It’s an unusual day if they don’t make love and sometimes they have more than one session. After several years and kids, sex has slowed down. Freddie is ten years older than Georgia and he’s slowing down. Georgia is in her peak. She wants more sex than he feels ready to give. She dresses up in outfits but he is turned off by the mother of his children in a French maid costume. She tries to “pick him up” in a bar by pretending to be someone else. Nothing brings excitement back to their routine and perfunctory couplings. She feels he is merely servicing her. Georgia creates an elaborate fantasy world where she is desirable and sexy. Freddie discovers what she’s doing and suspects an affair. Does he consider counseling? Will he talk to her and try some of her ideas to spark their relationship? Or do they head for divorce?

Next week, tune in for five more novel premises and concepts. Get busy outlining that next book!

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I "Conference Know" a LOT of People

This blog is about relationships, and mostly here I deal with intimate, close, personal ones. But conference relationships are in a different ballpark, as they say. Maybe even a different sport.

I attend a number of writing conferences each year. As a writing professional, I see attendance as part of the package for getting to be a better writer. I wrote about that earlier this week on another one of my blogs: “Why I Go to Conferences and Why You Should,Too”.

At conferences, I paste on my happy face and strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to me. I ask what heesh writes and I express interest. I take the proffered business card and hand over my three.

Is that bragging, I wonder? Look at me! Multiple pen names! Does that seem too forward? After all this is a conference on writing historical fiction. What does my seatmate care that I write plays, short stories and novels? What interest could there be in my writing in so many genres: mystery, women’s fiction, paranormal, science fiction, middle grade biographies, oh, and yes, historical fiction set in two time periods?

My seatmate might in fact infer what I have long feared to be true of myself: dilettante!

So we dance. “Tell me your concept.” “How long have you been writing?” “Traditionally published or an indie author?” “What’s next after your current WIP?”

And then the session begins with either a single speaker or a panel. I listen. I make notes.

Session over. “Bye. Have a good conference.” Then it’s off to dance again at the next session.

Are these superficial encounters the equivalent of the one-night stand?

At each conference there is at least one person I connect strongly with. We sit and talk over adult beverages. Or we sit in some lounge area on session breaks. We sometimes find ourselves attending the same sessions and sit together multiple times. Those exchanged cards I hang onto and communicate with at least a couple of times. And of those, a mere handful have turned into what might be called professional real friends. Especially if you see them each time you attend that conference.

I find a similar pattern within my on-line affinity groups on Facebook. A few people emerge as folks you’d really like to have on your team.

Is the dance a phony social convention or is the social glue of trying to connect a value beyond the superficiality of the interaction?

Personality Quirks: Z is for Zealous

A zealot is an uncompromising character who fanatically pursues shis religious, political, or other ideals. One who is zealous is not considered a reasonable rational person. The object of the zealotry overrides normal social strictures, thus some are merely in-your-face offensive to you and others blow up train stations.

Historically, the word represents a member of an ancient Jewish sect that resisted the Romans until 70 CE and aimed for a world Jewish theocracy. Zealot has expanded well beyond that historical beginning. We have had all flavors of zealous folks since then.

I found an interesting etymology for zealot. The word derives from ecclesiastical Latin and originally comes from the Greek zelos meaning ‘be jealous.’ How did jealousy turn into fanaticism?

You of course can see the potential to use your religious zealous character in a thriller where heesh is trying to protect shis religious beliefs/icons from what heesh considers to be sacrilege. Perhaps your zealous character believes that the Pope is an impediment to shis religious beliefs and sets out to rid the world of him. Is your zealous character Catholic or is heesh from another faith tradition or even an atheist? How could your zealot get close enough to the Pope to harm him? Is heesh working alone or in concert with a group?

Another kind of book is murder mystery. This time your zealous character is a fitness and health guru whom many hundreds of thousands follow unquestioningly. Heesh writes books, has a video series for cooking and exercise, and has frequent large-scale workshops. Is it a façade? Is the zealot for real or a fraud pretending to be a strict adherent as a way to milk the gullible public? What if a spurned lover writes a tell-all that threatens the comfortable lifestyle and image of your zealous character? Might the spurned lover end up dead? And if so, by whose hand? Your zealous character is the obvious suspect. But did heesh do the deed?

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Personality Quirks: Y is for Yobbish

To be yobbish is to act in the “rude, noisy, and aggressive way” that a yob acts. What that means in action may vary from one person to another. I may have a lower tolerance than you for rudeness or noise or aggression. That allows a lot of latitude for creating tensions among characters.

What an interesting etymology for yobbish! A yob is a rude, noisy, and aggressive young man and the word originated in the middle of the 19^th century from the backward spelling of boy. That’s an interesting way of creating neologisms.

I can imagine a family moving into a new neighborhood. The quietness is disrupted by loud music played late into the night by the yobbish teenager of the new family. How do the neighbors react when the teen discards trash on their lawns or won’t give way on the sidewalk for an elderly neighbor using a walker? Is there any way to break through the incivility and turn the yobbish young man around? Perhaps a kind neighbor realizes the yob is acting out to get attention and reaches out. Or maybe the yobbish teen is in a situation wherein he must help someone or callously disregard the need for help. What does the yob do and what is the aftermath of the choice?

Another scenario with a yobbish character could be the supervisor at a fast food franchise. He’s a Class A jerk. He picks favorites. Employees never know if today they’ll be praised or punished. Do employees plan retribution, some sort of retaliation? Do they video tape him and send the tape to the corporate management? Is there one event that pushes other employees to finally stand up to him like his humiliation of a physically or mentally challenged person? What if the supervisor’s supervisor is yobbish?

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Personality Quirks: X is for Xenophilia

 These days there is a lot of talk worldwide about xenophobia, fear of strangers, such that borders are unilaterally closed even to refugees, not just immigrants. This fear is flamed by outrageous acts of global terrorism that is meant to send the message that no where is truly safe, not your shopping mall, not your commute, not your religious building. They have been very effective, these terrorists, at disrupting what ought to be a sacred principle in any religion: help those in need.

So let’s talk about an opposite condition: xenophilia, attraction to foreign peoples, manners, and cultures. A xenophiliac would seek out opportunities to travel and to welcome those from other cultures.

Xenophilia derives from Greek xenos meaning ‘stranger’ and philia meaning ‘fondness.’

So what stories could you spin? Might xenophilia apply within one’s own country? Might a Southern belle want to know more about and be attracted to understanding the life of the black sharecropper down the road? Why not? How would that come about? Perhaps she encounters the sharecropper at the library and is curious what heesh could want to read about. Maybe the belle meets the sharecropper at the grocery store and notices heesh bought the same dress fabric. Historical or modern day, your protag could follow through on the curiosity and become friends with someone who has lived the opposite life. Welcoming that new culture with interest and zeal is the sign of a xenophile.

Or, your xenophile could be one of those extreme characters who has little innate core so heesh adopts the trappings of another culture and lives shis life as if heesh is born of the other culture. Imagine how annoying to know that someone is only assuming the garb of being French, British, or Pakistani. Your xenophile would insist to others that heesh is of another culture even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Is your xenophile mentally ill, delusional, or merely establishing a life that is more tolerable than the one born to? Does the xenophilic character remain in the other culture or does something shake shim out of it to the reality of life?

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Personality Quirks: W is for Wiccaphobia

You got this one! Wiccaphobia is a fear of witches and witchcraft. Yep, you knew that, but you may be puzzled still about the word. Why would this still be a real thing? We’re not all in Massachusetts, and it is not the 17^th century.

Witches have been feared through much of history when in fact those thought to be witches—typically women—were folks who possessed more knowledge about herbs, healing, and meteorology (for example) than the average. When things are going well, calling on the witchy woman to help heal or provide protections was normal. When times get hard, people look for who to blame. And the person who is different, who knows more, who expresses non-standard beliefs might take the brunt of the anger and fear.

Wicca was created as a religious cult for modern witchcraft, a 20^th century institution. Wicca, the institution, establishes it origins, however, in pre-Christian pagan beliefs and practices. One must be initiated into Wicca into a coven of other witches that can only occur after a year and a day of intense study, reflection, concentration, and practices. Wicca law holds “an it harm none.”

So what’s to fear? Where does wiccaphobia come from? Here is a group of mostly women who have chosen their own spiritual paths. I suspect it is a holdover from the prejudices and myths of the past. And from unforeseen implications of applied magick. “An it harm none” is a great goal, but sometimes, Wicca warns, bad results can occur when none were intended.

The etymology is Old English wicca meaning ‘witch’ and, of course, phobia is ‘fear of.’

You could set this story as an historical fiction pre- or post-wiccan hysteria. Your wiccaphobe might be a religious fanatic who believes strongly that shis path of spirituality is the only sanctioned one. Anyone expressing pantheism or who venerates earth-based beliefs would be anathema. So the wiccaphobe may set out to destroy what is perceived as a threat to the rightful order. Would there be violence or just a subtle undermining of the person such that the Wiccan leaves the region? Would the community rally around the witchy old lady who is so helpful or would they join the hysteria to wipe out witchcraft?

How about a science fiction time-traveling doctoral student whose dissertation is witches and witchcraft? She is a witch but doesn’t know it and her wiccaphobia stems from her unease with special talents she’s had all her life and can’t always control, a closet witch who fights coming out. She chose her dissertation topic as a way to confront her wiccaphobia fears. Perhaps her trip to Danvers, Massachusetts to collect data in 1692 results in new understandings of the period’s hysteria and leads her to accept her own talents in the 21^st century.

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Personality Quirks: V is for Vacillant

Your vacillant character is uncertain in purpose and/or action. And you are correct when you see a connection to vacillate. Heesh alternates, wavers among different opinions and actions. This indecisive character can be quite trying for your other characters who are seeking clear answers or stances.

Vacillant comes from Latin vacillat- meaning ‘sway unsteadily.’

How might you use a vacillant character in your writing? Perhaps your lighthearted novel includes a character who is deeply into astrology and other prognostications. Heesh uses the daily horoscope to lay out the day’s plan for business. Heesh loves Chinese food because the fortune cookies add another layer of understanding for shim, and so forth. Assume your vacillant character is a Libra. Heesh knows the stereotype for Librans—indecisive because they see both sides of every argument, thus unable to pick. Imagine the situations that can be bollixed up with your character’s waverings. Get married? Set a date? Where to honeymoon? Constant plan changes can give you fun scenes.

Another kind of vacillant character might be someone who is so insecure and so self-deprecating that committing to any course of action would be risking being disliked by others. Such low-self worth can make for a very annoying character for whom one initially feels sympathy but as the vacillance continues, others lose patience.

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