Is Your Dinosaur Needy or Aloof?

Is Your Dinosaur Needy or Aloof?

Is Your Dinosaur Needy or Aloof?

crocodile face - to represent dinosaur

What, you must be thinking, can this blog post possibly be about? Is your dinosaur what? Well… it’s not about dinosaurs. Though apparently there are some romance novels in existence where they play a key role. Not any written or read by me, though. However, it is about relationships, with whomever… or whatever… you choose.

 

I came across this article in Verily online magazine called Being Needy Gets a Bad Rap in Romance: What’s Really Going On? Perhaps you’ve seen some of this psychology before. I know I have, though it’s nicely summarized in this article, for quick digestion. (Read it here.)

 

Believable Characters Have a Past

It reminded me how much writers need to understand human psychology in order to create fully fleshed out and believable characters on the page. There are many sources that writers use to do this, beyond personal experience, and many different systems to sort and categorize personality types. These include the Myers-Briggs test and its derivatives, the Enneagram, Master Characters and Jungian Archetypes. Some of these books have been written specifically with writers in mind.

 

What struck me in particular about attachment style as an attribute of personality is how important it is for writers of Romance, or any story that focuses on relationships. Certainly all of Women’s Fiction would be included, but any writer who wants to enrich her story with true-to-life human interactions would be wise to consider this.

 

man embracing woman who looks out at camera (detached?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Secure, Avoidant or Anxious Attachment Style?

In brief, the three attachment styles, imprinted early in life, are Secure, Avoidant and Anxious. My imagination is already filling in with the characters that populate my novels, both written and still to meet the page. Since attachment style derives from early childhood, and the relationship one had with one’s parents or caregivers, naturally there is a strong connection with backstory and family of origin stories.

 

These play an important role in many of the stories I (and other writers) imagine, as wounds from the past often influence or determine how we go through life (our Identity, in Michael Hague’s terminology), and what our hopes and attitudes are towards mating and family life. More importantly, they influence behaviour and communication, things that show up concretely on the story page. Understanding where your character sits on this continuum (and I do believe it’s more of a continuum than a tidy list of three neat categories) is critical.

 

When involved in a new romantic relationship, what happens when your emotions begin to be engaged? When you suddenly realize you need this other person in your life? Whether you realize it or not, you’re falling in love. Some may leap in and hang on tightly— Perhaps too tightly, suffocating the other or creeping them out by being needy. Others may panic and put up barriers, artificially create conflict to avoid uncomfortable intimacy, or… run for the hills. It’s a rare healthy and balanced person (IMO) who is fully secure in their attachment style. And if everyone were, well, where would be the fun in that?

Good fiction depends on conflict and troubles and angst

man with bouquet of flowers, romantic intentions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good fiction depends on conflict and troubles and angst. A smoothly running relationship does not make for a good romance. As every reader of romance knows, there must be barriers to the HEA or there is no story!

 

Those who aren’t familiar with, or shy away from, the genre perhaps think the “formula” makes for boring or predictable reading. On the contrary, it’s not the fact that boy and girl (or boy and boy, or girl and dinosaur) meet, fall in love, and live happily-ever-after that’s the point. It’s HOW it unfolds. It’s what the obstacles (internal and external) are and how they are overcome, and how the characters must grow and change in order to reach that ideal resolution. And those obstacles are infinitely variable. These relationship issues, of course, apply equally in non-romantic relationships, between parents and children, between siblings or friends, and are equally influenced by attachment style.

 

In my own fiction, the obstacles are rarely external, though there may be life events, or external goals, that propel the plot forward. More importantly for me is what motivates my characters to seek out or avoid relationship and intimacy.

 

Though I could talk about this all day, I’ll end with an example from my Work in Progress. Perhaps you’ve already sampled a few chapters. If not, sign up for my email list and they are yours.

 

I Love You… Don’t Leave Me

In the book, called Coming About (although the title is currently up for debate,) my hero, Bruce, has serious abandonment issues. He’s the youngest of four sons. His father is a cold, bullying, macho man’s-man who raised his sons in his own image. Bruce has three much-older brothers as proof, scars and all. Bruce, being the baby of the family, was the apple of his mother’s eye, and his intimacy with her shielded him from identifying with and emulating his testosterone-fuelled father and brothers.

 

Until she left.

Man standing alone on a dock, in silhouette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An event he never recovered from, and one that created in him a deep-seated anxiety about intimacy and real relationships. Perhaps he’s unlovable and unworthy of devotion. How can he trust anyone with his heart when, clearly, they are going to up and leave without warning? That hurts too damn much. And so, he’s lived his life on the surface, bouncing from one-night-stand to one-night-stand, never giving anyone the chance to get close.

 

Do You Still Love Me? Yes… But Dude, Give Me Some Space!

One aspect of the anxious attachment style that I had overlooked, however, is the constant need for reassurance once the heart is engaged. This is a valuable detail that can help me flesh out my character by giving him internal emotional angst about what the reciprocal feelings or intentions of his love interest might be (that’d be the fiercely independent Alexa, of course.) Her attachment style is on the secure-to-avoidant continuum because she believes marriage and family conflict with her passionate commitment to her career. So she’s decided to do without, despite inner yearnings.

 

Woman in white dress floating on her back in water

You can see where this is going, and how understanding attachment style provides fodder for conflict. As my hero and heroine get intimate and fall in love, the way one (Bruce) behaves is interpreted in a negative way by the other (Alexa) creating conflict between them. At the beginning, he avoids intimacy while she seeks to connect. Then the closer he wants to get, because things are getting serious, the more she pushes him away. This push-and-pull dance propels their relationship toward its climactic resolution. It’s beautiful… storytelling, that is.

 

What have your personal experiences been with mismatched attachment styles in your own relationships? Do you recognize yourself or your loved ones in the pages of novels? Leave a comment below and let me know. Thanks for reading!

 


 

GIVEAWAYS GALORE

I’ve got THREE giveaways going on right now, all for my book Reconcilable Differences. The first is with LibraryThing, for 100 digital copies. Request one by scrolling down and clicking the yellow button– and then leave a review, please.

The second is for 10 signed print copies with Goodreads. If you haven’t got a copy yet, enter and maybe you’ll win. Here’s the link. For the third awesome giveaway, see the box below. It started Monday and ends October 3rd. You won’t want to miss out.

Life Change and Personal Growth in the Face of Adversity –
Women’s Fiction at its Best

I’m one of several authors doing an Instafreebie Group Giveaway for up to 58 Women’s Fiction titles you can download for free just by clicking… and you choose which ones you’re interested in. So easy! Click here.

VOTE FOR ME PLEASE

Also, The Art of Enchantment is nominated for the 2017 Readers’ Choice Awards. Will you do me a huge favour? I hope you’ll consider voting for The Art of Enchantment here. Scroll through to Romance. Fingers crossed! Thank you so much.

GRAB A COPY – LEAVE A REVIEW

You can buy either book if you haven’t yet. Go to my Home Page or the RD Store for convenient links to Amazon, Indigo and elsewhere. Don’t forget to leave a review when you’re done. Thanks!

Mental Illness: Coming to a Family Near You

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Silver Linings Playbook poster

Last year when I took The Ring Screenwriting workshop, we were asked to view the newly released Silver Linings Playbook and come prepared to dissect and discuss it in class. I loved the movie. It was incredibly well written and directed, with a first class ensemble cast, as subsequent awards proved. But what I took away from it was something more. Something personal. And that is the way the film delves into the impact of mental illness on ordinary families in the ordinary world. I’m not talking about stalkers and serial killers (Basic Instinct, Silence of the Lambs), or eccentric heroic geniuses (Batman, Ironman anyone?). As much as we are fascinated by the extraordinary in society, I think the ordinary is just as engrossing.

MENTAL ILLNESS IS NORMAL

Mental Illness is not only normal, it’s far more widespread than we might like to admit. Think about it. Between Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar Disorder, Depression, Anxiety Disorders that include Eating Disorders, Phobias and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Autism, Addictions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – and the many nuances and variations I haven’t mentioned – that’s a pretty big chunk of society, isn’t it? And a large proportion of that is undiagnosed. Just like Pat, the protagonist in Silver Linings Playbook, he “white-knucked it” on his own most of his life, until something happened, some extraordinarily stressful event triggered a breakdown. He snapped, and all hell broke loose.

I love these two scenes for illustrating just that point. Here is Pat’s BF Ronnie talking about how the stresses of life feel to him, and how he deals with it.It makes you wonder who’s the crazy one.(WARNING: These clips contain a bit of vulgar language.)

The Pressure

It’s My Therapy

In a SAG interview with screenwriter/director David O. Russell he talks about his son, and how this story appealed to him as a way of integrating and normalizing mental illness for his son. He doesn’t give any details of his son’s condition, but I can only assume that Russell is pretty sensitive to what it’s like to try to live a normal life, and to help a loved one lead a normal life, under these challenging circumstances. He specifically refers to how the main characters’ illness affects all the people around them.

AT WHAT COST?

How many families are impacted by mental health issues? Is yours? Mine is. Do you ever wonder what it’s like to experience dealing with alcoholism, depression, OCD and Bi-Polar disorder, on top of the normal challenges and stresses of life? Or do you already know. I’ve seen what any of those things can do to the family members who’s lives are affected. The spouses, the children, the parents. It sucks a lot of energy. It can bring you down.  It can derail a career or a marriage. It puts enourmous strain on relationships. It can spoil the holidays and make everyone afraid to speak, for fear of saying the wrong thing, of setting someone off, of doing harm. And so we hold it in. And it’s easy for the damage to spread. For family members to become enablers.

And when I saw the movie, this is what I thought about. Not only about the impact mental illness has on the lives of the people who suffer from one condition or another, but of the ripples of disruption that spread outward from the patient to their families, friends, coworkers and community. Pretty soon you see it’s an intricately woven blanket that spreads over us all. And often it’s not diagnosed at all, is poorly understood and  not supported.

One of my favourite scenes from the movie, not the diner scene with Jennifer Lawrence that you most often see, or any of the scenes which depict the two protagonists, the two “mental health” patients interacting with each other, but instead the interaction between the two brothers, Pat and Jake.

This was one of my favourite scenes in the film, because it shows so beautifully how the family of Pat is affected by his illness. Watch to see how they are all on tenterhooks during the exchange. It’s beautifully portrayed. It’s a testament to Pat’s recovery that Jake’s anxiety and general weirdness doesn’t push any of his buttons, and he rises above it.

I Got Nothin But Love For You Brother

Leave a comment and tell me, if you’ve seen the movie, which was your favourite scene and why? Can you relate to any of the characters in Silver Linings Playbook?