Boy Meets Girl, in a petri dish under a microscope.

[shadowlight]

Is it typical in love stories to not bother explaining how the protagonists actually fall in love? as in, what causes the initial attraction that motivates them to overcome the various obstacles that then crop up to keep them apart, instead of shrugging and moving on to the next possible match? (Perhaps they do explain this and I miss it somehow?) This would make writing love stories exponentially easier; sort of like the difference between space opera and Hard Sci-Fi (where you have to explain how stuff works as if it really might).

Comments

[sweetnfat.livejournal.com]

As with shojo manga stories, it's not necessary to show your work when characters fall in love, but it does make for a more believable romance if there were more steps taken than just happening to be there and available. "Oh, you're single? Me too." "And we're together for the moment, this must be true love, right?" I say, if the romance is important to the story, show yor work. :D

[bastets-place.livejournal.com]

First, I think that someone would have to explain to ME how I fall in love- I have absolutely no idea what causes me to pick Man A over Man B. With time and experience, I can predict (somewhat) patterns - I prefer men close to my height (no more than 5'8" tall), somewhat chunky, blue eyes, and hair somewhere in the "brown" range. We tend to have two hobbies in common - no more, no less. They tend to be more physically active than I am, and we tend to have wildly different tastes in television watching. Also, the "love" thing happens either immediately or not at all. But I currently know six men who are single and meet all of these criteria (save the "love" thing). Only one of them am I attracted to as a female to a male, and I am dating none of them.
The guy that I am dating is well over six feet tall, with brown eyes and a lot in common with me, including television interests. Unfortunately, I can never convince him to go to the gym with me. So much for logic.

If anyone does, in fact, know exactly how one falls in love, could they let me know? I'm pretty sure I've been doing it wrong. Thanks.

[malpanda.livejournal.com]

see, this is why I haven't written (more a handful of) love stories, and even my love poetry has tapered off as the years go by. Decades of research has failed to yield useful data.