Someone else in my extended posse might be getting divorced. Breakups of couples and families have been part of my life since I was a toddler; they make a big impression on me, and a new one can sometimes call up the rends and rips from the past.
I know this is partly why I am interested in brain science, how our memories and beliefs form and change and how they can translate into our actions. But sometimes I wonder why, of all the fiction in the world, I want to write romance novels. When the common wisdom declares, “write what you know,” what could I possibly know about staying together? Do I even believe in happily-ever-after?
On the other hand, I do know how to describe conflicts that get out of hand, moments when people cross the line and can’t go back, and that daily grind that can erode away hope. And in most romance genres, that kind of stuff takes up three-quarters of the book, and then we get to overcoming the conflicts and the HEA.
And if I re-polarize my mental filter, I can find plenty of people in my posse who, yes, have remained together and/or married for decades (even 60 years!). If that is not true for me, personally, I can see it nearby and take notes. And, duh, fiction writing is fiction, a place for imagination and creation. I didn’t live in regency England, but I set stories there without compunction (OK, a little compunction, and a lot of research).
I love my posse in all its glorious variety. As Lilo’s Stitch puts it, we’re small and broken, but good, very good. And not fodder for fiction, after all.
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