A different take on Relationships...by Peggy Jaeger

The topic for this month is our tips on relationships - personal, professional, or even in our writing life. What works best for us and what doesn't.

I have to tell you, I love this topic.

There's really nothing new or intriguing I can say about a loving relationship that hasn't been said a million times before, so I'm not going to. What I'm going to discuss is how to handle - and see - relationships that aren't exactly loving.

Weird, right? I know, but this is the way my psychology-trained brain works.

I've mentioned before author Maya Angelou is credited with the quote: When people SHOW you who they are, believe them the first time.

So many people - including authors - forget this very simple edict. I've read more than my fair share of books where the heroine is treated poorly or ungraciously by people and even the hero, time and time again, but still thinks they are good and loving, and kind and have her back no matter what.

Maybe in fiction this can happen, but in reality? No, sweetie, they aren't and they don't.

Everyone has an agenda in a relationship. Expectations for their own behavior and for their partner's. When those expectations aren't met is when strife occurs. Writers need to remember this when they draw their characters because fiction does parallel real life in most ways. Different expectations is an excellent way to create conflict in a book and works well because everyone, as I said, has expectations for the relationship.

Here's a basic for instance: a man and a woman are to be married. Both work full-time. The husband-to-be expects the wife to do all the chores inside the house - the cooking, cleaning, laundry, organizing, bill paying, because that's what his mom has always done. He tells her this. But the wife has other ideas. She was raised with a 50/50 marriage as her yardstick and thinks hubby should do 1/2 the chores of the house. She thinks she can change him once they are married.

We all know how this story ends. 

The classic rule in writing is to show not tell, and since people show you who they are, seems like this would be a no-brainer for writers. But for some, it isn't. 

If a character tells the hero she loves cats but then won't pet his, that's a classic show. If the hero ignores the behavior because he wants the girl...strife occurs.

If a hero says he wasn't to blame for the end of his last relationship when the girl accused him of cheating, and then we see him flirting with anything with an XY chromosome, that's a classic show. Again, strife in the relationship will ensue.

If I had to give one tip to writers who are penning relationship novels, it's this: don't make a character's basic core beliefs change on a dime because of the love interest. It doesn't happen in real relationships and it shouldn't in fiction.  You CAN slowly guide the changing belief or behavior through actions, internal debates, and circumstances, but you shouldn't do it BAM in one scene. 

In my real-life relationships, I am a very guarded person because I have believed people when they told me who they were and then ignored their behavior when it contradicted what I was told.

Burn me once? Shame on you. Burn me twice? Shame on me. The third time? I learned my lesson.

People really do show you who they are. Believe them the first time, and if you're okay with this, so be it. If not...

Peggy Jaeger writes romcoms, romantic suspense, and PNR-lite about strong women, the families who support them, and the men who can't live without them. She blogs daily on her website and you can visit her there to get her take on things that make her say, "WHAT??!!"

PeggyJaeger.com