Perfect Wants and Enlightening Needs

Reality

When I'm writing a romance I try and keep a few concepts mutually exclusive. The concepts are what people want in a relationship and what they need.  We'll call them perfect 'want' and enlightening 'need'. I've never really believed that these ideas coincide. But in the world of romance they must go hand and hand because you're not just telling a heart love story, you're telling a head love story and the characters being together has to make sense to the reader before they do to the characters.  Keeps the reader.. . reading if for no other reason than to have the "I told you so!" moment at the end. I want my readers to feel like these characters are friends of theirs that for some reason haven't figured it out yet.

Fables Cover
Great comic series that reinvents fairytales

I always wanted to write a more realistic version of the love story and not the inexplicable clusterfuck some of our fairytales are. Which fairytales are the beginning of the perfect 'want' concept in my opinion. So he's rich, he's a prince and he wants that little step kid. .. nah. So I make sure my characters at least hint to these ideas in past relationships.  I wanted this but this person wasn't who I thought they were is another way of saying you never really knew them.  You in essence projected your ideas and thoughts onto them until the costume you dressed them in fell off.

The issue comes with desire, want, satisfaction, and need.  We are currently a society that focuses on want, desire, satisfaction, and yet we usually frown on need. The feeling of saying and thinking it leaves many of us with the sour taste of getting good socks for Christmas instead of toys as children. We didn't want the socks we needed, we wanted the Tonka truck (And yes I know I'm a girl, but I really did!).

We all have different ways of understanding ourselves through these urges. Some of us have taught ourselves to ignore or quell them, others to go in full hog. It asserts itself in how and why we begin relationships with each other. Whether friendly, romantic, business, we have an idea of what we would like to accomplish with someone else and how they should respond in certain situations. But in many cases, such as personal relationships, we have a tendency to overlook and downplay actions and attitudes of a person because they fit a 'mold' of who we want to be seen as in a relationship with, instead of just understanding that their mold really doesn't fit our mold.

Oh yeah Mr. Tonka truck!

I think in love especially people go after what they believe they want in a relationship and ignore a lot of what life has shown them they need.  That stable nice guy just feels like Christmas socks and Bad boy McGee over there, Tonka truck all the way. Just a loose example. I won't say one sex will do it more or less than another but certain personalities will justify any activity sometimes to maintain this idea of a perfect 'want' all the while ignoring enlightening 'need'.

So what is perfect 'want'. I have always made the concept of perfect 'want'an attainable fantasy.  This means that while we all have this fantasy life that contains our perfect everything, we all know deep down inside that this person is a myth.  They are in fact a fantasy.  So instead we have the concept of perfect 'want'. This is the person that is just close enough that you can forgive pretty much any henious actions or crimes to be with them.  But at the end of the day, the issue is not who they are, its' who you want them to be. Their actions notwithstanding, the person who is in love with their perfect 'want' is wooed by the idea that they have their perfect person.  It stands because they so badly want this person to be perfect so in essence they become that in their eyes.

Hey Cat!

But hidden in the closet of perfect 'want' is the inability to sometimes be perfectly honest with yourself.  Most people have a list of activities and characteristics they believe the perfect person for them should have.  I think most people should shove that away for a minute and find out what attributes the perfect person for you should have in your mother's eyes, or your best friend.  The people who actually love you as you are in a none romantic sense. Because if at no point in time does the characteristics you set and someone who knows you well sets line up..  there is a problem and you will find yourself to be very susceptible to flights of perfect 'want'.

Want?

Flights of perfect 'want' end in tragedy usually.  It's hard to make relationships with an idea work because the idea isn't an idea, it's a human being and sooner or later who they are will rip free from the idea. There are occasions when everything lines up and people actually find the idea person who is actually the right person. No fuss, no muss, together forever. But I write romance so that doesn't make for a very interesting story.  What I like to write about and what I find more interesting is enlightening 'need'.

Well if you're thinking enlightening 'need' is the opposite of perfect 'want' then you are already thinking correctly about it. Enlightening 'need' is the opposite.  This is the person that somehow manages to make you see them and through them, yourself. If perfect 'want' is the attainable fantasy then enlightening 'need' is the fleeting reality. That person looks a lot more like who your mother would pick, or your best friend. But this is a reality that you have to know because sometimes friends and family can be blinded by their own ideas of perfect 'want' for you and have not acknowledged your enlightening 'need'. Its not a logical thought or choice but an internal sense of knowing.  Sometimes you can't connect any reason why they are the one.  They just are. Somehow without being told they know what you really need and provide it whether you want it or not.

Enlightenment

For every person, just like the perfect 'want' it's different. It is a process that is discovered over time because nooks and crannies need to fit.  I'm not talking about tab A slot B, I mean that's nice too, but the other things need to fit first.  And not what you would choose to fit, but the things that you have to begrudgingly admit must fit. Because you'll be amazed at how well tab A and slot B fit together when you line everything else up first and see if they mesh. You can change your mind about where you live, not about who you are.

It seems in the end the difference lies in the proof and that's in the pudding.

Hmm pudding.. I digress.



The proof lies in your heart, not your mind because the impossible doesn't make sense until after it's done. (wink)

Grab one of my books as a how-to guide and get out there and get what you need.


Photo Credits:

Reality courtesy of: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1332/1190818714_59b75ec2c2.jpg

Fables Cover courtesy of: http://media.dcentertainment.com/sites/default/files/book-covers/2361_400x600.jpg

Tonka truck courtesy of: http://jesda.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/wpid-tonka-large-vintage-very-old-metal-tonka-dump-truck_320621611820-2011-02-10-01-08.jpg

Hey Cat! courtesy of: http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c48.0.403.403/p403x403/297068_434802666558608_1960376484_n.jpg

Want? courtesy of: http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/61/6150/GQCG100Z/posters/leo-cullum-they-don-t-keep-you-on-a-leash-because-they-want-you-to-run-away-cartoon.jpg

Enlightenment courtesy of: http://nickstlee.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/i_love_you____pon_and_zi_by_ladyselena.jpg

Pudding courtesy of: http://free-extras.com/images/pudding-5712.htm