I’m Not Talking To You

May 12th, 2010

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A few years ago, when I decide to write, I read an article on obstacles in romantic fiction. The author of the article stated that the writer must find an obstacle that will keep the lovers apart and fuel their desire. This obstacle could not be anything that could be cleared up by a good talk between the couple.

I remember thinking that most of the time obstacles in romantic relationships usually stem from not talking to one another. Lovers can avoid talking for many reasons – the assumption that the desired one should be a mind reader, or will judge the other harshly or probe for weaknesses. Or perhaps the lover doesn’t have the language to describe their feelings or would rather escape into a bottle or work or television instead of talking it out.

I‘ve been giving some thought to my male protagonist, trying to work out why he’s taking the stance that he is – which is basically not talking and subsequently letting his perceptions of his love relationship become wildly distorted. I look back over his life, (I know this guy pretty well by now), and see control has been a big issue for him and that he’s a linear problem solver who likes to act. When faced with a crisis he cannot solve, both in his work and relationship, what does he do?

He has a few drinks – that’s a given. He tells his closest male friend nearly everything, keeping the relationship stuff mostly to himself. He’s not going to go to see his girl and say ‘we need to talk’ because what if he did that, told her he’d never stopped loving her, but finds out that she has stopped loving him? Too painful, too humiliating, not doing it. Instead he’s going to do a Clint Eastwood and ride off into the sunset because his own heart scares him more than all the guns and outlaws out in that there wilderness.

What does she do? Tells her closest friend, has a cry, eats chocolate and examines his every word from the last six months for any hidden meaning she may have missed. Does she go and see him and say ‘we need to talk?’ No she does not. Because she’s angry and he’s a selfish pig and can come to her for a change.

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A good talk might have saved all the agony, but nobody is willing to put his or her cards down first. Not talking, for a host of reasons, is the classic obstacle for couples. Particularly now when divorce, religion, and social pressures don’t provide the external obstacles they once did.

Sebastian Faulks says in the introduction to his short biographical book, The Fatal Englishman, that when writing about real people he resisted the urge ‘towards unity that finds it’s best expression in fiction, when the events can be shaped and patterned to echo the themes, while characters can be made, within the limits of their realistic capacities, to behave in a way that adds further harmony.’ He continues by saying ‘The lives of real people, unlike those of fictional characters, seem to exert a small but constant outward force away from order.’

In real life then, my two characters, both too stubborn or fearful to sort it out probably move onto the next partner and do it all again, until there is no happy ending, just regrets, and eventually compromise and maybe a hint of wistfulness.

But, lucky for them, it’s not real and I’m looking for harmony and thematic unity. So my man stops on his way to the sunset and says to himself, ‘Hmm, I sure do miss her. Maybe she’s worth the risk. I’ll go back and see if we can talk it through.’ And my woman thinks, ‘I don’t mind doing all the emotional heavy lifting – as usual – I’ll go and find him and tell him how I feel so he’ll feel safe with me, and then we can talk.’

Most couples avoid having a ‘good talk’ until they are dragged in front of a counsellor or so much is at stake they can no longer avoid it. And I consider this to be an excellent obstacle. Not as exciting as the king forbidding such a union, or being separated by war and never losing hope, or even battling social prejudice to be together. Not talking is realistic, it comes from within the characters and therefore is within their capacity to deal with it, and thus allows for a vast landscape of psychosocial hills and gully’s for the novelist to explore.

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