RE: "Puppy Love" (a five-minute #freewrite)
LOL! You remind me of how much I always hated Romeo, who was all lovestruck over Rosalind, until he saw Juliet, and she happened to go all starry eyed over him, or he might have moved on to the next girl... I never believed they found True Love on the dance floor at age 14, not even when I was 14. Or 16. "Men have died and worms have eaten them but not for love," another Rosalind said in Shakespeare's As You Like It (Act 4 Scene 1), and at 16, I totally believed that. Then I saw Cinema Paradiso. Oh that idiot teenage guy in love, standing in the rain and snow outside that girl's window every night for more than a year, to get her attention. I'd have had him arrested! Stalker! But it did show me that men can be fools in love too, and their hearts break. But I digress. I love this story and the conviction of the heroine so quickly put to the test, and her love object failing so obviously. If only it were so evident to all those in real life who are being misled by the fickle or the liar!
"Oh that idiot teenage guy in love, standing in the rain and snow outside that girl's window every night for more than a year, to get her attention."
It's funny how perspectives can change. As a teenager, I would have loved if that had happened to me. At the same time knowing that if I did that to someone else, they probably would have found it creepy even though it would have been a show of my love and 'please just pay attention to me, we will be happy together' :) As an adult, it's definitely creepy and stalkerish!
I have to work hard to not write such obsessive things in my stories... I was a very emotional teenager and still hold some of those quirks, as a result, my very first version of Vengeance and Lyria and Cael was some crazed love story that only I would find interesting. Really needed to tone it down x5000!!! Crazy.
If you're writing for teenagers, the over-the-top love stories are just what they love to read. If you're writing for adults, having the heroine come to realize her Romeo outside her window is a frickin' stalker would make for a more illumating and entertaining story than Romeo and Juliet. But I'm a mood most dire right now. Our youngest has just been bamboozled by a predatory, manipulative kind of guy, and the heartbreak of realizing the truth is far worse than what your heroine suffered in 5-Minute Puppy Love....
I'm sorry. Despite my levity, I am all too aware of the manipulation and predation that can happen in this world. I hope that your youngest is faring well. :(
No need to apologize.
Her situation is tricky. And to make things worse I apparently gave away my book about manipulators to someone, because I can't find it now... I hope my niece (it must have been her I gave it to) got some good out of it.