Tuesday 20 March 2018

WEP Guest Post, by L G Keltner, Winner of the February Challenge - In Too Deep: The Sting of Cupid’s Arrow .


Welcome to a WEP tradition - the winner's guest post.

L. G. Keltner won the February Challenge -

In Too Deep, with her flash, Contemptible Cupid.




Today she's here to discuss ‘love’ and its influence on plot.

  


In Too Deep: The Sting of Cupid’s Arrow


When I sat down to write my WEP piece, I knew I wanted to focus on love.  After all, it was February.  Valentine’s Day brings with it romance, flowers, and chocolates for a number of lucky people.  For others, it brings a reminder of loneliness or lost loves.  Either way, the presence or absence of love causes lots of feelings. 

Love is a popular subject to write about, whether as the primary plot or a subplot, and it’s not surprising.  As children, we’re born into families, and in ideal circumstances, those families love and nurture us.  As we grow, we make friends we come to love like family, and when we’re old enough, we may choose to begin our difficult and awkward search for a romantic partner.

Part of the desire to write about love stems from wanting to understand it.  What is love anyway?  What should we want from a relationship?  What should we expect?  Why does it happen, and why does it fall apart?  These are tricky questions to answer.

Love is difficult to define, but descriptors for it abound.  Love is patient.  Love will guide and support you through the tough times.  Love is enduring.  It’ll catch you when you fall.  These are lofty promises, but they can be met when we’re surrounded by caring people.  And if a person finds themselves alone in times of trouble, someone with a loving heart may see that pain in their fellow man and lend a helping hand.  This is love at its best.  This is how beautiful love can be.  It can enrich our lives and imbue our daily routines with a sense of meaning and purpose.

Love also has a dark side. 

Like Cupid’s famous arrow, love strikes us without warning, and it’s not within our ability to control.  We may decide whether to start a relationship with someone, but that decision exists apart from the feeling we have.   

Cupid’s arrow doesn’t care whether it’s welcome or not.  The uncontrollable nature of love can be a bloody nuisance, or worse, utterly devastating.  “All’s fair in love and war,” an oft quoted proverb proclaims.  “Love is a battlefield,” says Pat Benatar.  These nuggets of pop wisdom touch on that darkness.  Love can be inconvenient.  It can even be dangerous to fall in love if society deems it to be wrong.  At certain places and times (even today), it’s been frowned upon or outright illegal to be with someone of a different race, a different religion, or the same sex.  The consequences for embracing that love can be devastating.  Nevertheless, people have gone through all kinds of personal hardships and taken grave risks to be with the one they love.

Love can also turn to contempt and bitterness.  The transition from love to hate is treacherous and hard to understand.  Maybe that’s why writers like to poke and prod at that transition so often in their stories.  It’s baffling that such a drastic change in feeling is possible.  This is where my story planted roots and grew. 


Cupid is love’s delivery boy.  He is our attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible.  We give him credit for the happy process of initially falling in love, but I wanted to find a way to blame him for when it falls apart.  Why?  It sounded like fun.  Why should he get credit for all the good and none of the bad?  That hardly seems fair.  


My version of Cupid is not to be trifled with or trusted.  He’s dangerous because love can be dangerous.  When we embrace love, we risk a broken heart.  Is loving someone worth that risk?  We may all come to our own conclusions on that one.  Personally, I say yes, it is worth it.  Just don’t irritate Cupid.  He could use some anger management classes.

Writers everywhere incorporate love into their tales, and that’s wonderful.  We get to find inspiration, joy, and sadness in reading about all the ways love can either triumph or go awry.  We get to explore all the possibilities together.  Do you like to examine the nature of love in the stories you write?  Do you prefer stories where love remains happy, or do you prefer when it takes a dark turn?






L. G. Keltner spends most of her time trying to write while also cleaning up after her crazy but wonderful kids and hanging out with her husband. Her favorite genre of all time is science fiction, and she’s been trying to write novels since the age of six. Needless to say, those earliest attempts weren’t all that good but now she’s the author of Author of A Silent Soliloquy ~ Cosmic Seasoning ~ Self-Help 101 or: How I Learned to Take Over the World Through Tolerating My Family ~ Self-Help 101 or: How To Survive a Bombardment With Minimal Injury ~ Self-Help 101 or: How to Select a Costume to Help You Deal With People"Felix Was Here" from Parallels: Felix Was Here ~ "Treating the Beast" from Circuits & Slippers ~ "Nocturnal Noise" from 2018 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide

Are you ready for the next WEP Challenge?
April 1st is the day to sign up for the Road Less Traveled:



We'd love if you'd Tweet one/all of these
The #WEPFF In Too Deep Challenge Winner Guest Post with L. G. Keltner! @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/03/wep-guest-post-by-l-g-keltner-winner-of.html
Celebrate with L. G. our 1st place winner #WEPFF In Too Deep challenge #amwriting https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/03/wep-guest-post-by-l-g-keltner-winner-of.html
#WEPFF February Challenge winner discusses love and plot @DeniseCCovey & @YolandaRenee https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2018/03/wep-guest-post-by-l-g-keltner-winner-of.html  #amwriting #flashfiction
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Brought to you by the WEP team:

Denise, Nila, Olga & Renée

20 comments:

  1. Huge congratulations L.G. Life got in the way and I hadn't read your stunning piece until a few moments ago.
    And yes, Cupid as a socio/psychopath works well for me. Dark and dangerous.

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  2. What a great story LG, and wonderful to read about your creative process. Thoroughly enjoyed your post.

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  3. A very thought provoking post. Love when it goes wrong is just the material for a deliciously dark, satisfying story. Enjoyed your winning flash hugely. And this post.

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    1. Love gone wrong is fun to both read and write about! Thanks for your kind words!

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  4. A great story LG, congratulations on the first place.

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  5. Love your post. "Just don’t irritate Cupid." It's a funny advice but so true.

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  6. Love sure can go to hate rather quick if the right issues arise. Cupid as a nutball sure is a win.

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    1. Cupid as a nutball was so much fun to write, too! Thank you!

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  7. Congratulations LG. What a great post to accompany your great story! I do like to explore love in my writing. In fact, I use my writing to sometimes challenge my own ideals. When trying to understand the appeal of reading about love triangles, I wrote one myself. While I do prefer happy love stories, I don't shy away from more tragic ones.

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    1. Thank you! Writing is a great way of exploring and understanding things, isn't it?

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  8. Hi Yolanda and particularly LG ... I did love your Cupid story - so clever and so cleverly thought out. We all need love of some form ... and people who will pick us up should we fall - and we all fall in and out love at times ... I know that I couldn't write a love story ... but so appreciated yours.

    Re April's WEP - please forgive me ... but continent change, difficult times here and doing the A-Z .. I feel I'd better not over-stretch myself ... I'll be back for June's 'Unravelled Yarn' - cheers to you all and congratulations LG ... Hilary

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    1. Thank you! It sounds like your April is going to be quite busy. Best of luck with everything!

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  9. Thoughtful post on love. I prefer happy endings and that love is a positive force.

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  10. Please add my direct link: (thanks)
    https://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.ca/2018/04/wep-road-less-traveled-outpost-story.html
    Sorry to post late, computer problems. . .

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  11. I am always searching online for storys that can accommodate me ผลบอลสด

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