Original message:
You know what, writing a decently paced, relatable, believable love story is challenging.
It is even more difficult doing this with a legitimate friendship.
What it then turned into was something along these lines:
We, as a society, have made it acceptable to be friends at first sight. All of us watch as kids enter a classroom, decide they like the color someone else is wearing and are instant best friends. Not even just friends or acquaintances. From that moment, those two will be seen as best friends until something 'dramatic' shifts the balance.
It is okay to be friends with someone without even really knowing them. We claim them, right away. Give it only ten minutes of conversation, and you could know in those few moments that this is someone you connect with on a level few others understand. This person is your friend.
So why is that acceptable, but love at first sight isn't?
Mind you, I'm a skeptic as far as love at first sight goes. I do fall more towards the lust at first sight crowd. But who is to say that in the same twenty minutes it takes you or I to make a new friend, it wouldn't take someone else the same amount of time to fall in love? Especially if you're one of those rare individuals who loves like a puppy: always giving, never mind about that receiving bit.
Why have we made it okay to call each other friends when we barely know each other, but we discount anyone's claim that they have fallen in love in the same frame of time?
This is especially true in novels, I've found. It is amazing the amount of times the first instinct about a person is all that is needed for a character to decide whether another will be a friend or an enemy. Maybe it takes a character one day, or maybe it takes them thirty seconds. The point being, we can accept that in a novel.
If the same main character meets another character and strikes up a conversation that leaves an impression, however, it's not possible that they're in love. It's unacceptable, unless you want to get battered with the 'instalove' card.
And I get it. I wouldn't read some banal love story where the girl meets a guy and decides that it is love within her first twenty minutes of speaking to him. Especially when said story often involves unnecessary drama that is there just to form the semblance of a plot.
Yet, I'm not sure I want to read a book about two friends risking their lives for each other when they've only met three days ago, either.
The point I'm trying to make, is that friendships may be easier to come by, but they are built with all of the same things as romantic love.
*Trust
*Respect
*Honesty
*Laughter
*Memories
If you are going to make a book, film, song, whatever about friendships, then I feel like you should treat it like romantic love. Give it the same patience and organic growth that you would experience if you were falling in love with someone. Because, essentially, you are.
I love my best friend. She is more my soul mate than the man I am in love with. That didn't happen in the blink of an eye. It didn't just occur one day, with one conversation, over one shared interest. It was a bond that began with a spark that we built into a wildfire over years of laughter and video chats and TMI late night conversations. Ours is a legitimate love story in every way that counts.
The difference? If I wrote a book about it, I could skip all of those important character building, life saving, soulmate finding details. As a reader, you wouldn't demand anything more from me than 'She's my best friend. I'd do anything for her.'
For a while, I thought that was enough, too. I thought: what more needs to be said?
And yet, if someone says 'That's my soulmate. I'd die for them.' we demand a better reason. We demand an explanation.
What if they're the same person? Best friend/soulmate/lover? What then? Do we still have the right to demand an explanation behind why this person would put themselves at risk for someone they love? How is that okay?
And if you think it is, then do me a favor: Don't accept the excuse of 'best friend' anymore.
If you think a love story between two individuals needs to be more fully explained, like I do, then also demand that stories that revolve around a friendship hold themselves to the same standard.
Of course, I am thinking of one book in particular, though I won't name it. Yet, it was my own NaNo novel which sparked this pre-bedtime tirade. Because, in the first 1/3 of the book, I'm trying to build a friendship for these two girls that is the basis for the rest of the novel. Being as it is NaNo and I'm rushing, obviously I did not do this well.
A fact I have been brooding about all month long. So it bred this whole curfluffle.
I'm trying to write a friendship how I would write a romance. Because I am now putting them on equal footing, I think I have a better idea how I am going to accomplish this.
Thus the post and my sharing of my ideas with all you lovelies. Thank you for reading my ranting.
