At dinner the other day, Rachel talked about examining the stories she's written to see if there was an element or theme that appeared in all of them. She found that there was. Naturally, I wanted to see if that was true for me too.
"Older brothers" was the first idea that came to mind, but as much of a chokehold as that trope has had on me for my entire life, I immediately knew that wasn't it, because there is no older brother character in the Fire Faery Story.
I sat down with my journal and two lists: one list of all the stories I could think of off the top of my head, and one list of all the elements/themes I thought might be The One. I assigned symbols to the elements/themes, and wrote them next to the stories they applied to.
None of the elements appeared in every single story, though some came close, like "something is wrong with the powers that be" and "magic." However, 90% of what I've written has been YA fantasy, and those are like the bread and butter of the genre. I also traced "relationships that don't/can't work," but that wasn't every time either.
I put the exercise aside with the intention of mulling it over more later. There abso—
—ohhh, wait, is it the "found family" trope?* Mmmmm not quite. Fire Faery Story and many others, yes, but not The Mirror or The Virtue Chronicles or Powers Story.
Anyway. I put the exercise aside. I wasn't thinking about it at all when I was walking around the apartment complex and a thought hit me:
There are no couples in the Fire Faery Story. It's not just devoid of, like, teenagers who are "together"; I mean NO CHARACTERS ARE DATING OR MARRIED**. Even the adult characters are like single, widowed, etc. No one has a significant other.
I couldn't believe I'd never noticed this before. It wasn't an intentional choice; I had never even noticed. I just hadn't met any characters in my head who were married or together...ever.
Gabe's theory was that as a kid, I was still exploring the concept of relationships, so subconsciously, I didn't feel qualified to write about them. But how much do you really need to understand about relationships to throw in "oh and this man has a wife" or "oh and this character has both parents." Most of the adults I knew as a kid were married. Most of my friends had both parents living with them at home. My subconscious had plenty enough fodder for a cursory couple to EXIST IN MY WORLD?!
It was several hours later, while stir-frying chicken, that another thought hit me and I froze, wooden spoon hovering over the pan.
It's not just the Fire Faery Story that is devoid of couples.
It's ever story I've ever written.
No one is dating. No one is married. Single, widowed, widowered, mom's dead, dad's dead, both parents are dead. Usually there's some kind of secondary romance plot for my main character, but 1) it's conspicuously, intentionally, almost-breaking-the-fourth-wall-level secondary, and 2) it doesn't work.
Is that The Thing? Is that the element that's present in every one of my stories?
Well, first of all, yes. But does it count as The Thing if it's something missing instead of something present? And is that...really it?
What would that mean?
This post is a result of texting my parents about the revelation and ending the conversation with "Maybe I'll blog about it and see what happens."
My dad reminded me that as a kid, I had asked him why there were so many songs about being in love. To me, romance is still the least interesting quality of relationships. It's genuinely boring to me, like someone showing me pictures of their cat***. Like, I'm happy for you, but I really don't care.
"Romance" is different from love though. Even if I avoided "romance," I should still be able to have, like, John and Jane Doe living together in the periphery of the story, right?
I don't think it's a head-heart conflict either, which was my dad's first theory. I'm heart-repressed as an Eight, sure, but I'm other-people's-Feelings dominant in MBTI.
Since I haven't written any new stories or characters since I started self-discovery and personal growth work, I guess it's possible that if I were to write something new now, it would have a couple in it. Maybe maybe one day we'll see?
As I try to puzzle it out, the only reason I've come up with is that I'm most interested in characters as individuals. I see people as individuals, not who they are as a team or a couple. I see the individual first. I want space—I want to give the character space—to be who he/she is, without all the baggage of another person. I don't—well, I haven't—ever write two people trying to come up with a stance together as a unit. The whole "two become one" thing isn't part of my default.
Is that it? I'm not satisfied with that. It doesn't feel like the big Truth at the bottom of this concept. I totally believe in marriage; I've never had a problem with "one flesh."
I don't know.
I guess I'll keep thinking and talking and writing and see what happens.
What a weird-o quirk.
~ Stephanie
* This is happening in real time, by the way. This isn't a stylistic device XD
** One tertiary character has parents that we know are married, but we never even so much as see them in the same room.
*** There are exceptions to this. I would follow an Instagram page for Aaron's cat, Sombra, and the video of Cassidy's Mia fake sneezing is one of my favorite things of all time.
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