Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How far do I need to go to show "fit" between two "dating" characters?

Showing that one person is a better fit psychologically is very difficult, especially since we don't seem to know what constitutes fit or why one relationship works in real life and another does no...

posted 7y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-03T20:41:54Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28247
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:30:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/28247
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:30:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Showing that one person is a better fit psychologically is very difficult, especially since we don't seem to know what constitutes fit or why one relationship works in real life and another does not. (I think the truth is that when people "fit" it is more because they grow together, grow around each other, than that they started out as two perfectly complementary jigsaw pieces.)

But stories are fundamentally moral, rather that psychological, and the almost universal formula for this in stories is the discovery or revelation of virtue. In its most basic form it comes down to what James Scott Bell calls the "pat the dog" moment. It is about one or the other demonstrating their moral value through an act of kindness.

There seem to be two main formulas for this:

1. Virtuous woman is blind to the moral faults of her intended and/or the moral virtues of her alternate suitor. Events reveal the vices of the intended and/or the virtues of the alternate suitor. Woman switches her affections to alternate. 

2. Morally compromised woman pursues love for all the wrong reasons. Morally virtuous suitor pursues her (why?) and is rejected for not being good career material. Events force woman to face up to her moral inadequacies. She is reformed and sees spurned suitor in a new light. Must then persuade him that she has changed. 

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-05-23T17:48:13Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 2