So last night Kettle and I were chatting, as we are wont to do, and we got on the subject of how quickly relationships evolve in books. She was concerned that her characters might be taking things a bit faster than is believable. I didn’t think so. I said:
Two things, I guess, I want while I’m reading.
1. I want you to make me believe that these two people are fated. I’m always ready and willing to believe that, so it’s not hard to make me believe that they’re perfect for each other and can never be happy apart.
2. I want to be so swept up in it that I don’t even notice if it’s been 3 days or 3 months.
If I’m into it, I’m not going to keep track of the time at all.
Later, as explanation:
DH and I broke up, you know, and it was a few years before we got back together. When we did, it was something I really wanted to happen. There were problems, sure, besides the fact that we were 15, but when I looked back, from the mature age of 18, I felt like that was the last time I was in a relationship that was equal, for one thing. Vague and complicated stuff. But anyway, I can project that, my 18 yo self, unattached as I was then, with the hope that DH was going to come back to NY and seek me out, and I can project that period of daydreaming to my 30something self very easily.
But I am a HOPELESS romantic
and very willing to see what I want to see most of the time.
Put me in Kensie’s place, I would have very little problem with the idea of getting back with Collin.
You’d be having to make up stuff to get tension into the story and keep my hands off him.
Because, lookit. When DH came back, he told me that he came back to be with me. It was a very short time before he started talking about marriage. He always talked about us as fated. I never questioned that.
And part of the reason we’ve managed to be married 15+years, even though we got married at 19 and it’s been a mess a lot of the time, is our willingness to believe that.
So I always believe it in books.
What about you? Do you believe in love at first sight? Fated pairs? True love? Do you believe it because it happened to you? Because you need to believe it’s possible?
What about the rapid courtships that take place in a lot of books, perhaps particularly in romantic suspense? Does the convention annoy you as unrealistic or are you generally willing to buy it?
Hunting High and Low 
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