Lesson 4

[Mary Buchanan]

Mary Buchanan ROMCom Project 7 Stages of Love

What I learned from this assignment is this is the best process for writing my book. This lesson was easy after all the preparation prior to this lesson.

Lesson 4 Plot track – 7 Stages of Love
1. Meet Cute
Flashback from a previous book: Tony walks into Margo’s office to interview her as
a potential witness in a Ponzi scheme.
2. Attraction/flirting: Tony sees her alone at the head table at Sydnee’s wedding reception and offers to be her escort for the evening. They dance all night. He promises to call her.
3. The Denial: Tony’s professional life is hectic, and his first love married a rich man. He is suspicious of relationships for both reasons. Most of his cohorts are divorced because of their jobs. Margo falls in love for the first time and waits for Tony’s
call, which doesn’t happen for months. Then, it is business rather than friendship.
4. Separation/forced together: (1) The couple has to deal with the alleged crime involving Margo. (2)A con man tries to steal Margo’s money. He does not know she is the victim of a recent scam. She outwits the guy but meets the good-looking son of a real estate broker in Tallahassee. (3) Margo attempts to start over with the new guy. Tony crushes that new relationship b,ut Margo doesn’t know why the new man doesn’t call. Margo thinks she is jilted again.
5. Working through issues: Tony works to prove Margo is innocent of a crime. Margo gives up on relationships and is angry that Tony is a jerk in her eyes. Tony discovers he must transfer to Miami to keep his job. He decides to retire and move to Madison
But Margo refuses to sell him a house. He goes to Margo’s best friend who finds him a rental. He figures that if he moves to Madison, he can win her over, but he has 30 days left on the job before he can begin winning Margo.
6. Hate/betrayal/All is lost: The hurricane arrives in Madison County. The eye passes directly through the community. Tony has proof that Margo is innocent but is scared to death, and he will never be able to tell her. He can’t get to her physically or by phone. He knows 2,000 body bags have been requested by the state emergency team for the tri-county area. Margo and her friends feel they are going to die in the storm. Margo decides if she survives the storm, she will forget relationships and Tony—too much drama for her age.
Tony finally leases a helicopter to find Margo and see if she is alive. He searches everywhere before he finds her
7. Love Happens: When she hears Tony calling her name, she knows he loves her and she loves him. He and the pilot pull Margo and friends from the basement. He proposes.

[Gayle Jackson]

Subject line: Gayle’s 7 Stages of Love
What I learned doing this assignment is my second act falls apart. I have too much will they/won’t they and not enough time is devoted to setting up the issues they will have to work out in the Hate stage.

1. Create the 7 Stages of Love for your two lead characters.
The 7 Stages of Love:
• 1. Meet-Cute
A comic book creator meets a man who acts like her hero when her makes her jump off a moving train with him to save both their lives from assassins hired to kill them.

• 2. Attraction/Flirting
They must travel through eastern European mountains to Budapest – stuck in a goat lodge when they talk about adventure and sleep beside each other. Casey realizes he doesn’t know who she is.

• 3. Denial
Casey realizes Huck is one of the smugglers who is only with her for the package and he still won’t say his real name when she tells him she created the character he admires.

• 4. Separation/Forced Together
After escaping hitmen, Casey’s fiancé and PR rep arrange for her to get to the embassy. Huck goes on his own to find the real artifact. Huck is lured back into the group but cannot re-commit to his ex-partner sexually

• 5. Working through Issues/Differences
Casey realizes agents are corrupt and want the package. She knows Huck is in danger and chooses to rescue him.
Huck thinks he knows where the package is but doesn’t tell his partner the truth.

• 6. Hate/Betrayal/All Hope is Lost
Casey and Huck meet at the location to find the artifact and are followed then left for dead. They must work together to get out. Huck is shot and left in the hospital as Casey is supposed to leave with her fiancé and PR rep.

• 7. Love Happens
6 months later – Huck has left the business and works as an adventure guide. Casey shows up solo and wants a new adventure.

[William Peed]

Mike's 7 Stage of Love

THE 7 STAGES OF LOVE:

1. Meet Cute:

Daniella saves Miguel's life at a mock execution.

2. Attraction/Flirting:

Daniella makes Miguel promise they’ll live happily ever after together in Algiers

3. Denial:

Miguel's not sure if he's willing to make that promise

4. Separation/Forced Together:

Miguel agrees to try domestic bliss with Daniella

5. Working Through Issues/Differences:

Daniella admits she needs Miguel's help to get Zara out of Algiers. Miguel is will to risk it if Daniella goes with them.

6. Hate/Betrayal/All Hope Is Lost:

Daniella finds out about Pasha Hassan's planned proposal. Realizing she can use his love to her advantage, she proposes to Pasha Hassan.

7. Love Happens:

Miguel realizes he would rather suffer in Algiers with her than go home to Spain without Daniella. Daniella realizes that Pasha Hassan hasn't really changed, and she needs Miguel.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 1 week ago by  William Peed.

[Madeleine Vessel]

Madeleine Vessel’s 7 Stages of Love

“What I learned doing this assignment is… that laying out the story using the 7 stages of love as an outline is incredibly useful. I am loving this. ”

The 7 Stages of Love for my lead characters:

1. Meet-Cute: David and Thea meet when she arrives in a tow truck to pick up his broken-down car.

2. Attraction/Flirting: David goes to work for Thea’s father, putting him and Thea in proximity 24 hours a day. They work, nap, and ride together. Their first happens when they are lying on the hood of her car looking at the stars.

3. Denial: He quickly tells her the kiss didn’t mean anything. It was the romance of the night sky. She immediately agrees. They’re from two different worlds. They can’t possibly be together.

4. Separation/Forced Together: They are forced to stay the night together in an old cabin on the mine claim. When they return to town, everyone, including Dave’s longtime girlfriend, think they’ve slept together.

They are separated when David must choose which world he wants to live in. He decides that he belongs in the world of boatbuilding and leaves.

5. Working through Issues/Differences: While David is away reviving his business,

Thea is dealt a blow. Her father suddenly dies. Her mother sells the house and moves to another city to be close to her son and grandchildren. Thea moves back to the California coast where she can more easily conduct her translation and interpreting business. She decides on San Diego to be able to experience the night sky at sea.

6. Hate/Betrayal/All Hope is Lost: David realizes that he misses Thea. His life is
hollow, meaningless without her. He was used to sharing his thoughts and feelings with her during the days mining. He returns to the Nevada town only to find out the whole family is gone.

7. Love Happens: David finds out Thea’s new address and goes to San Diego to find her. He finds her walking on the beach. “I missed you.” They kiss.

• This reply was modified 8 months ago by  Madeleine Vessel.

[Alison Benson]

What I learned doing this assignment is that I was jumping back and forth on the outline to align the seven stages. It's a complex job that requires huge concentration but totally worth it as every day the story improves. Does anyone agree?

The 7 Stages of Love:

1. Meet-Cute – while at her brother’s bar mitzvah, on an alcohol induced opinionated discussion about all men being schmucks, Ina tiptoes outside with her best friend. There is a very ‘exotic’ Polynesian man, Dave nearby with his friend. They are at a hair cutting ceremony in a function room next door. He and Mata confirm women can’t be trusted with feelings. Ina rants on, stumbles, he catches her. Both react harshly then mellow to an Officer and a Gentleman moment then react harsh again.

2. Attraction/Flirting – Dave is asked to drive Ina for her deliveries, it’s awkward. She is invited to come and join in the umu at his parents home. She is very animated, his family love her. Dave is very attracted, she catches him looking at her, she smiles back.

3. Denial – Ina is worried this is too good to be true and she will eventually be humiliated and beside that, he’s the wrong religion anyway. How will her family react? She can’t see how the relationship can ever work.

4. Separation/Forced Together – Dave continues to drive her around for her deliveries and agrees to help with the men’s shed garden. He’s smitten with her, but still won’t open up. She asks him out.

5. Working through Issues/Differences – fun and games – differences and similarities in cultures, Dave begins to open up realizing they have a lot in common – family is everything, traditions and stories.

6. Hate/Betrayal/All Hope is Lost – Mata tells Ina their relationship can’t work, he tells her Dave is engaged to a Polynesian, that’s the way it should be, you stay with your kind and we stay with ours. The ex-girlfriend arrives on the scene wanting to get back with Dave. Ina sees them together, assumes the worse. She knew Dave has no integrity.

7. Love Happens – Ina is reminded by her grandpa that Dave is oozing with integrity – there’s a montage of flashback when he was gallant and honest. Her grandpa tells her to go get him. She apologizes for not trusting him. He tells her he was jilted, it’s hard to trust again too but he is in love with her.

• This reply was modified 8 months ago by  Alison Benson.

[H.B. Faulkner]

H. B. Faulkner’s 7 Stages of Love

What I learned doing this assignment is that composing in a plot-driven manner doesn’t mean a story will have superficial characters.

1. Meet-Cute

(No character names yet, but “he” is a hermit, who lives off-grid in the high mountains, and “she” is an artist in her thirties, about to begin an M.F.A.)

An avalanche buries most of the van she’s riding in (with a teen camp group), and He digs them out. But not before one kid has told a story about the mountain troll who killed a family nearby. When he–a scary mountain man, covered in snow–forces open the van door, she knocks him out, and they have to take him, following his dog thru the blizzard, to his tiny cabin, where they must shelter (and doctor him for a bit, during which, she tries to check him out by candlelight, thru his bushy hair and beard).

2. Attraction/Flirting

While being sheltered thru the blizzard of the century, for many days, she is her helpfully nosey, fun-loving artist-self, and sees his amazing abilities to invent mechanical devices. She bugs him until he agrees to show them woodworking.

He, in turn, learns that they share family loss and navigation of life alone, and he lets his grumpy guard down. They also share a prankster spirit and talents for sarcastic sparring.

3. Denial

Their opposing views for their lives clash, as each gives unwanted advice to the other, but they are stubbornly on paths they won’t consider veering from.

4. Separation/Forced Together

After the time sheltering with him, when a sheriff deputy arrives, she leaves abruptly with him and cannot be found at any of the places she has mentioned. He has no other information, until he receives a visit from her parents.

5. Working through Issues/Differences

Teaching the kids in his workshop stokes his passion to live his dreams again. And when a teen girl draws him as a gorilla, he cleans up his looks too.

The woman’s gentle critiques of his (seemingly) shared life experiences convince him to begin forgiving himself. And after persuasive demonstrations, showing him mistakes in some failed inventions, and new, aesthetic ways to think and design, he begins adding an artistic aspect to his work as well.

He overhears her talking about hypothetical life scenarios that match what he has suggested for her too.

6. Hate/Betrayal/All Hope is Lost

When he discovers that she has mislead him (that she’s estranged from her family, not orphaned), he insults her life plans and her very identity, and she’s utterly destroyed and shuts down.

He has instantly become what she’s been running away from, so as soon as the opportunity arises, she runs far away from him too.

7. Love Happens

After she leaves, her (retired corporate attorney) mother and father visit him. He discovers that she had written, asking them to help him with patents (and by extension, to help the teen camp, which has had to shut down).

Something she taught helps him realize that he may not have been at fault in the deaths of his parents and fiancé, and this revelation creates a whole new zeal for life in him, as well as deep love for her. He searches in vain for her, then finishes his degree–as she had encouraged–and opens a factory that builds and distributes his inventions and sponsors the teen camp.

Three years later, her mother brings him a letter from her daughter. He leaves immediately, travelling far away, and finds her following the dream that he convinced her was her destiny. Before he goes to her, he sees one of his inventions and realizes she’s known about his life and successes. He watches over a couple days, and the third day, he goes to watch her again, but she has left, and he loses her again and returns home completely wrecked.

He creates an invention that incorporates artistic design that she taught him, and when he walks into work one day, he’s told he has a visitor. It’s her. She’s looking at a framed picture in his office of her teaching the kids in Nepal. They embrace, and we know they’ll always be together.

[Bent Hanlen]

Bent’s 7 stages of love
what I learned doing this is I’m finding nuances in the characters. The story is getting fleshed out because these are happenings in the story. The result of the moments in my story leads to many scenes. What is created must be worked out.

The 7 Stages of Love:

1. Meet-Cute – Nimfa and Tommy meet when he arrives at the door. He gets tongue tied and she leads him to the kitchen to fix the issue.
2. Attraction/Flirting – as he’s working, she’s flirting with him. When he gets squirted in the face by a leaking pipe, she cleans him up.
3. Denial – he leaves the house remaining professional and not returning the flirtation. She feels let down by it all.
4. Separation/Forced Together – A second incident happens and Nimfa requests Tommy but plumber shop sends a different guy. That guy is a fail in his skills. Tommy shows up to help the guy. Nimfa is cold to Tommy and he tries to warm up to her by mentioning how much he loved the food.
5. Working through Issues/Differences – Nimfa’s aunty pulls Tommy aside to inform him Nimfa likes him. Tommy says he didn’t know.
6. Hate/Betrayal/All Hope is Lost – – she delivers filipino food to the plumber shop. Tommy is not there. the Boss is. He reads the note and crumples it and tosses it. He smells his hand and it is perfumy now. He wipes his hand on his shirt. He eats all the food. Tommy arrives later and is checking out from work He smells her perfume. His nose goes to garbage can. There is beautiful stationary all crumpled. He reads it and wonders who did it. Next day the boss admits eating everything and tossing the note. Tommy is pissed and quits.
7. Love Happens – Tommy goes to Nimfa’s house. He explains what happened at work. Tommy gets a job at a filipino plumber shop.