Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
For love
This is challah, love in bread form. One of these days I’ll learn how to take a decent digital photo.
Karen appreciated my challah, but my little heathen, a focaccia fanatic, gave my challah the thumbs-down. That’s okay — it just means he doesn’t love his dad. (KIDDING, Jake, KIDDING!)
Today’s Smart Bitches Day post will focus on the following question:
What do your characters do to show their love?Â
Because, you know something? Protestations of an eternal bond are like, feh. Just feh. Screw the words, I want to see actions.
Consider the teenage dating game. Ignore what the average guy says and focus on what he does. He has only such funds as his minimum wage food service job allows, so he
- Pays for dinner, probably something superficially nice but really rather cheap, like the Surf ‘n Turf at Sizzler.
- Drives, which means he pays for gas.
- Pops for the movie.
He opens his wallet, in other words. It’s not much of a sacrifice, and from a literary perspective, it’s boring.
In my romance WiP, my male protag is going to make one hell of a dinner for his girl. Since he’s a surgical intern who lives in the hospital 100 hours a week, he’ll need to go to great lengths to find the time to do the necessary prep work. Sure, he could take her out to a nice restaurant, but he knows he can prepare a much tastier meal and — here’s the good part — it doesn’t even occur to him that it would be easier to go out.
Nifty, I think. Based on personal experience, too*. And that’s the problem. Let’s say I’m successful in this genre. What will I do next? I can’t have all my male protags fixing awesome dinners for their girlfriends. That would get old after, I don’t know, the first time. How else can my characters show their love for one another?
My muse is telling me not to shvitz about this. She’ll think up something appropriate to the new plot, and since I don’t have any random plot bunnies kicking around in my head, she ain’t talking. But I find I’m having a hard time coming up with any ideas.
Maybe I’m being too obvious. Maybe it’s enough to show love by listening, being thoughtful, making the other person laugh, simply being there for them. Maybe it’s not necessary to slay the dragon.
. . . But dragonslaying makes for better fiction, don’t you think?
D.
*Not that I did anything like this during internship. I put on my Big Night for Karen when we were still in college. Internship? Karen cooked for me.
LOL.
I just finished reading what you sent, Doug, and that was what I was thinking too!
I did orgasms for SBD.
The best of all sacrifices are written by Loretta Chase. She’s good at keeping the men from being martyrs at love while making them give up just about everything.
Thanks, May 😉
Orgasms? I’m there! (Interestingly enough, I considered writing a post on gastronomic orgasms after eating a slice of challah last night. But I’ve already done the g.o. post!)
My Husband just touches my butt and goes “beep” whenever he wants to show me he loves me. this must be done in public where my cheeks glow red. It stirs him on to do it again.
Although that may be more of a married couple thing than a fallin in love thing. Perhaps he could just move the hair off her face? buy her a toothbrush for his place to show he wants her sleep over more often? Look through her high school yearbook and say all the cheerleaders are ugly?
I dunno.
I’ve done an SBD too, it’s about true love.
That would be the cheeks on my face from blushing…not from excessive or aggressive bottom beeping.
Lyvvie, I didn’t even think about the latter possibility until you mentioned it.
That has to be one of the odder PDAs I’ve heard (public display of affection, not the other PDA).
I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Brad makes a great dinner to show his love because that’s who he is. Character X in Future Manuscript Y will be a different person, and thus will have different ways of showing his emotions.
You’re on the right track, though–something that costs the character. Pride is a common price in books–like Roarke nearly agreeing to sing in public (he would’ve agreed, except Eve pushed just a little too far), or Regan dressing up in a red leather miniskirt and stiletto heels. Facing a fear for the other person is a good one, or doing something to make the other person’s life easier–Roarke again, recreating Eve’s home office in his house.
I’m not going to ask for the challah recipe, even though Carl loves it. It’s inexpensive and delicious from the bakery just down the street. I’d get more brownie points for making something he can’t get as easily. Like the focaccia. 🙂
You have my focaccia recipe, right? That’s a lot easier than challah. The challah recipe is from Baking with Julia. I substituted buttermilk for whole milk, though, and I think that gave me a denser grain.
Thanks for the comments, though, because that gives me my big moment towards the end. If you think about the manuscript thus far, it’s obvious what Brad’s big sacrifice will have to be. Putting a lot of effort into a dinner is nice, but for him it’s not a sacrifice.
Better question is, what will Lori need to sacrifice. Hmm.
Well, I have a focaccia recipe. Without going into the kitchen to check, I’ll say it’s pretty much the same as yours.