[ SECRET POST #4507 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4507 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Sarazanmai]


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[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #645.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Writers thread

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to write a story where two characters leave their spouses for each other and I'm really having a hard time figuring out how to do it while making them both likable and not total jerks. I always thought that when you realized you were interested in someone else, you broke up with your partner, then you could start a relationship with the other person, and that was the right way to handle it, but lately there are several people around me saying "if you even think about someone else in a romantic way while you're in a relationship/married, it automatically counts as cheating" and it's just like...if that's the case, you can't do anything right.

Re: Writers thread

[(Anonymous)]

Grace And Frankie tv series are all about this.

Re: Writers thread

[rosehiptea]

Some people seem to be really extreme on what constitutes "cheating." A lot of these people are young and I think they're in for a surprise when they get into serious relationships and find out that it's not always easy. (I don't mean they'll end up cheating, just that some of them seem to think you just automatically shut off all thinking about other people when you get married.)

I think the main thing that would get to me in that scenario is if the characters didn't even seem to care about their partners or acknowledge that they once loved them or thought they did. I would avoid a story where it seemed like "their amazing love excuses anything they do." (Which doesn't sound like where you are going with this at all.)

Re: Writers thread

[(Anonymous)]

realized you were interested in someone else, you broke up with your partner

Now, see, if the characters took THAT attitude I would have no sympathy for them at all.

Maybe that's because I consider "interested in" to mean "attracted to" and not equivalent to "definite mutual desire to leave our partners and be in a relationship together." I don't consider meerly being attracted to some to be cheating, btw. Also, whether it's attraction or actual cheating, I believe leaving a relationship under those circumstances is a choice and not a necessity imparted by some law of the universe, and not leaving is always an option (provided the other person wants you to stay, of course).

I think the main trick is to make the cheating characters the POV characters to help the reader identify with them. It helps if they feel at least a little bit bad about what they're doing and acknowledge that they are doing this because it's what the WANT and not some kind of force of nature they have no control over. It helps if you don't demonize the partners getting dumped. You don't have to go into their feelings or the fallout from their perspective, but you don't need to make them terrible to justify what's going on (that drives me up the wall in fic where the author wants to dispose of a canon partner by making them OOC evil). A relationship growing stale and lifeless is better than someone being randomly evil (unless an existing partner being evil is part of the plot, assuming these are original characters). Even if there's nothing wrong with the existing relationships, the cheating characters may realize that things have changed too much on an emotional level to just go back to the way things were and they can't be happy without leaving their partners.

Re: Writers thread

[(Anonymous)]

the cheating characters

It sounds like they're trying to AVOID them being "cheating characters" by leaving the partners when they realize they want to be with someone else, INSTEAD of cheating (unless, of course, you're one of the "realizing you want to be with someone else is in itself cheating even if you don't act on it" type of people).

Re: Writers thread

[(Anonymous)]

That's a complicated one, but not impossible. Honestly, just ignore the people who say that even thinking about someone else is cheating. Either they've never been in a serious relationship, or they're liars.

I'd say just write it realistically and acknowledge that even good, likeable people can make mistakes or have doubts. Don't try to contort the plot so that nobody is the bad guy - people see right through that.