Love stories?

I am a sucker for a love story. I loooove chick-
flicks - you know? the predictable girl meets guy and they fall in love, then they face some obstacles in their relationship and either break up or get separated some how and the end of the movie comes with a chase of one to the other to resolve all their problems in one fowl swoop and they kiss and live happily ever after. You know those ones? Here's a few of my favourites:

And who could forget THIS moment:

We went out to see The Theory of Everything last night. I'd seen trailers and thought it was about how Stephen Hawking and his wife fell in love and faced adversity and triumphed together... Yeah. Silly me. I guess it's common knowledge that they're divorced. The movie was beautiful, the acting was phenomenal and I came away with a new appreciation of the smartest man on earth as a person... but I didn't get my fairytale chick flick.

It was real.

Real challenges, real characters, real love that grows and wanes and changes. Complicated and messy love where no one is all right and no one is all wrong. I think that's the challenge of creating a real love story, isn't it? Creating that conflict without villain-izing one or more of the characters. Imagine a love story where the love continues to exist between two people who just can't make it work?

Maybe someday I'll graduate from chick-flick fairy tale love stories into writing one of those.

N