Thinking prompt #27: UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Hi Everyone,

I’d like to go a little far afield today and quote psychologist and couples therapist Terrence Real for our thinking prompt. Here’s what he says:

“We all marry our unfinished business . . . Falling in love is the conviction that this person is going to heal me, or at the very least, I'm going to avoid all that nastiness that I grew up in.”

Think about how Real’s insight might apply to one or more of your characters. What can you learn about them—and their histories—by studying their choice of mates? Why the attraction to this person, and not that one? What are they hoping to get from the other? What wounds do they hope to heal?

Trying to figure this out may offer up invaluable clues about what makes your characters tick. In time, their actions and dramas may start to seem less random, and more a part of underlying patterns rooted in childhood.

Give this a little time. After all, our characters—like each of us—are works-in-progress.

Abrazos,

Cristina