Relatedness

If you live somewhere sunny and not in South Australia, you’re rather lucky. We’re currently experiencing one of those weird and rainy seasons that are entirely unlike the dry sometimes-warmth we usually have in Adelaide this time of year.

I think the first single warm days didn’t arrive until October this time around. But in saying that, these delayed warm spring months only happen every decade or so (Isn’t it strange how I now talk about Australia in decades?).

To be honest, I’m over the whiplash effect of our weather at the moment. But as much as we’d like, the weather really isn’t one of the things we can control.

In my novels, I don’t generally make a habit of writing about days that are anything other than sunny. It’s often something we (and if we put ourselves in the shoes of our characters) take for granted in the story worlds of romance novels.

For me, it doesn’t rate as highly as other things in writing, unless rain or a storm adds something symbolic to the scene. Instead, some of the story world references I often prioritise as a writer are songs characters hear incidentally or play deliberately, as well as references to books or films that may have had an impact on them.

Why, you ask? Probably because it feels so relatable as a reader, but also because we too are impacted by music and works of fiction, whether we necessarily realise it or not.

It made me ponder the reason for our own unique experiences of relatedness in terms of fiction, and I think one of the reasons is that we seek a sense of connection to the people we are yet to meet, those we don’t necessary know but feel like we might, as part of a basic human instinct to continue to add to or find our tribes.

It’s not that we don’t make the distinction between fictional characters and real people, but because we connect to the writers who put part of themselves in what we are reading or watching or listening to and relate it back to us and our own lives.

That, to me, is a kind-of magic writers strive for.