All About Love
Love can be complicated. Jealousy and resentment can breed and intrusive thoughts can dominate. What’s your story?
Kissing figuerines in Value Village, Victoria BC. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2021
Speak Low if You Speak Love
In 1967 The Beatles sang: All you need is love. La, la, la, la, lah.
If you google Shakespeare love quotes, you’ll have 81 000 000 results to sift through. And if you know your Shakespeare you’ll know that ‘Speak low if you speak love’ is from Much Ado About Nothing. I don’t know that play so don’t feel bad if you don’t either. You can watch a delightful three-minute video summarising the plot which is basically:
“Benedick and Beatrice don’t love each other but then they do. Claudio and Hero love each other but then they don’t but then they do again. Everyone gets married.”
shakespeare.org.uk
Let’s write about love
You could write about romantic love or platonic love or unrequited love or self-love. Love and its side-kicks compassion and affection could provide you with an infinite resource for story and character. Love can be complicated. Jealousy and resentment can breed, intrusive untrue thoughts can dominate. Where might your story take you from here?
There’s lots of talk about ‘self-love’. Love yourself and you can love others with an equally open heart. What happens when your character internalises that self-love at the expense of others? Where does your story go from there?
Or not
If none of this resonates for you, use the picture above as your starting point. Examine the photograph. Write down some notes about what you see here. Read this guide on using photographs as writing prompts. It might help you. Is there anything that pops into your head? Try not to rationalise your thoughts just write them down. Spend five minutes or so with the picture. Then read over your notes and start writing. Get those words down without judgment. You might find something surprising.
Have fun!
