Friday, July 27, 2012

Do you believe in soul mates?

What does soul mates mean to you?  For me, I guess I have a rather idealistic view of soul mates.  I imagine two people who have a "longing," and that "longing" leads them to each other.  No matter what or who may stand in their way.  I imagine them incomplete or unsatisfied until that "one" person walks into their lives.


I always like to poke around the web when I think about things like this, and this is what I found:


Websters : a person who is perfectly suited to another in temperament, a person who strongly resembles another in attitudes or beliefs.
Wikipedia: a soulmate is believed by some to be the person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity, similarity, love, sex, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, or compatibility. 

Next time you're in the grocery store, scan the magazine covers, you'll find any number of magazines that have some sort of quiz to rate you and your soul mate.


I remember a movie from years ago (can't remember the name or who was in it,) but it was about split aparts, which seems to date back to Plato.  Can you imagine us with four arms and two heads?  I can't, but at some point and for some reason, we were slit apart, and as a result, we are all on endless searches for that other half.  And the more I searched the more I found various variations of this belief.


As I work on the characterization of a piece I'm hoping to submit before the end of year, and I flip through my pages of notes, the conversation I find myself in (yes, with myself) is does every story boil down to this one thread. 


For those of you who read multiple forms of fiction, or different genres of romance...what do you think?  If you stripped away everything else in your own manuscripts, or in one of your favorite books, would the story hold up without the soul mate?


More often than not, my writing is classified as Women's fiction v Romance, but every story I write has a strong romance thread, and I don't think the stories would work without that thread.  


As I gobble up the pages of one of my favorite authors who seems to have found the magic formula for me, I can't help but wonder about the search for the "perfect" soul mate.  As authors of Women's fiction or Romance do we do it justice?


What do you think?

2 comments:

Josie said...

Angela,
Who is the favorite author you refer to? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

morgan said...

The Butcher's Wife with Demi Moore is the movie you're referring to if you want to rewatch it again.

Greek legend mentions a race of people that consisted of two people, some people called them Janus-for two faces. They had all they needed within themselves ( contentment, love, etc.) and refused to worship the gods. Their punishement was to be torn asunder and blinded, tossed to the ends of the world, to wander on search of their other half.

As for soulmates, I believe in them. I like books that have more than shared sexual chemistry.