Nathan Bransford has a terrific post over at his blog. Basically it concerns a new novel called Looking for Alaska. (Quick aside. I've always loved titles like this, the ones with a double entendre, or hidden secondary meaning. Alaska is the name of the girlfriend in the book. Similar to 500 Days of Summer.)
The post describes the way in which the protagonist, a young kid at boarding school, falls in love with the girl, Alaska. Specifically Nathan discusses the way in which the story is not a series of bad decisions that keep bringing the protagonist down, make him continue to strive and struggle. Although these are things that books on the writing craft espouse and promote, Looking for Alaska takes it a bit further.
The relationship between Alaska and the main character is like a roller coaster or a sine wave, lots of ups and downs. Sometimes he thinks that Alaska is the best girl on the face of the Earth, other times he can understand what she's thinking or doing. Nathan points out that this up and down dynamic serves to highten each apex and nadir. Pinnacles will look and feel much higher if the climb to the top begins in a valley.
It's a good suggestion and it makes me wonder if I naturally did this in my novel, Toe the Line. Do my main characters, Wynn and Madison go through peaks and valleys in their relationship? I think so, some. Could I have emphasized it more? Sure. Will I follow this script in the future? You betcha. Do I think I'm sounding like Donald Rumsfeld by posing my own questions to ask? Yep.
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