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@morreafirebird Thanks –  Felicity is actually 20, so definitely old enough. And I would say that it would be normal for her to be very open to a relationship were she actually feels loved, because her foster parents didn’t give her that and she’s really alone. So I think not having a lot of love in her life would mean she’s needing it more. As I’m thinking about this I’m deciding and writing it out, so @wordsmith, @evelyn, @morreafirebird, I may answer your questions as I go…

The guy, Clay, I think, but I haven’t decided it quite yet, is a litle hesitant to do this because he’s not totally sure yet, as I think a lot of people are, that this is truly the right thing right now. He never went to college and is a writer, (hmm, wonder where I got the idea?) and he’s trying to get a history of their town published. So he doesn’t really know if being in a serious relationship would be the right thing. But I don’t really show a lot of that, because it’s written from Felicity’s pov and of course she can’t read his thoughts. So his true feelings for her won’t come out until the end, I think. At the end I’m thinking that I will have him, when she is trying to decide if she’ll leave or not, because it isn’t her home town, she crashed there on her bike when her foster parents threw her out, anyways, run-ons are awful, aren’t they, I think he’s going to tell her that he wants her to stay. And, duh, she will, but they’re engagement or wedding won’t be in the book. No time. XD XD

Um, so, new thoughts… Felicity sort of likes him, though I’d say not as in a ‘I want to date this guy’, pretty much right from the moment they meet because she’s never had much experience with people that are as compassionate and serving as him and his mom and sister, and I think if you don’t have experience with kind people that you’d get attached to them right away. His dad died from cancer, her parents are gone, so they share that in their lives… uh… They really begin to form a bond over a little girl, Angel, who has mental disorders, and I think that Felicity realizes that he’s really the kind of person that she would be willing to consider thinking more seriously about as she sees his tenderness towards Angel, and she begins to sort of care for him as more than the first nice person she’s met. Clay is a little more slow to realize that she matters more to him than a girl his mom took in, but I think he really does realize it more towards the end when presented with the possibility of her leave. Kind of like Love Comes Softly, if you’ve ever seen that.

The main goal, I think, that I’m going for, is to present it in the way that the reader knows they are falling in love and will eventually marry, but I’m trying to make it not be the thing that gets her through her hard time in life, I mean, not that love can’t help us through trials, but that she resolves things about her past and her ‘family’ throwing her out, and all the feelings of resentments on her own between her and God. It’s not ‘Oh, I have a boyfriend so I can just ignore that stuff now and live happily ever after’, it’s, ‘I have forgiven them and dealt with that, so now I can have a boyfriend and live happily ever after.’

The one thing that is going to make this interesting is that in this book I have a slightly un-realistic people-reading thing she has, like she can ‘see feelings’. You know, in the book I describe her seeing people’s feelings, like tangibly. Like, um… “I was about to ask where Leonard was I saw a wisp of sadness slip in the back door of her heart-house and peek out through a window. I smiled sadly.” Or… “As that sadness faded into the floor, a new feeling slipped out from Mollie Mae’s heart and draped around her neck, hanging soft like a winter scarf. It was one I’d never seen before, one I might never have even called a feeling. Sweet remembrance. And it fit. It went this this beautiful, fragile young woman like fudge to a sundae. It even sounded perfect. Mollie Mae, sweet remembrance.”

So seeing his feelings of confusion and awkwardness will be confusing and awkward for her as well. And add another layer of dimension-ness-thingy to their relationship. I’m just hoping I don’t mess it up.

Yes, the difference between love and attraction is not understood right nowadays, and I think that’s why a lot of divorces are happening, because people marry someone they think makes them happy and feel good and they like without a deeper relationship that isn’t based on looks and feelings. Then when they don’t ‘feel’ that love anymore, they think it isn’t working, but they don’t realize that love is a choice; choosing to still love and care for a person even when you doesn’t feel nice at the moment, like you still love a sibling even when they’re being super annoying.

Asking my parents, plus a girl I know who is courting right now is on my list. I should have enough information because my parents have been telling me stories about how they met and fell in love for years, but I still feel like I don’t have the knowledge to go for it yet.

So, @wordsmith, I’m just curious, and maybe too much so, but have you had personal experience, because your writing advice seems very good, or are you just like fifteen or something? I mean, not that I’d discount your advice just because it wasn’t from experience, but since it seems very good I was just wondering if you it was, or you learned it from observing siblings, or just studying it in books a lot or what? Whatever, if that was too personal and prying, don’t feel obliged to answer. I’m used to talking with a bunch of girls who share things like this easier than I suspect guys do, so… yeah, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.