Jessica Shirvington & the Power of Love Triangles

Jessica Shirvington‘s debut YA fantasy, Embrace, kicks off a trilogy about a teenage girl who discovers that she’s descended from angels. (It’s an increasingly common theme in young adult fiction; remember Lauren Kate’s Fallen?) In the case of Violet, the novel’s protagonist, the discovery comes with an equally shocking revelation about Lincoln, the slightly older physical trainer (22 to her 17) that she’s had a crush on for years that steers her emotions in the direction of another character. In this guest essay, Shirvington talks about how love triangles can be an effective engine for driving a story’s forward momentum.

There is rarely a better tension builder than a good love triangle. They can make the development of a romance so much richer. That said, a love triangle comes in many forms and is certainly not restricted to the strictest definition of two direct love interests. It can be between love interest and best friend, between family and career—anything that pulls the protagonist’s heart in two conflicting directions and results in choice making and consequence.

The beauty of a love triangle is that it offers opposition to the heart. And opposition is always interesting.

Sometimes love triangles can seem a little superficial, but, for a writer, they offer an endless supply of emotion and conflict that helps explore the depths of the main characters and the lengths they will go to when challenged. As a reader, we are given the opportunity to formulate our own choices, too. We become invested in the decision-making and we read on to see if the protagonist lives up to our expectations.

Often love triangles are heavy on one side; that’s because there are many different types of love, lust, and allure—especially in YA characters. It wouldn’t be honest storytelling if the more whimsical of emotions didn’t interfere with the longer lasting ones. Who can honestly say that when they were growing up, they didn’t make impulsive decisions that ended in regret?

Love is our most basic and complex emotion at the same time. It is the first we generally experience, and the last we fully understand. We can all relate to love—we all have expectations of it, we all like to be bathed in it. One more thing about love: we all want more of it. You can tire of anger and hate, become bored by lust, joy can dwindle—but love… more, please!

And so … love triangles are inevitable elements of stories.

In Embrace, Violet faces a triangle of her own, one that is influenced by many outside factors not always in her control. She is so sure of her heart at one stage, but when she discovers that everything she believed was true had been in fact false, she is forced to question everything, including her so-sure heart. It’s a confusing time for Violet, and it sets her on her path of heart finding. It’s a path we all take one way or another—a love triangle just ups the ante!

12 March 2012 | guest authors |

The Beatrice App: A Status Update

Recently, I announced plans to create an app version of Beatrice that will combine feature-length interviews with fiction and nonfiction writers and streaming video highlights from those conversations. I wanted to make the initial release of the app free, so I launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough funds to develop the app, get it into Apple’s App Store, and include at least three free interviews to start readers off. (After that, new interviews will be available in bundles of three or four for something like $1.99 or $2.99.)

I’m about halfway through the campaign, and so far, people have pledged nearly half of the requested funds. I’m grateful for the support that they’ve shown so far—as I told people on Twitter earlier today, I’m at a stage now where all it will take to make this campaign a success is 250 people deciding to pledge $10, and get ebooks full of advice from 50 great writers as a thank-you gift. (Or 125 people pledging $20 for advice from up to 75 writers…) I saw an article recently that said Kickstarter might raise more money than the NEA to support arts projects in 2012, and that’s pretty amazing.

It reinforces something I noticed in Tricia Tunstall’s Changing Lives, a fantastic book about LA Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel and El Sistema, the Venezuelan musical education program that helped nurture his talent from early childhood. There’s a lot of talk in the book about American efforts to duplicate the El Sistema model, and at one point, a seminar leader makes this observation: “We in the arts world are so marinated in scarcity thinking. It can seem inconceivable to us to reach for something as grand as El Sistema.”

The book world, I think, is equally susceptible to scarcity thinking, but what I’m learning is that if you believe in something like the Beatrice app passionately enough, you can convince other people your vision is worthy of their support. The resources are out there; you just have to commit yourself to creating the amazing thing you want to create.

This campaign has also reminded me about the importance of the literary community, a lesson that I’ve been able to apply in what I hope will be a powerful way. You see, I learned about a newly opened independent bookstore in Salina, Kansas, called Ad Astra Books and Coffee that started to raise capital to expand its business through live events and a statewide marketing campaign, among other efforts. I pledged $10 to the store, but then I contacted William Justice, one of Ad Astra’s owners, and I made him an offer I’m delighted to say he accepted.

Here’s the deal: If I raise my $4,500 and Ad Astra raises its $15,000, I’m headed to Salina to emcee a multi-author event at Ad Astra later this year, plus I’ll interview the authors we line up for that event and publish those conversations in the Beatrice app for free. We’ll figure out the details when we need to, but I have a feeling this could be a really fantastic event, the kind of thing I’d eventually like to bring to bookstores and other literary centers across the country. Does that sound like something you’d like to see? If so, I hope you’ll support the Beatrice app now, and set the ball rolling. In essence, you’re not just supporting an app, you’re making it that much easier to sustain a thriving literary community that provides space both online and in the bricks-and-mortar world where we can celebrates awesome writers and their accomplishments.

6 March 2012 | uncategorized |