When crafting a love story, a certain amount of physical or emotional separation is germane to the narrative. Perhaps you want to build tension. Perhaps there is a task that must be completed — someone is off fighting a war or must slay a dragon. Maybe the characters just need to grow up, and grow into their love for each other. But, after a good amount of pages or season-long arcs, there comes a point where keeping your lovers apart is just separation for the sake of separation…needless dithering that does nothing to move the story forward. Indeed, in a lot of cases, it just traps the story in limbo.
Take a look at ABC’s Castle, which is so determined to keep from falling victim to what many TV aficionados call “the Moonlighting curse” that it is actually creating a trap of its own…a moat, if you will. The show spent x amount of years building Kate and Rick’s affection for each other from friendship to a slow-simmering love. Now, the characters actually know that a love exists between them. Rick said the words when Kate was shot, and she remembered it! Why are we spending the entire season after that climactic reveal pretending it didn’t happen? You cannot go back to a status quo after a game-changer. It’s a bad storytelling decision, because it insults your audience’s intelligence. You’re asking them, right along with the characters, to pretend they never saw the Cupid behind the curtain…and, sorry, but once you’ve pulled the trigger on the story point, you can’t un-fire that gun.
