Waiting for Mr. and Perhaps Ms. Right

anticipation--the visualization of a future event or condition by a character, usually accompanied by an emotion; an intimation of a forthcoming emotional and/or political climate; anxiety over potential consequences as exhibited by a character; a reader's expectations about the fate of characters, the turn of plot, and critical scenes within a long story,

Characters come into scenes with anticipation and intent; readers come into story and longer works with concerns and hopes which are massaged by the writer; writers come into story with anticipations just as well, with expectations of how the story will develop. 

 Thus anticipation becomes a metaphoric presence in an equation involving reversal of fortune, fortuitous turns, dumb luck, and a protracted campaign against some character's agenda. More so even than the characters, readers expect persons in a story to experience frustration, defeat, disappointment, from which point they reorganize, set forth once again to accomplish a cherished goal, mindful of all the successes and failures to be found in literature.

A character who has no Plan B has given up the right to have readers care; a character who anticipates an easy go in a venture, then proceeds to have just that very stress free time is robbing from the reader such senses as suspense, concern, and fear.

Some characters have as a trait the anticipation of success in every venture while others have been led by experience and propaganda to expect nothing. The anticipation of success, so says one philosophical side of an argument, passes along a greater burden; he or she who has neither anticipation nor expectation has nothing to lose.

Anticipation livens up a character, animates and motivates him, sets him up to go forth into some further scene and venture, there to meet the future which, in fiction, is sure to be a challenge.


romance--a type of genre in which a character is forced by circumstances of plot to make choices which will effect her lifestyle; the tracking of a attraction and desire between two persons as they pursue the potential of a partnership; a story in which two individuals seek a partnership based on love and affection; a dramatic narrative in which such added themes as adultery, career, homosexuality, death, old age, historical settings, and abusive behavior may be dealt with; a major pillar of genera fiction.