Writing the Love Story

                When you consider that the vast majority of amateur/fan fiction involves a romantic pairing of some sort, I suppose it would be remiss of me not to cover that subject.  I’ve thought about what might be the best way to talk about what makes a compelling love story, and what I’ve come up with is several “case studies” I guess you would call them of relationships that worked for me and maybe one or two that didn’t.  I’ll give each one its own post so I’ll have the space to go into detail.

                The first one that I want to talk about, I consider perhaps the great love story of my generation. There was no “will they?won’t they” dance. They weren’t star crossed lovers separated by opposing destinies.  There was no witty banter worthy of a Carey Grant romantic comedy.  In fact, by the time the story starts, she’s been dead for 7 years.  I’m talking about Adrian and Trudy Monk.

                One might ask “How can you tell what their relationship was like if you never saw them alive together?”  Because the exit wound of losing her was just ghastly.  I’m reminded of a kind of famous story in comics. There was a mystery where a superheroes pregnant wife is attacked in their home and brutally murdered. I remember the hero whose power was a super malleable body physically breaking down as he tried to give the eulogy, literally losing the ability to hold himself together in a form that was recognizably human. That was monk.  For the man for whom symmetry was everything his other half was lost.  If that were all there was too it , it would be enough for me to know much monk and his wife loved each other, but that’s only the beginning of the story.

                A year or two ago, there was a video going around the internet called “the Last Lecture”.  It was given by a professor dying from terminal cancer to his students.  Among the words of hope and encouragement he had for them there was one thing I remember very clearly.  “Very soon now” he said,” My family is going to take a hard fall and for the first time I won’t be there to catch them.  But I can start making nets. “I loved that idea. That the love we give in life is a physical thing. That it has mass and weight and inertia. That even when we have stopped, our love can keep going. It continues to comfort and protect the people we love.  We see this throughout the entire run of the show, that even though Trudy was gone, for Monk she is never absent.  There are so many moments I could talk about, where we can see her influence on monk. The way she helps him cope with his fears, makes him brave, keeps him honorable.  There’s one in particular though. It was one of the most powerful moments I’d ever seen on television.  Monk had gone to New York to confront the man who had put the bomb in Trudy’s car on his deathbed.  Despite being on morphine drip to control his pain the bomber was able to give them a partial description of the man who hired him to build the bomb. Then monk asked for a moment alone with him. 

                Bomber : “You were the husband?

                Monk: “I am the husband."                                                                    

                Bomber: “Forgive me?” 

                Monk: “ Forgive you??......This is me turning off your morphine.

I was stunned. This was the meekest, most phobia crippled man on television so absolutely furious he was willing to torture a helpless and repentant cancer victim.  And then this happened.  As the pain began to set in and you could see the fear and despair in the bombers eyes,  monk continued..

                …...and this is Trudy, the woman you killed turning it back on.

We all have better angels. Adrian Monk married his.