Show Me the Love!

SHOW ME THE LOVE! offers content creators of all genres, styles, and media a rich resource, new ideas, and a comprehensive, practical guide to using the dynamic and dramatic power of LOVE in all their stories.

Who is this book for? Novelists, Screenwriters, Playwrights, Directors, Actors, Directors of Photography, Production Designers, Composers, and Sound Designers as well as Development Execs, Producers, Publishers, and Marketers. Identifying, understanding, portraying, and communicating the core of emotion in a story is what entertains, enlightens, and educates your audience.

Understanding the deeper drives that affect how we act, react, and understand will give you better tools with which to create and motivate your characters and stories along their transformational arcs. Readers and viewers of all types of media may also find this information will enhance their understanding and enjoyment.

Most stories have some aspect of LOVE in them: romantic love, familial love, love of friends, love of self, love of country, love of the divine, love of animals, love of art, love of money, love of power, love of nature, love of death and destruction.

When well-crafted, the LOVE aspect of a story lives on in the hearts and minds of readers and viewers, be it “My old love! I’m paralyzed with happiness!” from The Great Gatsby; “I see you” from Avatar; “We few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers” from Henry V; Casablanca's "We'll always have Paris"; “Greed is good”, from Wall Street; “To boldly go where no one has gone before” from Star Trek; and from Galaxy Quest, the brilliant fun spoof of the Star Trek series, “As long as there is injustice, whenever a Targathian baby cries out, wherever a distress signal sounds among the stars, we'll be there. This fine ship, this fine crew. Never give up...and never surrender”.

The different types of LOVE can provide you with character and story arcs in any genre and any style, for instance:

LOVE of adventure is the plot driver of Up and Star Trek.

LOVE of or between deities can fuel epic stories such as The Mahabharata, the escapades of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the mythic characters in the Ring Cycle operas and Lord of the Rings.

LOVE of country is often the background for sagas such as Out of Africa, Braveheart, and Avatar.

Family stories often feature LOVE of animals, like Tintin, Old Yeller, War Horse, and Free Willy; as well as LOVE between animals, like The Lion King, Lady and the Tramp, Finding Nemo, and Ice Age; or between toys as in the Toy Story trilogy.

Buddy stories center on friendship's loyal LOVE such as Butch and Sundance, Thelma and Louise, and The Hangover.

LOVE of death and destruction motivates the antagonists The Joker in The Dark Knight and the Sith King in Star Wars.

Tragic stories often have twisted LOVE at their core, like Phantom of the Opera, Quills, Eyes Wide Shut, and Deadwood.

When romantic LOVE goes bad, it's all hell to pay, like in The Girl, Fatal Attraction, and War of the Roses.

Forbidden romantic LOVE can be quite tragic, as in Anna Karenina and Brokeback Mountain.

Bumbling romantic LOVE can be adorable and comedic like When Harry Met Sally and The Wedding Crashers.

Lost romantic LOVE offers sweet yearnings like in Ghost, The Notebook, and Titanic.

And there are many other types of LOVE that we explore in this first book and in the ones to follow.

By knowing more about the psychological background of different types of love, by knowing how it has worked in myth, history, and current events, and by learning ways to express that type of