Romantic Fiction, Reality Shaping and The Work

A couple of months ago he proclaimed that “I think we are in love”. For so many years he had been saying that he wanted to love me but we just didn’t feel we had that level of closeness. We have been together 17 years and I feel that my own work was a significant part of creating a new outcome. The characters supported and inspired me in this.
How lovely gottathink. Have you asked him since if he has gone farther than "I think we are in love".
A little update by him never goes amiss. And what do you think?

Sorry but I seem to be cross examining you but I just thought your post was so endearing.
 
How lovely gottathink. Have you asked him since if he has gone farther than "I think we are in love".
A little update by him never goes amiss. And what do you think?

Sorry but I seem to be cross examining you but I just thought your post was so endearing.
Oh yes, we have progressed further to be able to say to each other, yes we are in love. We have always told each other ‘I love you’, but the idea of being ‘in love’ for us is about the romance of our relationship.
 
I have exhausted Mary Balogh and Anne Gracie. @Chu by your recommendation it sounds like Stella Riley should be next on my list.

Edit: I had better finish the Bayesian Statistical modelling assignment I’m working on first though 😆. A good romance can be very consuming!
 
Hi Seamus, what worked perfectly for me was starting with the fantastic Roundheads and Cavaliers books, followed by the Rockliffe series, Brandon Brothers and am currently reading book 2 of the Shadows series, Masque of Deception. Absolute page turners, all of them, I'm sure you will love them!
I second that!! I have read two of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, but then switched to the Rockliffe series and am totally captivated. I have stayed up way past my normal sleep time reading on many occasions. What I enjoy about Stella Riley is there is usually a mystery component in the story, so while the characters are getting to know one another, there is a parallel story running. Whatever series you begin with, be sure to start with the first book as the characters in the first book are always part of the following books and not knowing their history might make things more confusing. By the end of the Rockliffe series, there are many to keep up with! Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
 
I second that!! I have read two of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, but then switched to the Rockliffe series and am totally captivated. I have stayed up way past my normal sleep time reading on many occasions. What I enjoy about Stella Riley is there is usually a mystery component in the story, so while the characters are getting to know one another, there is a parallel story running. Whatever series you begin with, be sure to start with the first book as the characters in the first book are always part of the following books and not knowing their history might make things more confusing. By the end of the Rockliffe series, there are many to keep up with! Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Ditto! She´s actually pretty amazing at keeping characters from previous books alive, and making them appearing many books later. So, they are definitely better read in chronological order, including not just the volumes within a series, but also the series themselves.
 
I did round heads series first and am now onto the Rockliff series, I agree with others that she is a great writer, I find them a bit more intense than Balogh. Also worth noting, I am actually listening to these books on Audible rather than reading, Rileys are narrated by Alex Wyndham who does a great job IMO.
I'm also planning to listen on Audible during my currently long commute
 
Your exploration of how fiction - particularly romance novels - fosters emotional engagement and positive shifts in perception is back up by research that supports your observation that fiction can serve as a tool for psychological conditioning, helping individuals develop empathy and emotional resilience (Mar, Oatley, & Peterson, 2009). The way these particular novels depict love, honor, and emotional perseverance especially broaden the scope of perception and experience for the mind, leading to unexpected empathy hitchhikers leaping from the pages and into the reader’s cognitive functions of intuition and feeling.

Interestingly, your mention of how reading these stories stimulates 'the RIGHT emotions' brought to mind ancient wisdom from texts like the Song of Solomon, which reflects the human need for emotional connection in a framework of what is right as a foundation for mental and relational health (Kessler, 2014). But beyond this, high-quality (at quality least in select aspects at a minimum qualifier, not necessarily all dimensions) creative writings —including spiritual texts— serve as a means of developing intuitive insight. As Jimenez (2019) explains, Jung’s theory that the psyche mediates between the material and spiritual realms supports the idea that narratives can help cultivate deeper personal integration and intuitive cognition. Given your depth of insight and intuition, it seems your approach relies heavily on Introverted Intuition (Ni), allowing you to integrate seemingly disparate concepts into a cohesive understanding. Stretching Ni would certainly benefit anyone and everyone seeking to distill truth and find hidden meanings and patterns, and this idea is both fun and beneficial for that in addition to growth as a human.

Wow, sorry, that turned into a long-winded way to acknowledge the validity of the advice and practice and hint at asking what role, if any, the introverted intuition cognitive function plays in your research and experiments and is impacted by this practice of romance-novel-induced paradigm shifting.

Sources Cited:

  • Jimenez, J. (2019). The Biblical Spirit and its Cognitive Functionality: A Jungian Hermeneutic of Biblical Theory [Thesis]. TriCollege Libraries Institutional Scholarship. The Biblical Spirit and its Cognitive Functionality: A Jungian Hermeneutic of Biblical Theory
  • Kessler, E. (2014). The song of Solomon as spiritual allegory. Journal of Biblical Literature, 133(1), 99–110.
  • Mar, R. A., Oatley, K., & Peterson, J. B. (2009). Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes. Communications, 34(1), 407–428.
 
Your exploration of how fiction - particularly romance novels - fosters emotional engagement and positive shifts in perception is back up by research that supports your observation that fiction can serve as a tool for psychological conditioning, helping individuals develop empathy and emotional resilience (Mar, Oatley, & Peterson, 2009). The way these particular novels depict love, honor, and emotional perseverance especially broaden the scope of perception and experience for the mind, leading to unexpected empathy hitchhikers leaping from the pages and into the reader’s cognitive functions of intuition and feeling.

Interestingly, your mention of how reading these stories stimulates 'the RIGHT emotions' brought to mind ancient wisdom from texts like the Song of Solomon, which reflects the human need for emotional connection in a framework of what is right as a foundation for mental and relational health (Kessler, 2014). But beyond this, high-quality (at quality least in select aspects at a minimum qualifier, not necessarily all dimensions) creative writings —including spiritual texts— serve as a means of developing intuitive insight. As Jimenez (2019) explains, Jung’s theory that the psyche mediates between the material and spiritual realms supports the idea that narratives can help cultivate deeper personal integration and intuitive cognition. Given your depth of insight and intuition, it seems your approach relies heavily on Introverted Intuition (Ni), allowing you to integrate seemingly disparate concepts into a cohesive understanding. Stretching Ni would certainly benefit anyone and everyone seeking to distill truth and find hidden meanings and patterns, and this idea is both fun and beneficial for that in addition to growth as a human.

Wow, sorry, that turned into a long-winded way to acknowledge the validity of the advice and practice and hint at asking what role, if any, the introverted intuition cognitive function plays in your research and experiments and is impacted by this practice of romance-novel-induced paradigm shifting.

Sources Cited:

  • Jimenez, J. (2019). The Biblical Spirit and its Cognitive Functionality: A Jungian Hermeneutic of Biblical Theory [Thesis]. TriCollege Libraries Institutional Scholarship. The Biblical Spirit and its Cognitive Functionality: A Jungian Hermeneutic of Biblical Theory
  • Kessler, E. (2014). The song of Solomon as spiritual allegory. Journal of Biblical Literature, 133(1), 99–110.
  • Mar, R. A., Oatley, K., & Peterson, J. B. (2009). Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes. Communications, 34(1), 407–428.
Well said. Thanks for posting the full citations here on the Forum for quick reference.
 
Jefferson has just overtaken me in thanks !
But I'm also curious to know through which series (and which author) you entered this so-called “romantic” experience.
Thanks for the references
I already mentioned one of the foundational romantic writings that I engaged with—Song of Solomon. While often overlooked as purely a religious text, it's one of the strongest romantic writings available when you look through the lens of personal growth and development. Mining the layers of this text requires a deep understanding of historical and cultural symbolism, customs, and values that stretch beyond surface-level interpretation. For example, the idea of finding a pretty woman in one of the major cultural, commercial, and intellectual hub metropolises and winning her heart by telling her that her hair is like a flock of goats seems at first utterly impossible and confusing for everyone involved. But, stepping back several meta-layers reveals that many modern complements would also have seemed offensive in the ancient Middle East. Finding common ground by examining and translating elements like values, currency, and symbolism leads to understanding the story, and soon enough I found myself sharing in the Shulamite's sense of urgency and panic flitting about the city to find her beloved and my eyes welling up with tears as the guard patrols and others mock her, belittle her, and even assault her.
But then, I also thought about the fact that, if people weren’t just escaping into such literature, but rather LEARNING from it, and putting some of what they learned into practice, a very different result would be obtained than just going off into la-la land. Because, it sure appeared to me that many of the problems that were set up as the plot of the stories were problems that many people deal with in one way or another, and a few of the authors were darned good psychologists with excellent insight.
Within Song of Solomon, you can find a wealth of themes and struggles that resonate across time—issues of self-esteem and identity, abusive family dynamics, societal pressures, inter-class tension, contrast between public persona and private intimacy, the tension between desire and duty, and the negotiation of power dynamics within relationships—all of which make this ancient text an intellectually stimulating and emotionally charged piece of work, revealing and exploring the psychological empowerment and healing inherently possible — even ideally present — in a healthy supportive relationship.

However, I would be remiss to not also explore this through a relatively modern romance novel, also, to share more intentionally in the overall experience. I know there's a list, but I interpreted that as a template rather than a prescription. As such, I think I held true to the spirit by finding something of remarkable substance. Enter Anne Rice's Violin, a novel whose romantic depth lies not just in its overt plot but in the way it uses relationships to represent different aspects of the human experience, particularly in the context of personal healing and transformation.

In Violin, the relationships go beyond literal connections—they serve as meta-representations of the protagonist’s internal struggles. At its core, this story isn't just about romance in a traditional sense, but about how we interact with parts of ourselves through external figures, experiences, and even ghosts.

The Ghost: At first glance, he seems to be an external antagonist—a tormenting spirit from the past. But as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that he is a symbolic reflection of the protagonist’s relationship with herself. The way she engages with the ghost—her fear, her obsession, her eventual attempt to understand him—mirrors her battle with self-acceptance. Throughout the novel, her internal dialogue with the ghost exposes the harshness with which she treats herself, her self-loathing, and her difficulty extending mercy to her own soul. This relationship is the externalization of her inner conflict. The ghost’s presence forces her to confront the parts of herself that she hides, rejects, and even despises. In a sense, he represents her inability to forgive herself, which is the greatest hurdle she must overcome.

Her grieving for her deceased husband can be understood in a similar meta sense. It’s not just about mourning the death of a loved one—it reflects the death of her own identity as she once knew it. The grief is so intertwined with the erosion of her self-worth that she becomes emotionally paralyzed. In loving him, she loses herself, and thus her journey in the novel is as much about rediscovering her own identity as it is about reconciling with the loss.

Music, in this context, serves as a meta-representation of salvation. It is through music that she finds a medium to communicate her buried emotions and lost sense of self. Her love for music is not just a love for an art form; it represents her attempt to make sense of her internal chaos, her search for meaning, and ultimately, her self-redemption. The violin is both a literal object and a symbol of her pathway to reclaiming her own narrative.

For me, this musical instrument was instrumental in forming that empathic bridge allowing for overlaying myself and my loved ones at this point, due to Rice's powerful descriptions of the violin as having the most human voice among the Orchestra, wailing the sorrows impossible to articulate with spoken words. This realization alone broke something loose in my heart and I retroactively considered my years of practice on my own violin and the envy I felt witnessing more masterful and talented players expressing themselves so freely through this channel. I realized that I was not jealous of their talent but of their opportunity to have the world hear their souls cry out about their loneliness and despair while mine remained trapped without any ally or advocate! In this light, it is impossible for me not to consider how I treat myself now, and especially how much I hated and feared myself in the past as I witness this happening with Anne Rice's frumpy and jaded protagonist. The ghost serves as the vehicle that transports her elegant beautiful inner self beyond her humble appearance into public performances that inspire whole audiences to cherish life and embrace a full range of emotions without merely chasing shallow happiness. This sort of radical acceptance, if the reader carefully applies the lessons hidden in the pages of fiction, unlocks a form of relationship with self and others equivalent to comparing fiber optics to dial up modems: without changing the size of the channel but instead transofrming the density of data and voice of the signal, the capacity of the communication explodes exponentially, unlocking new abilities for cooperative support between two separately housed but synergistic operating systems.

In this way, Violin is a story that explores romantic love, but more critically, it’s about the relationship we have with ourselves. The ghost, the deceased husband, and even the music are all different aspects of the protagonist’s fragmented psyche, each helping her confront painful truths. Her interactions with them reveal the complexities of self-love, self-forgiveness, and ultimately, self-acceptance. Much like the Song of Solomon, this novel transcends its surface-level romantic elements to engage with the deep psychological forces at work within the individual.
 
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