Wonde Quotes

In How Fiction Works, James Wood says,

A great deal of nonsense is written every day about characters in fiction - from the side of those who believe too much in character and from the side of those who believe too little. Those who believe too much have an iron set of prejudices about what characters are: we should get to "know" them; . . . they should "grow" and "develop"; and they should be nice. So they should be pretty much like us.
Wood is correct, in part, but the ongoing question of character likability leaves the impression that what we're looking for in fiction is an ideal world where people behave in ideal ways. The question suggests that characters should be reflections not of us, but of our better selves.
Wood also says, "There is nothing harder than the creation of fictional character." I can attest to this difficulty, though with perhaps less hyperbole. I have, indeed, found several other tasks harder over the years. Regardless, characters are hard to create because we need to develop people who are interesting enough to hold a reader's attention. We need to ensure that they are some measure of credible. We need to make them distinct from ourselves (and, in the best of all words, from those in our lives, unless of course there is a need to settle scores). Somehow they need to be well developed enough to carry a plot, or carry a narrative without a plot, or endure the tribulations we writers tend to throw at them with alacrity. It's no wonde ~ Roxane Gay

So he could talk to Jane and find out what had happened between her and Blakeborough after he left. He could finally get an answer to his marriage proposal.
Proposal? Jane would probably call it a marriage command.
He groaned. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to talk to her while he waited. He could always pack her off in another hackney before it was time for Meredith to return home. Yes, that would be best.
Climbing inside the hackney, he doffed his hat and shrugged out of his box coat. But all of his perfectly logical reasons for being there went right out of his head the moment he saw her looking so luscious and lovely in her sunny gown.
Because he desired only one thing. Jane. In his arms. Now.
She must have seen the feral need flare in his face, for her eyes went wide. That was the only reaction she had time for, however, before he dragged her into his embrace so he could take her mouth in a hard, urgent kiss.
God, he wanted her. He would never stop wanting her. Fisting his hands in her puffy sleeves to hold her still, he plundered her mouth the way he ached to plunder her body.
Suddenly she shoved him back. "What are you doing? That's not why--"
He clasped her head in his hands, dislodging her bonnet, which tumbled to the floor. Then he kissed her again, demanding her to kiss him back, to need him back. It took her a moment, but then she moaned low in her throat and melted against him.
And he exulted. She was soft, so wonde ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Falling in love is a state of wonder. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita