Finding Love at 30,000 Feet

by Shelley Cooper from the January 13, 2020 issue

Tagline

Elise has officially sworn off men and dead-end dating...until a handsome guy sits next to her on a flight and sends her heart soaring to new heights!

Observations

This story had it all--a yummy hero, a jaded but still open heroine, lots of humor, and a bit of writing I'll touch on later that was pure genius.

I loved this line. I loved the humor of it and all the alliteration, too!

After a string of dating disasters, I was more tempted to escape to a nunnery than I was to go on one more dinner date.

I also loved this funny line:

In truth, the only signs I planned on looking for were the ones pointing the way to my gate.

But here's a real teaching moment. 

Then I saw him for the first time.

This sentence doesn't seem like much, but it's totally amazing and here's why. It softens the implausibility that, after seeing him in the TSA line, they'd end up sitting next to each other on the same plane. Let's be honest. Coincidences abound in Woman's World stories and personally, I think it's part of the magazine's charm. Yes, they're crazy and probably would never happen, but they're still fun. 

So, using "the first time I saw him," construct tells the reader that she's going to see him again and for some reason, this "warning" makes it easier to believe. It's similar to when a mystery writer plants a piece of evidence early in the story. She even goes a little farther in this sentence:

The third time I saw him, he was sitting--you guessed it--in the window seat of my assigned row.

"You guessed it." Genius. This phrase openly acknowledges and embraces the fact that the reader has already predicted the coincidence. So don't be afraid to include a coincidence in your story. Woman's World readers love them, especially when they're as well written as this one.

I literally laughed out loud at this:

Up close, he smelled divine, like soap and, incredibly, oatmeal cookies. I reburied my nose in my book and tried not to inhale.

And rest of the flight was absolutely charming! I know I'm not the only one who swoons over those videos of dads dressed up like ballerinas and dancing with their daughters, or participating in her tea party, or trick or treating in a matching princess costume. So it was super easy to fall for this guy who submits to a little girl's makeover.

This was just a perfect story!

Photo by Phillip Capper via Flickr CC license