The Perfect First Date

by Melanie Dusseau from the February 27, 2023 issue

Tagline: While trying his hand at skating for the first time in a year, rusty Ryan collides with the lovely Valerie...and it's love at first fall.

Observations: This story had me thinking two things: relatability and connection, two things Woman's World editors and readers want.

With these stories, you want the readers to relate to the characters. They should be the types of people you want as your friends and showing Ryan and Valerie dealing with their teenaged kids did a really good job of this. A lot of Woman's World readers are older, so they have their own experiences with teens and how irritated they get at everything their parents do.

As far as connection is concerned, you must make sure you show the hero and heroine associating with each other in a positive way. Dusseau showed this in quite a few ways. In this story, Valerie blushes and Ryan's heart hammers at the sight of it. They are clearly having a good time awkwardly skating with each other. They also joke around with each other. These are the ways the author demonstrated Valerie and Ryan might make a good couple.

Also, there's a teensy, tiny subplot. It's so teensy you may not have noticed it, but at the beginning Ryan and his daughter have a little conflict. She's embarrassed that he's skating because none of the other parents are. But at the end, we see she noticed that her dad and made friends with someone and she gave him her approval, signalling she'd forgiven him for the mortal sin of skating. I loved that because in an 800 word story, there's not a lot of room to include a subplot, but that's what this is and it was done deftly.

Photo by Billie Grace Ward via the Flickr Creative Commons License