by Chris Maday Schmidt from the June 15, 2026 issue
Tagline
Patti's furniture delivery mistakenly ends up at her neighbor Nick's place. What follows is an evening on the patio--and the promise of second chances!
Observations
I am so far behind on the blog, it's not even funny. Like I mentioned, Life has been challenging. My mother is being released from the skilled nursing facility she as been at for the past two weeks. She can no longer be left alone, so we're talking major changes for us all. I am behind on copy editing someone's novel and was also on a week-long 35th anniversary cruise to Alaska during which I refused to work. :) Anyway, I am going to do my best to catch up.
In my class on how to write and sell romances stories to Woman's World, I talk about many different categories of Woman's World stories. There are first meet stories, matchmaker stories, person-to-the-rescue stories and more. This is a lovely moving-on story.
Moving-on stories feature a main character who is typically trying to get past a divorce or the loss of a spouse. What you want to do when writing one of these stories, besides identifying what the person is moving on from, is show they're emotionally ready. You want the reader to feel confident that the character is making the right decision, that he/she has a great chance of being happy.
Chris shows this in many ways. First, she establishes that it's been 2 years since Patti's husband passed away. She mentions that "morning had always been their time, but that the silence didn't feel as heavy as it once had. And then there's this passage:
...she admitted how much she'd like to share that view with a special someone again. Maybe. Just maybe.
Lastly, Patti acknowledges that "it was time to tackle things she'd been putting off on her bucket list."
After this, from the butterflies to her giggling, Chris shows how Patti's shift in her personal perspective changes how she looks at her neighbor.
Then there are two moments that I loved. First, there's the appearance of the bird that Patti interprets as a signal from her late husband. Right after that, Patti decides to find out if Nick has been waiting for a sign from her that she was ready. It's that decision that I love. She is not waiting passively for things to happen--she takes action. She's definitely done waiting.
I also loved the ending--especially this line:
Hope stirred again, soft but certain.
That line gives me all the feelz, and then there's the wonderful call back to enjoying coffee on the balcony, except now, she wants Nick to enjoy it with her. So if you're looking for a good example of how to execute a moving-on story, this is it.
Photo by El Gran Sueno via Flickr CC License
