A serviceable love story shows us what we know. A memorable love story stirs what we didn’t know we could feel for someone we didn’t think we would love.

Take something as hackneyed as falling in love and write us into it by challenging our habits of thought and emotion.

Leave behind the pretty and the handsome, give us characters who are peculiar and distinctive. Create a world of ordinary people who speak in vernacular, and have no expectation of greatness.

People who fall in love are predictable and tiresome. It’s the ones who trudge, or bump against it, or swerve to avoid it who come to love in ways that matter.

What does an unforgettable love story look like? Check out The Shipping News E.Annie Proulx.