Soap Opera Supercouples: The Love/Hate Relationships We Love

Back in elementary school, when my friends and fellow classmates were going to Brownie meetings or for ballet lessons after school, I rushed home to watch my favorite soap operas with my Nanny Tessie.  In hindsight, my grandmother probably should have encouraged me to play outside or at least do my homework, but she was so happy for the company, she'd probably have let me watch porn. Ok, maybe not porn, but something not quite "age appropriate."
 
We were fans of the ABC soaps, and back then, there were a lot of them:  Ryan's Hope, All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital and The Edge of Night.  When The Edge of Night and Ryan's Hope were cancelled, new soaps, like Loving and later, The City took its place.  My faves, however, were All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital, especially General Hospital.
 
What sucked me in were the love stories, more specifically, the love/hate stories.  Soap operas are famous for "supercouples" - those couples who are destined to be together but due to circumstances out of their control, break up, dramatically reunite months later, break up again, get back together and the cycle continues indefinitely.  Although I have never watched The Young and the Restless regularly, Victor and Nikki Newman are one of the longest lasting supercouples in soap opera history.  Last I heard, Victor was sleeping with his son's ex-wife who also happens to be his other son's ex-lover.  
 
The circumstances surrounding the breakup of a supercouple can vary but are often one of the following: a) one half of the couple suffers from amnesia, b) another woman claims to be carrying the man's child, c) the woman witnesses another woman (usually a slutty one) throw herself at the man, walks away before she can see him turn her down, ends up sleeping with another man in anger, the two make up without the woman confessing her infidelity and the woman later finds out she is pregnant and unsure which man is the baby daddy, d) one of the characters is believed to be dead but actually living on a secluded island, either in a hostage type situation or suffering from the aforementioned amnesia.  After initial grieving, the "living" half of the couple falls in love with someone else only for his thought-to-be-dead ex-lover to return, interrupt the wedding and ceremoniously faint in the church.  
 
Sometimes the only reason a supercouple is broken up to never be revived is when one of the actors wants to leave the show, for example, Laura of Luke and Laura on General Hospital.   A more infrequent occurrence is when a new character is introduced solely to instigate a temporary break-up but becomes a permanent fixture when the writers (and readers) decide the "temporary" couple has more chemistry than the original couple.  This happened on All My Children when Dr. Maria Santos was introduced to cause trouble between Brooke English and Edmond Grey and viewers ended up liking Maria and Edmund as a couple much better. (The actors who portrayed Maria and Edmund started dating and eventually married, which probably explained their off-the-charts chemistry on-screen.) 
 
Some of my favorite supercouples through the years include the following:
 
Luke and Laura - General Hospital - Remember when they ran away together and hid in Wyndahms Department store trying on all of the clothes and dancing around the aisles?  And when Laura donned the black wig in Beecher's Corners disguised as newlywed Lucy Johnson?  My friend Ronni and I cried tears of joy when the couple finally got married.  Even the late great Elizabeth Taylor was in attendance for the nuptials!
 
Tina and Cord - One Life to Live - Before meeting Cord, Tina was a classic gold digger.  Tina fell genuinely in love with Cord only to discover that he was an heir to a fortune and hence she could have it all - love AND money!  But first she'd bed down a few other people, break up a wedding, get arrested for murder and risk her life in a water fall.  No one said love was easy!
 
Mason and Julia - Santa Barbara - I don't know what it was about him, but I had a wicked crush on Lane Davies when he played brooding attorney Mason Capwell.  A lawyer as well, Julia kept him on his toes, but between alcoholism and a wandering eye (as well as other "wandering" parts), this couple did not have it easy.  When Santa Barbara was cancelled, the writers did the right thing and allowed Julia and Mason to be a couple for eternity. 
 
Jenny and Greg - All My Children - Star-crossed lovers, Jenny and Greg fell in love in High School but Greg was rich and Jenny was from the wrong side of the tracks.  Despite attempts by slutty Liza, Greg's snobby mother and Jenny's seedy father to tear them apart, the two wed.  And then the actress who portrayed Jenny, Kim Delany, decided to leave the show and Jenny was killed off.  Life's a bitch, you get married and then you die. 
 
This list is certainly not exhaustive.  I felt true agony watching many other couples get torn apart during my daily "Love in the Afternoon" ritual, including but not limited to Leo and Greenlee (All My Children), Jagger and Karen (General Hospital), Liz and Lucky (General Hospital), Vicky and Ryan (Another World) and many, many more. 
 
Today, only three soap operas still remain in first run: General Hospital, Days of Our Lives and Young and the Restless, but sadly, I do not find any of them worth watching anymore.
 
What about you other soap opera fans out there?  Who were your favorite supercouples?
 
Meredith Schorr lives in New York City and works as a trademark paralegal at a prestigious law firm. In addition to writing humorous women's fiction novels, her passions include running, spending time with friends and family and rooting for the New York Yankees. Meredith is a member of Romance Writers of America and Chick Lit Writers of The World. Just Friends with Benefits is her first novel. For more information, please visit www.meredithschorr.com.
 

Author Interview: Jillian Medoff

What inspired you to write I Couldn't Love You More?

In graduate school, I took a master class with Grace Paley who said, “Write what you don’t know about what you know.” It didn’t occur to me until a few years ago that this is exactly what I do. I’ll take moments from my own life, from my family’s life, from strangers’ lives and I’ll look at what would normally happen—what I know—and then I’ll consider everything I don’t know, the big “what if’s.”

Like my other two novels, Hunger Point and Good Girls Gone Bad, I Couldn’t Love You More evolved in this way. Here’s what I knew: I’m a mother and stepmother. I have three children. I love them each equally but all differently. I’ve always been a writer who tackles complex themes and risky subjects—I write about the things that people think but never say aloud. So, I was looking for a challenge. If a book has a predictable storyline or familiar situations, there’s little satisfaction in writing it. A woman deciding which man she’ll spend her life with? I’ve read that story a million times, but a stepmother deciding which of her children she’ll save in a freak accident? Now that’s a challenge. I had no idea how I would react if forced to choose between my daughters, and figuring that out became my obsession for the next decade. In fact, even though the novel is finished and published, I still grapple with the question. I mean, how can any of us know what we would do in that situation?

Which of your characters do you identify with the most and why? 

In I Couldn’t Love You More, I identify most with Eliot, the narrator, and also with her mother, a failed novelist. Like Eliot, I am a mother and a stepmother. I work in corporate communications (although my job differs from hers). I understand the need to be “good”—a good mother, a good daughter, a good wife, a good sister—and how that can be such an overwhelming burden. I’ve never been in her situation, but I understand her reactions, which is why I think she’s such a fully developed character. I took a 360-degree view of Eliot and wrote her from all sides. Similarly, her mother is very familiar to me. I’ve experienced a great deal of rejection throughout my career, so I sympathize deeply with Dolores’s plight as well as her need to keep writing, no matter what. To make her realistic, though, I had to make her very different from me as a person. Still, her fundamental desires are all mine: to be taken seriously as an artist, to love her daughters and have them love her, to write what she wants, to live fearlessly.

What message do you hope readers will get from your novel?

This is a very good question, although it’s difficult to answer. To be honest, I’m more interested in crafting an honest, believable story than I am in conveying a message. To this end, I hope that readers will connect with the interior lives of these characters and feel wrung out by the novel’s end.

What do you like the most about the publishing process? What has been a challenge?

Like many writers, I love connecting with readers, especially if they enjoyed the book. Even if they didn’t, it’s interesting to hear other peoples’ points of view. (Full disclosure: I’d much rather hear that a reader liked my work.)  The publishing process is grueling. There is no doubt about it. My first novel did well, my second novel didn’t, and it’s taken me ten years—ten years!—to get this one written, edited, and sold. But I’m here, I did it, and I’m grateful for the second chance.

What are you working on now? 

I’ve been working on a new novel for about a year and a half. It’s a corporate book, set in the HR department of a small, failing company. That’s all I can say, though, because I don’t want to jinx it.

Is there anything else you would like readers to know about you or your book?

At my publisher’s suggestion, I wrote a very personal essay about I Couldn’t Love You More called “This is a True Story,” that is bound into the print and eBook versions of the book. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the writing life and may enhance a reader’s experience of the book. In any event, I’d love to hear from you!

Thank you, Jillian!

To find out more about Jillian Medoff, please visit her website and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Book Review: I Couldn't Love You More


Thirty-eight-year-old Eliot Gordon lives in Atlanta with her partner, Grant Delaney, their four-year-old daughter, Hailey, and Grant’s children from his previous marriage, seven-year-old Gail, and teenaged Charlotte. Eliot and Grant aren’t legally married, but that doesn’t prevent them from being a connected, loving family. Despite everything good in her life, Eliot still carries a torch for her college sweetheart, Finn Montgomery, who moved to New York years ago for his career. When he shows up unexpectedly in Atlanta and Eliot runs into him, that chance encounter sends her life into a tailspin. Finn is married, but that doesn’t prevent him from flirting with Eliot, who returns his affection. They embark on a path toward adultery, but a tragic accident during a beach vacation alters Eliot’s life and her family forever. 

I Couldn’t Love You More is a beautifully crafted novel. Poignant and heart wrenching, it addresses what it means to be a family, specifically what it means to be a mother and a stepmother. Relationships are tested and changed forever, and how the characters deal with these changes is what is so fascinating. The characters are well developed, and the story is richly detailed and intriguing, making this novel a page-turner. Eliot is realistically flawed and wrought with guilt over the tragedy. The pain she endures more for her family than for herself is honestly portrayed. There are touches of humor that help to lighten such a dramatic story. Overall, I Couldn’t Love You More is a captivating tale of family, love, loss, and moving forward. 

Jillian Medoff attended Barnard College and received an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU. She has taught at NYU and the University of Georgia. Jillian is the acclaimed author of Hunger Point, Good Girls Gone Bad, and I Couldn’t Love You More. Hunger Point was the basis for the original Lifetime movie starring Barbara Hershey and Christina Hendricks. Jillian’s books have been translated into many different languages, including French, Spanish, Hebrew, Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese (abridged), Polish, and German (forthcoming). She currently lives in New York with her family.
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She's So Write: Editing -- The Author’s Test of Sanity


When people imagine being a writer, they often have visions of an idyllic scene in which we nurture our muse, steaming cup of coffee at our elbow, surrounded by quiet and maybe a few birds chirping.

I guess this may be true for some writers, and I’ll admit that I have had my moments, but the more common reality is that we work at a desk covered by mountains of papers, balancing our tepid coffee atop the stack of school forms, bills, and catalogs we’ve been meaning to get to, praying that the cat doesn’t delete all of our work as he tramples across the keyboard in his quest for attention.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love being an author, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But there are some realities that we all must accept—and learn to embrace—in order to save our sanity and turn out quality work.

The editing, for example. I’m fairly certain that being a writer is one of the only careers in which you could literally spend the greater portion of a week deciding if you want to say The Joneses or The Joneses’, which is exactly what I did in creating the official definition for the word Momnesia in my recent novel:

Momnesia (mahm-nee-zhuh) -noun-
Loss of the memory of who you used to be. Caused by pregnancy, play dates, and trying to keep the house cleaner than the Joneses.

“What should I do (or not do) with the apostrophe at the end of Joneses?” I dissected, with the help of my online writing group. Do I want it to mean cleaner than the Joneses house is, or cleaner than the Joneses keep up with their house? And in the end, would having the apostrophe there be more of a distraction for the reader? If so, is it worth the distraction for the small nuance of having it mean cleaner than the Joneses keep up with their house?

This is only one example. The editing goes on and on! You need to decide whether or not you alwayshave to say “whether or not,” or whether you can sometimes just say “whether”; Which section to chop out because you know it’s redundant, but you love it because you have a beautifully crafted paragraph in there that you worked on for two days.

“Isn’t that what you have an editor for?” you may ask. Yes and no. The truth is, you need to turn in clean work if you expect to have your work published (anywhere!) in the first place. And unless your editor is being paid a zillion dollars to practically rewrite all of your work, these things need to be ironed out ahead of time.

“But you still love being a writer, right?” Write! I mean right. The Type-A part of me is actually okay with having to sort out these details, and it does give me great pride in my work, despite its ability to make my head spin.

What about you? How do you feel about the editing aspect of writing, whether it be an email, an article, or a book? I look forward to your comments!

Lori Verni-Fogarsi has been a freelance writer, journalist, columnist, and seminar speaker for over fifteen years. She is the author of the novel, Momnesia, contemporary women's fiction,  as well as the nonfiction book, Everything You Need to Know About House Training Puppies and Adult Dogs. Lori is a happily married mom of two, step mom of two more, and has two cats, both rotten. Originally a native New Yorker, she now divides her time between Raleigh, NC, and Lake Gaston, VA, where she is hard at work on her next novel. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, boating, traveling with her husband, napping, and attending her children's many activities. Lori invites you to learn more at her website and enjoy her active communities on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!

Book Club Discussion: Build A Man

Please take a look at the discussion questions below and Nancy's responses, then comment with your own responses to some or all of the questions. Also, please include the number of the question(s) with your response(s) so we can all keep track of what is being discussed. Feel free to add any other comments you have that are not prompted by the questions. Thank you for reading Build A Man by Talli Roland and participating in our discussion!

1. Who is your favorite character in Build A Man and why?
I really like Serenity. She’s a great heroine because she’s upbeat and very likable. It’s fun to follow along as she goes after what she wants, and then learns valuable lessons along the way. Her choices aren’t always best, but she eventually does the right thing. Serenity is a realistic character who has flaws and wonderful qualities, too.  

2. Would you be able to go undercover like Serenity did to pursue your dream job?
I would definitely want to pursue my dream job, and I may think about going undercover, but I wouldn’t go through with it. If it means compromising my morals and doing something I know is wrong or something that could harm someone, I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it. 

3. What is the best aspect of Build A Man? Should anything have been improved?
The plot is great and really unique. This novel has great flow too, and it is definitely a page-turner. I didn't like the character Peter at all, but he wasn't supposed to be likable. So, I really don't have any complaints. 

4. What do you think of Talli Roland’s writing style?
Talli writes with wit and charm, and every page is engaging. Her characters are very well developed, which makes for a vibrant, compelling novel. 

5. Did you like the ending? Why or why not?
Yes, I did, even though I figured it would wind up that way. But I was still pleased. I also liked that it was open-ended, which paves the way for the sequel. 

6. Would you recommend this novel? Why or why not?
Of course! Talli is a wonderful writer, and this book in particular really captured my interest. I think chick lit fans everywhere would enjoy it. 

7. Will you read more books by Talli Roland in the future?
Definitely! I’m looking forward to reading the Build A Man sequel Construct A Couple. It will be fun to see what these characters are up to next!

What do you think of Build A Man? 
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