This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 550th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, Arcetypal Character Arks Part 17, The Flat flat archetype of the Lover.

As Dor's Day used to say, everybody loves a Lover.

While that might not be universally true, what is true is that the lover archetype

is one inherent and even integral within the human life cycle.

Although it is a deeply nuanced archetype

that evolves with us for most of our lives and it shows up in

many guises.

It is particularly foundational to the first act of our lives when it first emerges in response to the coming of age

lessons of the Maiden Arc. The archetypal lovers I will be discussing it here is not simply a person who falls in love.

Obviously falling in love can happen at any stage of one's life and in

relationship to any of the progressive archetypal character arcs.

Specifically, the lover as a flat archetype within this particular system of archetypes

is in reference to first love or young love. It is the period of

awakened love and sexuality in which a character is just beginning to explore what it might mean to no longer be one with the tribe,

but simply one with another one. This is not a mature love. It is the intense, wonderful, passionate,

exploratory, sometimes frightening first love of the young adult.

Although it signifies growth,

it is also an ironically destructive force

since it signifies the means and the root by which the youth finds a path away from the necessary

mother love of the parents from whom he or she has only so recently begun to individuate and into the possibility of a

supporting love and union with another individuated person.

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