Timing
B oy meets girl. Boy courts girls. Boy and girl live happily ever after. It’s a standard sequence of events in a typical romance novel. Of course, it is usually dressed up a little, along the lines of: Super rich oil man meets poor school teacher. Super rich oil man takes poor school teacher on whirlwind tour of the world. Super rich oil man and poor school teacher live happily ever after. The direction of this story is clear in that we want to move the characters from sad and single to happy and married, but if we were to follow this outline, we would have a boring story. No one wants a story about someone getting everything he ever wanted. Let me amend that. I can think of one bestselling novel that is written exactly that way, but it is the exception rather than the rule. What we want is a story about overcoming adversity. The thrill of victory is proportional to the struggles we faced in getting there. But consider what happens if we rewrite that story as Super rich oil man and p...