A Tiny Love Story Three-Peat

Write Short, Love Big

The Picture, April 2001 (and yes, he granted the rights)

Last week, The New York Times published my latest “Tiny Love Story”—in print! I’ve been obsessed with these micro-memoirs since their debut in The Times in 2018, and now, I’m three for three acceptances (and three for three rejections with “Modern Love” essays, but that’s another newsletter).

A “Tiny Love Story” is a snapshot, a big picture view of a complex story. The challenge: Capturing the essence of your story—what it’s really about—in 100 words or less.

The Art of Writing Short

I would argue that all writing is an attempt to distill our experiences into a nugget of wisdom our readers can take with them. In fact, when my students are writing longer pieces, I encourage them to describe what their story is about one or two sentences.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t know what our story is about when we first approach the page. We need to write our way through the mess, through the murky emotions and half-formed ideas, to figure it out. We need to write long before we can write short.

The fact is, all three of my Tiny Love Stories began as full-length essays—and all three were published in their longer forms before being boiled down to their emotional core. The latest, “Broken but Whole,” was a hugely reductionist look at a piece I wrote for O, The Oprah Magazine, in October 2009.

My first “Modern Love” submission in April 2006 had the working title, “Don’t Cry Over Spilled Guinness,” and relied heavily on the use of the bottle as a metaphor. And to shoot you straight, the closing lines of my “Tiny Love Story” echo the closing lines of my “Modern Love” submission:

Love introduced me to someone I didn’t know—myself. I still have the picture of my broken heart, our broken relationship. Some people see a shattered bottle of Guinness. I see me.

A version of the essay eventually ran in YourTango without mention of the bottle (and reading it now makes me cringe).

More recently, and still nearly a decade ago, I took a scientific approach to understanding the neurochemical rollercoaster of reconnecting with an ex for an impromptu dinner. Readers found the topic so compelling that the story became a top 10 traffic hit for the magazine’s website. And, well, the science checks out:

“Love research supports the notion that it’s psychologically intoxicating to reconnect with a former flame you still feel friendly toward; the brain lights up the same way a cocaine addict’s does before a hit.”

The Evolution of a Love Story

I’ll be honest. writing about a past relationship 16 years into my marriage gave me pause. Would people assume I’m hung up on my ex? Or living in the past? Would my ex run with the idea that despite the crappy way our story ended, he somehow healed me?

But re-reading the story I wrote all those years ago helped reframe my misgivings, particularly the comments of one of my favorite sources: Justin Garcia, Ph.D., evolutionary biologist, sex researcher, and Executive Director of The Kinsey Institute:

“There’s a complex physiology associated with romantic attachments that probably stays with us for most of our lives—and that’s not something to be afraid of, particularly if you had a great run,” he said.

My ex is a good guy. That’s true. But my “Tiny Love Story” wasn’t about him. It was about how falling in love—allowing myself to love and be loved—helped mend my broken parts. And how having a patient and loving partner helped.

The picture that ran with my first “Tiny Love Story” in 2023

The Hard Truth

Those of us who write essays know all too well how mind-numbing it is to put words into the world that might affect the people we love, or even those we don’t!

I’m fortunate Brandon (my husband) has given the green light to everything I’ve written (so far); that jealousy is not in his DNA. That he, too, is grateful for my previous relationships because the hard work of healing was largely behind me when we met.

Equally important, if we’re keeping score on who my muse is, Brandon wins. I’m writing an entire book about him—and his late wife. I guess we’re both unthreatened by the ghosts of the past.

I suspect you won’t be surprised to learn that one of the three “Tiny Love Story” drafts sitting on my hard drive centers around my husband’s late wife. And that what I’m really writing, not just with my latest TLS, but also with the memoir, is a love letter to myself.

Pro Quote

“Tell stories from your scars, not your wounds.”

This turn of phrase has been shared so many times that I wasn’t able to pin down its origin story. If anyone knows who first said (or wrote) these words, please share.

Student Wisdom

I pulled the following brilliant advice from Julie Zigoris’s newsletter (with her permission, of course). And while I wholeheartedly agree with her take on these “problem words,” I also know there are exceptions to every rule (read the excerpt below then revisit the second sentence in paragraph two of this stack… and the last sentence before “Pro Quote”).

Writing Tip: Avoid These Three Deadly Sins 

My husband and I came close to a squabble the other day over his wording in a group message. This is the problem, it seems, with being married to a writer! I couldn’t restrain myself from pointing out his back-to-back repetition of sentence structure that included the word actually (gasp!) twice. He's typically a very helpful editor (he also wants you to know he got a 5 on his AP English exam), so we can enjoy this sort of repartee.

But in my book, there is no word as weak as actually. What does “actually” actually do for you? Actually, nothing. It’s a word you can banish to the leper colony. While you’re at it, why don’t you hoist along with it public enemy number one (in my freelance community, at least) “just.” This word is such a do-nothing it thinks it can just insert itself anywhere it pleases; that’s what makes it so nefarious. Entire treatises have been written about it. And since no one likes the shaky number two, let’s balance it out with a third offender: really. What do you really think about actually and just? What do you think about actually and just? Tell me which sentence you like better. Be honest.