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In stories with romance (either the main story line or the subplot), the ultimate ending is when the heroine captures the heart, and vice versa, of the hero—her soul mate. But does that elusive individual really exist, and how do you know if you’ve found him? I mean let’s face it, just because we fall in love with someone, it doesn’t mean he’s the one.
And what about in paranormal novels (YA and adult)? If one of the individuals is immortal and the other one is mortal, it sure would suck if they’re supposed be soul mates. They would only have a few years together before the mortal individual dies. And the immortal character would have to spend a lonely eternity mourning his lost love.
Fortunately there are several ways to deal with this:
- Turn the mortal into an immortal. Then they’ll have a happily-ever-after for thousands of years (hopefully they still like each other after all that time).
- Find a way to make the immortal character mortal. This way they can both grow old together (because a senior citizen dating a teenager is very icky!).
- And let’s not forget reincarnation. The disadvantage of this is the character has to wait around until the love interest is the right age. And then the character has to hope the love interest has a long life. It would be a bummer if he finally finds her, and she dies a few weeks later. It would be an even bigger bummer if this happened every time she is reincarnated, like in YA paranormal novel Fallen by Kate Lauren.