So I'm working on a coming-of-age romantic dramedy set in '03 and '05-'06, and I need a plausible reason for one of the female leads first moving away and then moving back to the town where my male lead lives. I tried toying with the idea of "parent loses job/finds opportunity elsewhere, moves back when parent gets job back in original town/loses job over there," but I don't know if a year is a big enough window in which to move to another state, get into a new house, and then do that process over again just to get back to the original area. It seems stupid to ask for such a trivial detail, but any help would be appreciated.
It's possible the parent could work for a large multi-national/global company that sends him overseas for a year or so. If you need the character to move back to the same town or same neighborhood, this would work, because the family wouldn't necessarily sell their original house. They could rent it out for a year (or maybe even just have someone take care of the house) and then return to it. If you want parent loses job then gets a job somewhere else, then decides to move back to the original town, that is possible, especially if the original town is the town where the parents were from and is truly 'home' to them. You're right that a year is a fairly short time to move far away, buy/sell houses, etc., but it's not impossible. I guess it depends on whether you want the MCs to expect the one who moves away to return at some point or not.
Maybe the parents got divorced. Female lead initially thought she wanted to live with one parent (the one who moves away), but finds she's unhappy in the new place and moves back to live with the other parent. That way only the one character moves twice.
You know, my age may be showing a bit here. When you said '03 and '05-'06, I was thinking 1903, and 1905-1906. I was about to point out that multinational companies weren't common back then, when I realized you were talking about a contemporary story, not turn of the twentieth century. You should be more specific.
Haha. Although I didn't think 1900's I did think it was strange and decided I must be getting old. I love the mutli-national company idea as well and know several families who have done exactly what you are describing.
