Love story visible goals? Needing some help!

I’m not sure whether to post this in the mainstream forum or in this forum, but I thought I’d get your take on it.

I am planning a love story, and it would not conform to the romance genre specifics. So just a love story that would be written by the likes of Nicholas Sparks. I have two characters (male and female) who have their own issues with how they get through life and are not alike. They had young love when they were teenagers but amicably split as he focussed on his career. She did not realise she was pregnant until after he left and she decided not to interfere with his career. They are now going to meet again about 10 years later and they will over the course of the novel begin to fall in love again as they go through their character arcs and understand what they need to change in their lives in order to do so. The climax being when she has to tell him it’s his kid and it looks like their new love for each other is shot to pieces.

This all sounds good to me, aside from the fact that I don’t know if that is a strong enough climax. I would need some reason for him to forgive her other than “oh hmm, yeh okay I see your point I was focussed on my career”. What are your thoughts?

Now, my main issue surrounds the rest of the structure of the novel. You are always told to have an inciting incident and a clear visible goal for the character established early on in order to guide the reader through the book. This is something that Nicholas Sparks does not always do, such as in Nights in Rodanthe where the characters just happen to meet at a hotel and I guess the clear visible goal of this is their falling in love. But is that enough? With a crime novel or thriller the main aim of the story is to finally capture the bad guy or whoever, but in a love story is just documenting their falling in love enough? I think that is a criticism of his writing by some people who say that it just reads like ‘day-to-day’ without any clear plan throughout the novel.

My question is, what should I be thinking about in terms of visible external goals in a love story?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks! That helps me see how I should be brainstorming. I already have their character traits. He has learnt to love greed rather than others. He is solely focussed on business matters and how things affect that. She is on the other end of the spectrum and is over generous and devotes her time to others (such as helping out at shelters etc which isn't exactly well paid) which takes time away from her son. These are the two things that will conflict when the characters meet and have to get past as they fall in love and find some middle ground with the way they live their lives.

I guess I've been going around and around in my head as to how to bring them together in some way that forces them to spend time together that isn't solely work related i.e. she is sent to do something with her line of work and he is there and the two of them have to work together to achieve the goal. Not only is this tough because he is successful in business and is not likely to meet and work alongside her in a typical job, but the fact that they already know each other changes the dynamic of meeting someone new and exciting etc which is throwing me off track. Should it be a goal that can only be completed with his help, or should they have their own separate goals and each helps the other in some way.

I'm also not sure how big this visible goal should get because I would not want that to take centre stage over them falling in love. Apologies for all the questions, I'm new to this!

Thanks again for the reply, very helpful indeed. You've clearly gone through this process countless times.

Does anyone have any things I should be thinking about or bearing in mind when trying to establish forgiveness for the secret/lie that pervades the whole novel? As I mentioned in my original post, the secret is that the kid is his and he has had no idea for 10 years. At the climax she would eventually get the guts to tell him and it looks like their new love is ruined by her deceit. But, I can't figure out how to make this a compelling climax where he doesn't just think about it and says "Oh yeah, I was focussed on business, you were right to hide him from me, I forgive you." etc.

In Message in a Bottle (spoiler alert), the private letter she found that lead to him is a letter he has never seen and one that was not written by him. It is by his dead wife, and by showing him this it helps close that part of his life and allows him to forgive her and keeps their love alive. But I can think of no way that this particular secret I'm going for can have a get out clause. Does that make sense?