Boy gets girl.
Boy loses girl.
Boy gets girl back.
My dad explained the mechanics of this popular plot device to me when I was a kid. He said every movie ever made followed it.
While I’m sure that’s not true of EVERY movie (The Hobbit?), it’s pretty much true of every romance novel.
So if they’re so predictable, why then are they so popular?
After the launch of Seduced by Innocence, my new paranormal romance series, I was talking about the genre with a friend of mine who writes more fantasy and sci-fi based books. While he liked Seduced by Innocence, he didn’t quite get the romance genre in general.
“They just don’t seem to be based on real relationships,” he objected. “In real life, you have conflict and compromise and ups and downs. In these novels the other person is perfect and there’s never any doubts and it all works out in the end.”
Well, yeah! That’s kind of the point, right? When we read (or write) romance, we’re looking for wish fulfillment, for soul mates and alpha males to sweep us off our feet. We want the happily ever after and the love that’s unstoppable against all the odds.
He pointed out that there were probably a lot of problems in my first marriage, things that heralded the end.
“Sure there were. But that marriage ended in divorce. That’s not what makes a good romance! Romances based on real life are called literary fiction.”
I said the last in jest, but it’s mostly true. If you’re looking for slice of life fiction that explores all the grey areas of love and life and deals with the problems and pitfalls of romantic love, you’re not likely to find that in a romance.
While the couple in a romance usually have something working against them, there is still a feeling of fate and eternal love at work, pulling them together.
This is the love of fiction.
Or is it?
Later this year, I’ll be releasing my first contemporary romance novel called Confessions of a Splintered Heart. While not actually based on a true story, the idea of this book is inspired by my epic romance with my husband. You can read more about our journey to love by clicking on Writing in Love and reading some of the posts. We used to have a blog together, but found that we enjoyed spending time together more than writing blogs together. Go figure!
What is interesting about this, is that for the book to work, we had to add conflict and reasons for our characters to be apart, whereas in real life, it wasn’t nearly as difficult. Yes, we had to overcome an age difference, and yes, we lived in different countries when we met and had to deal with skeptical family and friends and the logistics of actually, physically, being together, but we NEVER DOUBTED for one second that we were meant to be.
Now, years later, we still don’t have a single doubt. We are happily married, raising three children and writing books together. We spend nearly 24 hours a day together, and he’s an integral part of the process for almost all of my books. We also co-run Daring Books Design & Marketing, where we manage a team that works with authors on design and publicity efforts.
We’ve overcome a lot, but all the conflicts were external. We’ve never had any internal fear or doubts about the epic and forever nature of our love.
We are like a romance novel, an unbelievable story that people chalk up to fairy tales. We’re that couple people tell to get a room. (Seriously, he was kissing me at the mall the other day and some old lady told us this. We weren’t even getting hot and heavy!)
We’re living the fairy tale.
So maybe romance novels aren’t so unrealistic after all.
Either way, I’m so excited to share with you the fantasy of getting swept off your feet by the perfect man, because I live that every day with my sexy Russian Prince, and I want you to experience that as well—whether it’s with a sexy surfer who can control minds, like in Forbidden Mind, or with a hot martial arts expert who can shapeshift into a wolf, like in Seduced by Innocence.
Later this year I’ll have some fun contemporary romances as well, in addition to Confessions of a Splintered Heart. Watch for Kiss Me in Paris and a whole Kiss Me series! For historical fantasy romance fans, you won’t want to miss the launch of Sunrise & Nightfall, co-written with the sexy Dmytry Karpov, and for urban fantasy fans, stay tuned for Blood of the Fallen, also co-written with Dmytry Karpov. Whether romance is the primary storyline, or secondary to something else, all of my YA and adult books have love and romance in them, because I’m a sucker for happily ever afters.
Are you?
Enjoy this cover reveal of book 2 in the Seduced Saga, Seduced by Pain, and join us on Facebook for a Valentine’s Day party to celebrate the launch! To gear up for this event, scroll down to enter a giveaway of a custom made rose pendant like the one worn by Rose in Seduced by Innocence, and signed swag! If you’re not already a subscriber to my newsletter, be sure to sign up because I will give away the novella version of Sunrise & Nightfall to ALL of my subscribers, when it launches, along with other goodies!
I love this. I agree that romance novels are about an idealized version of love. If you are lucky, you get to live out a real romance once in life.
Yes! I’m so glad I got lucky :p
Interesting that your friend said that of romance. While there are definitely idealized things to it, I like when the characters have flaws that they have to overcome. Nobody is ever really perfect, but they can be beautifully flawed I suppose. 🙂 Ironically, much like you my hubby and I are very much in love still after years, though we did have a sort of epic start with things that had to be overcome. He’s secretly (or I guess not so secretly now hehehe) the inspiration behind the main male character in my upcoming Paranormal romance.
I love hearing about other epic romances! I think the idealization is in the way life is presented. They may have flaws, but life isn’t really presented in a real way with bills and spit up from babies and dog poop and laundry and all the little things couples argue about, generally. It’s more sweeping and grand gestures, most of the time.
I always laugh when people say they don’t believe in an instant connection. My husband and I knew we were the one for each other when we met. I met him on my 16th birthday. I was a good girl, never been in any trouble, from a stable home. He was a 17 year old hoodlum, from a broken family (really broken), living with questionable people. He even moved out of state for a while until I sent him a one way bus ticket home. He chose to take it. We should never have worked. But we did and we got married less than a year later while I was still 16 and he was barely 18. Everyone told us not to do it. My parents weren’t real happy but I was raised to be a stubborn person so they reluctantly agreed. We got jobs, an apartment and half our friends couldn’t come over because there were no adults, LOL. No I was not pregnant, we just loved each other. We didn’t have our first child until five years later. Everyone said there was no way it would work, just look at the divorce rate for adults, etc.
Have we had ups and downs? Of course. Who doesn’t.
We will celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary this year. We have three beautiful children now and we still act like newly weds. We still flirt and play and get lost in each other’s eyes. We still chase each other through the house, much to the embarrassment of our kids sometimes. We are each other’s other half. He is the grounded and practical half that keeps me from loosing myself in flights of fancy and I am the fun, spontaneous half that keeps him from taking life to seriously. I am always misplacing everything and he always knows what I’ve done with it. He worries to much and pull him out of it and remind him to find joy in every day.
Do I think we have an epic love story? Yes I do.
Dear God woman!! I’m a blubbering fool after reading that, lol!! I’m going to have to put the book I’m currently reading down so I can get to this one now!! I’ll be back to leave a review asap. Def need tissues. <3 you, Girl. Thanks for being so awesome!
Beautiful story. I agree that we read romances because we want to hear about things that work, we want to believe in happily ever after. I’m another one who’s been married 11 years, and still just as in love (if not more so), than when we first got married. Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs, but I’ve never doubted for one second who I want to be with. I know that my romances always have some hint of my own relationships in them.
I think perhaps the appeal of love stories is that most people at least know someone with a relationship like that, so there is an undertone of truth to most romances.
In a good romance, I look for conflict and passion. I prefer it when couples have to fight for their love, rather than easily flow into it. Thank you :]
A good romance must have chemistry, passion, love and it’s always good to have a HEA!
I love reading about when they first meet and when they are getting to know each other and act around each other.
I need to have romance, sex, love, some kind of break up (because the make up sex is ALWAYS the best)
Tapping my foot, waiting, waiting, waiting…so excited about Seduced In Pain on Valentine’s Day~
A great touch and go suspense to the romance is a must. Good sex is a part of it, but definitely not the most important. I want to hate the male part for a good part of the time. Then a great love at the end.
Intrigue, love, problems, sacrifice, innocence and not so innocence.
When I read this in your post:
“Yes, we had to overcome an age difference, and yes, we lived in different countries when we met and had to deal with skeptical family and friends and the logistics of actually, physically, being together, but we NEVER DOUBTED for one second that we were meant to be.
Now, years later, we still don’t have a single doubt. We are happily married…
We’ve overcome a lot, but all the conflicts were external. We’ve never had any internal fear or doubts about the epic and forever nature of our love.
We are like a romance novel, an unbelievable story that people chalk up to fairy tales. We’re that couple people tell to get a room.”
– I was nodding my head and thinking, “That describes Robert and me.” We don’t write books “together,” but we do both write and are both working on novels. My husband will probably design most of my book covers when they are at that stage (if I decide to self-publish), because he is very talented when it comes to photography and photo-manipulation, art, etc.
I can be really cynical, and people expect that of me when it comes to love too as I went through a divorce a long time ago. But I’m not cynical at all when it comes to love. I can be practical about it, especially where teens are concerned, but I know that fairy-tale love is NOT a myth because I am living the fairytale. 🙂
For me romance is all about the chase, passion, conflict, sex and a happy ending. As a reader I also have to fall in love with the characters as well.
Just bought innocence and pain on my kindle. Look forward to reading both.
I look for convincing characters that eventually find common ground and hopefully a HEA. A little paranormal and suspense doesn’t hurt either!