thoughtfulI can think of a few books with romantic plotlines where something other than a misunderstanding played a major role. Shards of Honor, for instance, featured a star-spanning culture clash erupting into warfare. Some other possible conflicts:
* The characters were raised so differently that it creates many differences in how they do everyday things, so that they have a hard time fitting together.
* The characters hold deeply opposed religious/political/other views that spark interpersonal disputes and make their relatives uncomfortable, and which cannot easily be abandoned.
* The characters live far apart. It is difficult for them to spend time together, even though they both want to.
* The characters live in a context where extreme social disapproval makes it difficult or even dangerous for them to be together, which will continue as long as they are in a relationship. Or even alive, for some cases.
* The characters don't have a language in common. One or both will have to learn a new language, which for most people is exhaustive and frustrating.
* There is an inherent physical risk to them being together, especially in a sexual way. This is most prevalent in speculative fiction with a vampiric or lycanthropic or alien partner but there are other possibilities.
* The characters have opposing professions, which they are unwilling or unable to change.
* One character wants children and the other does not (or cannot have them). No matter how much they love each other, they want fundamentally different things from life in that regard.
* One character is handicapped. The other is not used to working around that and feels uncomfortable.
Once in a while, I see one of those other factors played as the prevailing conflict that the characters must come to terms with before affirming their relationship. Most of the time, though, even when these very big issues are on the board -- these things that frequently lead to breakups -- they are usually overshadowed by Misunderstanding #1, as if love solves everything. It doesn't. It really, really doesn't. It can make you determined to solve everything, but that's a different story.
That's a different story, and that's the kind I want to read, and write myself.
One of the other things that got me thinking about this was the planned relationship between Fala and Rai in Torn World. She's Northern, he's Southern; relationships are strained between those cultures, but they can't easily ignore each other anymore. Their everyday lives are so different as to have almost no overlap. Social support for the relationship is variable; some of their relatives are okay with it, but the expectations are so wildly different that even "support" can spark outbursts. Their homes are very far apart; they have to figure out where or when they could be together and whether they can stand to separate sometimes. At the time they meet, they are both handicapped: Rai was born blind, and Fala lost her legs in a wilderness accident. It doesn't help that he's relatively comfortable with his handicap and she isn't with hers yet. Their languages share a common root (Ancient) but have evolved differently for Fala (Northern) and Rai (Southern). The grammar and function words are similar, but a lot of the content words are very different. That puts a drag on the conversation. They're lucky that both of them are smart, fast learners -- and Rai has a stupendous memory.
Do they love each other? Once they get over some initial awkwardness, yes, they both understand that part just fine. It doesn't help much with problem-solving. It just keeps them in a place where they need to solve those problems. Sort of like the difference between holding someone over a fire vs. giving them a fire extinguisher.
Re: Thoughts
March 9 2010, 23:59:31 UTC 11 years ago
Speaking as a former librarian (again [wry g]) and someone from within the romance community (see the Romance Writers of America's definition here), a book with an unhappy ending is not, by generally accepted genre definitions, a romance.
You will find that most romance readers absolutely hate writers who do that to them, and will studiously avoid them and warn others against them, too.
OTOH, there's nothing to stop you from writing commercial fiction with an unhappily ending romantic plot, if that's what floats your boat. Some authors (mostly male, for some reason) do so quite successfully. But you'll get a lot of backlash from the romance community if you or your publisher try to call it a romance.
Re: Thoughts
March 10 2010, 01:46:23 UTC 11 years ago
A romance is a story in which the relationship between two or more characters is the focus. It's a love story. The "happily ever after" thing has been expected within the romance genre, and then people in that industry started to break away from that, and fight over it. And there didn't used to be actual sex in there either, and that's changing too. I think it's been going on for 5-10 years, maybe more. *shrug* Not really my genre, so I don't have a dog in that fight. I'm interested primarily in romance as a subplot in other types of story, or in romances that take place in other genres with more flexible parameters.
>>You will find that most romance readers absolutely hate writers who do that to them, and will studiously avoid them and warn others against them, too.<<
Not the niche audience I'm aiming for. Those people have their stuff already. It's useful to know what they like and why, because that helps explain why I don't like their stuff. We're after different things.
>>But you'll get a lot of backlash from the romance community if you or your publisher try to call it a romance.<<
Pretty much every story I've ever seen that focuses on characters falling in love has been described as a romance by somebody. Like, say, Romeo and Juliet with its famously tragic ending. I'm not very inclined to call what I write romance, because I'm not very fond of the romance genre. And people will go round and round about whether a given book is "really" romance or "really" SF (or fill in the blank with another genre), based on what's in it, often with people in each genre trying to punt it into the other. Silly. Market genres can get a lot stuffier than story types, if the publishers try to exert enough control to make everything the same. The main idea is to pinpoint what the story is all about.