: Re: How to write romance without falling into cliché? A few examples of romance clichés: A is in love with B, but doesn't dare to tell him/her. After some chasing, A finally has sex with B

@Nickens642

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Romances are far more clichéd then you say. As Mike Ford points out, almost all romances can be sketched as: 1. Boy meets girl. 2. They fall in love. 3. Something keeps them apart. 4. They overcome and are together forever.

I don't read romance novels, but I see them on TV now and then. I've noticed that these days the obstacle that keeps them apart is almost always an argument over something that turns out to be a misunderstanding. I've often thought, wouldn't it be more interesting if they had a real argument and then came to some compromise. Or one of them does something truly wrong that harms the relationship but that apologizes and the other forgives. But I guess the nature of the romance genre is that both people must be completely likable. If they had a real argument, then the reader is likely to side with one or the other, and whatever resolution the author comes up with, the reader may think that one character is accepting something that he or she should not accept, they'd be better not to commit to this other person, etc.

Oh, the other obstacle you see is that one of the people meets someone else who seems more desirable in some way, but whom the audience knows is not a good person for some reason, and so the audience is cheering for the hero or heroine to match up with the good person rather than the bad person, and of course by the end of the story the hero/heroine realizes that they really should be with the good person. I read something by a movie producer once in which he said that he set out to make a romance where both the men vying for the woman's affections were good, decent guys so that she faced a real choice, rather than the good guy / bad guy stereotype. That's probably as far from clichés as most romance movies manage to get these days.

That said, what makes a good romance story is not a brilliant new plot idea, but doing it with style. There are some genres that are all about plot, about presenting the characters with some problem and then the author presenting an interesting solution to that problem. A lot of science fiction falls in that category. Romance stories are not about a clever plot. They are about creating interesting characters and making those characters appealing. Anyone who reads a romance thinking, "I wonder if these two will end up together" ... well, such a person must find the world a place full of wonder and mystery. OF COURSE the hero and heroine will end up together. The question is how they get there.

I read once -- I don't know if this is true, but I don't doubt it for a moment -- that publishers of romance novels demand that their writers follow this formula. If anyone submits a story that goes in a different direction -- the heroine's boyfriend turns out to be a thoughtless jerk and the story ends with her dumping him and becoming a nun or something -- are automatically rejected.

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