In Stephen King’s novel Misery, the protagonist is Paul Sheldon, author of a series of Victorian romance novels about the heroine Misery Chastain. One feature of this series is that Misery has two lovers, hooking up with them in alternation, and the fans are kept guessing as to which one she’ll finally marry. Good concept! Way to keep 'em reading!
But no romance writer IRL seems to actually use it. I’ve been reading romance novels lately – out of professional interest, as a public librarian – and I’ve noticed several patterns and conventions. One is that the novel always ends with the lovers’ marriage, or with a proposal of marriage eagerly accepted. To end it any other way would be as unthinkable as ending a mystery novel without resolving the mystery. So, a series like Sheldon’s would have no place in the genre. Another is that there is never any doubt who the heroine is going to end up with. You can figure out that much from the first chapter – heck, you can figure it out from the blurb on the back cover! Sometimes one lover or the other is trapped in a loveless marriage or has other baggage from a previous relationship, sometimes a third party appears as a rival for one of the lovers’ affections – but there’s never any real suspense; you know whatever problems this presents will be overcome before the book ends.
Are there any romance novels which exploit the love-triangle theme? If not, why not?
Novels in which the hero marries the right woman (“Reader, I married him”) are two-a-penny. If you want an example of an excellent novel in which the hero marries the wrongwoman in the triangle, try Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge.
OK, it’s not a romance novel, but they aren’t exactly mysteries, either. There is definite love triangle action in the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novels.
**Harriet **beat me to it, but I’ve already typed it so here it is anyway.
Janet Evanovich’s popular Stephanie Plum series, which is in the mystery/romance genre, has an ongoing love triangle that has lasted for 12 books so far. Stephanie is attracted to two eligible men, and she hasn’t really chosen between them.
(I was rooting for Morelli for a long time, but during the last couple of books I swapped over to Ranger.)
In the category of long-running mystery series with a touch or more of romance and a distinct love triangle–one should also acknowledge the Midnight Louie novels by Carole Nelson Douglas.
I don’t see how it could work in the typical romance novel. The man and woman who end up together are always described as feeling so much more for each other than for anyone else they think they have loved before (one true love) that I can’t see them messing around with more than one person and eventually deciding. The woman may think she loves one guy (the expected husband) but realizes that she’s “never known love like this before” after meeting The One. One book even described the guy (who unlike the woman can mess around before meeting her, usually with prostitutes who teach him how to be good in bed) having a stronger orgasm with her that anyone else, ever. :rolleyes: Is that possible, fellows?
So there may be three players, but as you say there’s no real contest.
Sense and Sensibility has Elinor, Lucy and Edward in a love triangle. He does marry the right woman in the end, but in the last chapter the right woman still believes he married the wrong one.
There’s the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton where the heroine is in a love triangle with a vampire and a werewolf. The other that came to mind was the Stephanie Plum series which has already been mentioned.
Romance novels are defined by the relationship between the hero and the heroine. There are supporting characters, secondary plotlines involving murder, mystery and mayhem, but ultimately the romance is the most important part. The writer wants to convince her reader that the hero and the heroine fall in love.
To do this the writer has 100k words. Actually, fewer than 100k words, given that most of the time there are secondary characters with their own stories. You’ll notice that two of the love triangle examples that came to mind are series where there is a lot more scope for character development. If the writer spends too much time on other characters/plotlines, then the relationship between the hero and the heroine suffers. The reader want to know who the hero and heroine are as individuals; what makes them tick, what brings them together and what obstacles they overcome. If you throw another romantic interest in there now the writer has to keep her novel the same length but now has the job of making two romantic relationships believable.
But let’s say that works. Let’s say that now there are two guys that the heroine (and reader) are having a hard time choosing between. Since it’s a romance novel she has to pick one and have a happily-ever-after with him. To make it a good romance novel the reader needs to believe that they will have a happily-ever-after. She wants her readers to think that the hero and heroine belong together and nobody can tear them apart - oh … except that guy she was two-timing him with, but ignore that. If the second guy was written well, half the readers will prefer him and be dissatisfied with the ending.
So there is tension between writing a believable love triangle and writing a believable true-love relationship.
Which explains why I picked up an anthology or two a couple of years ago with titles like “Hero, Come Back” or “Where’s MY Hero?” which gave secondary characters that the heroine didn’t fall in love with a chance.
Still, in any of those stories where I sought out the original tale, the complaint that the outcome was never in doubt because the blurb on the back of the book indicated that there would be a heroine engaged to one man, but in love with another.
Actually I think this has become a love pentathalon since in the last one I read (hides face with shame) she was involved with at in at least 2 3-ways and one 4 way. Let me count the ways: two vamps and a were-wolf, a were-leopard and that Micah guy, and those two other guys I can’t remember. And this from a nice Catholic necromancer who didn’t even believe in kissing on the first date.
Actually I think this has become a love pentathalon since in the last one I read (hides face with shame) she was involved with at at least 2 3-ways and one 4 way. Let me count the ways: two vamps and a were-wolf, a were-leopard and that Micah guy, and those two other guys I can’t remember. And this from a nice Catholic necromancer who didn’t even believe in kissing on the first date.
Umm, that Micah guy is also a were-leopard. I decline to specify the identities of the guys you can’t remember. (Can’t tell who you are talking about. Anita spends too much time having sex with various vampires and other creatures aside from her regular partners. )
Besides, we’re also back to the other problem, Laurell K. Hamilton writes many things, but a basic traditional romance novel is NOT one of them.
I don’t read a lot of pulp romanace, but it seems to me at least one of the Georgette Heyer novels (Regency Romances written in the 1950s - IIRC) follows that plotline. Don’t know if that is modern enough for you, but the Heyer novels that are still in print are shelved under Romance.
Well, there’s A Civil Contract. It’s one of my favorites, though I wouldn’t say that it has a happy ending, precisely. It’s definitely a love it or hate it book, due to the love triangle.
I might imagine that type of series in Women’s Fiction, but at the end of a Romance Novel, the main characters are going to live Happily Ever After (they’re either married, engaged, or going to get engaged.)
Usually, when Romance Novels are in a series, it’s a different couple every book - but all the couples are connected together somehow (members of the same family, living in the same town, working in the same office, etc.) I could see a series where each book’s major couple ends up in HEA territory by the end of the book, but a set of popular, yet obviously secondary, characters is involved in a love triangle that remains unresolved at the end of the books.