Part of that is the “tapping into women’s fantasies” trope. A major recurring plotline of the fantasy romances I used to proofread would feature a vampire, mythological god, ancient astronaut, or what-have-you who’d lived for thousands of years, and then is somehow insinuated into the life of some plain-as-vanilla shop clerk or receptionist and discovers to that, inexplicably (because what does she have that the succession of famous beauties he’ll be sure to describe having romanced didn’t?) he has discovered the One Great Love he’d searched for all these centuries. Implausible, but each reader is hoping it could happen to her.
Jerkass Couple (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days)
The Beta Couple (The lead or leads’ best friend[s] are in a contrasting relationship. When Harry Met Sally.)
The whack off job: they work in a fancy setting and there’s a scene or two with them “working” but they can drop everything and go to Aspen whenever they want. She’s a fashion writer and he’s an architect! She’s an author and he owns his own vineyard! She plans weddings and he’s in publishing! Sometimes the job serves as a plot starter. No matter how messed up the character is supposed to be they never seem to be unemployed. Nobody’s ever a butt doctor or an accountant in a dingy cubicle.
I could be way off on that last one because I don’t watch a whole lot of Rom Coms but it seems like that’s how it is.
I’m also gratified to see that the culture has matured to the point that romance novels regularly depict female characters with a healthy attitude toward (and appetite for) sex. The most common trope until about the last fifteen years* involved the “bodice-ripper,” in which, for some reason, the woman is forced into having sex. I don’t need a PhD in psychology to recognize that that was designed to appeal to women with normal, natural desires conflicted by a social ethos that condemned them for expressing or even possessing them.
*I began proofreading fiction in 1992, when vestiges of that once-dominant paradigm still existed. It was soon supplanted by an influx of younger authors.
Good point from Bridget and **Zyada **-- in the time-frame of the early 1800s it would not seem unusual for someone close to a protagonist to have met an untimely death, so it would not seem as contrived as a plot element as it would in a 2010 context.
Well, unless she’s getting rescued from the dingy cubicle where she’s stuck because she has to care for her mom (rather than pursue her true calling), upon meeting the Butt Doctor To The Stars. Who then becomes himself enlightened and decides they’ll live off his accumulated fortune while establishing a whole children’s hospital for the underserved rural community where they honeymooned 
(And, it seems I got my answer, which is no, the term “romance” just evolved into its current usage as storytelling genres got market-segmented [having previously had a more general-fiction meaning]. Thank you, Bridget!)
When I first encountered bodice rippers, I offered a heartfelt apology to Spanish-language romance writers. Those things turn my stomach even worse than the bad-boy genre :mad: they present rape as a desirable thing and men as “can’t help themselves” morons as much as they present women as wilting flowers. Bleargh!
Not a “romance novel.” The term as generally used refers to a specific fictional genre that did not exist before the 20th Century. Besides, in a romance novel the hero always gets the girl. In Wuthering Heights there is no hero, and the poor shlub who gets the girl in the end is just lucky. And the plot of a romance novel never spans generations the way WH does; there would be no room for a Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw.
Anyway.
As you might have expected, TVTropes has a whole directory-page on Love Tropes. Also one on Romance Novel Plots.
Here’s some basic formula I’ve observed in romance novels – not just the short Harlequins and Silhouettes but the 3-inch-thick paperbacks:
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The novel is the story of only two people, the lovers. All other characters are supporting cast.
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The reader knows from the first chapter, if not the first page, which two characters are to be lovers.
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The lovers have a mutual attraction (which they may deny even to themselves) from the moment of meeting, if they were not already co-workers or something at the beginning of the story. However, the course of true love cannot run smoothly, or it would make for a very short novel. Something – some mutual misunderstanding, pride, mistaken jealousy, scheming relatives, an ex who won’t go away – keeps them apart. Of course, it cannot be an insuperable obstacle.
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In any modern romance novel except perhaps those of the “Christian Romance” subgenre: Despite 3, the lovers will have sexual relations before the book is one-third over. The obstacles mentioned in 3 may at that point drive them apart, or they may continue a sexual relationship while telling themselves and each other that it’s only sex, strictly nonromantic.
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In the end the lovers will either be married, or obviously on their way there.
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The love-triangle theme is never exploited – see 1. (Rather puzzling, when you consider all the things the writer could do with it.) The reader is never in any doubt, not for one page, as to which man will get the woman. There is one and only one hero, and any apparent rival for the heroine’s affections – or for the hero’s – is merely a misunderstood obstacle.
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Both hero and heroine need to be sympathetic characters. This means the hero can be a “bad boy” or a “rebel,” kindasorta, but only so long as he does not cross certain lines, such as beating women or using drugs or anything modern middle-class American readers would consider really morally disgusting. All “rebel” really means here is that the hero is brave and tough and in no way a naif.
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The hero can have an active sexual past – in fact, if he has been an insatiable womanizer all his life before meeting the heroine, so much the better. (So long as his womanizing met some minimal standards of chivalry, see 7.) This makes it all the sweeter when the heroine turns out to be the one woman in all the world who can command his fidelity. (This is probably a fantasy shared by every woman who has ever regretted a one-night stand.) And fidelity there must be, at least by the end of the book – “open marriage,” swinging, polyamory, etc., etc., are never even mentioned as conceivable options.
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The heroine, nowadays, can also have an active sexual past, and is no less a sympathetic character for it, and the hero will never think of applying a double standard, unless by doing so he can create a necessary-plot-device obstacle for himself (see 3).
At the start of the book/movie, doesn’t the heroine have to be engaged to some rich, upper class guy that EVERYONE else thinks is perfect for her?
Since that inconvenient fiance has to be disposed of, he’ll probably have to be exposed as a rotter with no redeeming qualities (Billy Zane in “Titanic”). But if he’s just a bit boring (Bill Pullman in “Sleepless in Seattle”), well, that’s a perfectly valid reason for dumping him, too.
- (Of particular interest to Dopers.) A romance-novel hero must be (1) sexy, (2) capable, (3) sympathetic/admirable/ethical. That’s all. No intellectuals need apply. A hero can be intelligent, well-read, sophisticated, but only in ways that make money and/or make him more interesting to a heroine who is no intellectual herself. If a man spends any significant time really living the life of the mind or wrestling with existential crises or the wider or deeper issues of life, he’s – not even supporting case, he’s not in the book at all.
The Belgeriad (David Eddings) which has most of the really annoying romance traits all rolled in between most of the really annoying Epic Fantasy traits.
Though the man gets better, so maybe it doesn’t count.
You’ll find the heroine ends up with a rich guy more often than not. Spurning a rich guy for the true love of a poor guy is a classic plot (and a real-life story at least as old as parentally-arranged marriages) that rarely seems to be used in romance novels, any more, for some reason. You will sometimes still see it in movies, but even that is increasingly rare; you’ll be hard-pressed to find it in any movie with a contemporary setting. Sleepless doesn’t even count, if you’ll look closely; Bill Pullman is not significantly richer than Tom Hanks.
Or the “poor guy” turns out to have loads of money himself.
And the girl gets to have her cake and eat it, just like we all know, deep down, that we really deserve to. An equally classic variation on the classic plot; rarely used, any more, except in TV sitcoms.
Because, in choosing true love over wealth and ease, she has passed her Secret Test of Character. (E.g., “I just pretended to be poor because I wanted to find somebody who would love me for me.”) Another classic trope that you’ll still find in play everywhere – but not in romance novels. Not much in romcoms, either.