# Straight Dope ladies, I could use some romance-fiction advice **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 3, 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048 "2016-01-03T08:17:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/21 "2016-01-04T19:48:14Z")
> [@selkie72](#): > > The tropes that you are dismissing off-hand are what draw readers to romance. A good romance author knows how to use those tropes in new and unexpected ways and to connect with the reader emotionally. The emotional connection is WHY readers read romance. The expectations of the genre are why they keep coming back. > Yes, the tropes are there, but emotional honesty is the point. Without that, a romance novel falls flat. I think \*\*Sattua \*\*and \*\*Reepicheep \*\*said it best: It is possible to diverge from tropes if done well. It’s more about the cooking than the ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![selkie72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@selkie72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/selkie72)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/22 "2016-01-04T19:51:21Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think \*\*Sattua \*\*and \*\*Reepicheep \*\*said it best: It is possible to diverge from tropes if done well. It’s more about the cooking than the ingredients. Yeah, good luck with that. You can’t make a cake out of lettuce and calfs’ brains. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/23 "2016-01-04T19:54:51Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > True, it’s been recent titles. Which recent titles? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/24 "2016-01-04T20:00:13Z")
> [@selkie72](#): > > Yeah, good luck with that. You can’t make a cake out of lettuce and calfs’ brains. True, but you can make a cake that doesn’t require cinnamon. As others have said in this thread, some romance fiction has successfully broken away from the mold of tall-rich-handsome by featuring male leads who are not-tall, not-rich, or not-handsome. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/25 "2016-01-04T20:02:35Z")
Make sure to use the word “penis” at least six times in each paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![selkie72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@selkie72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/selkie72)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/26 "2016-01-04T20:10:32Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > True, but you can make a cake that doesn’t require cinnamon. > As others have said in this thread, some romance fiction has successfully broken away from the mold of tall-rich-handsome by featuring male leads who are not-tall, not-rich, or not-handsome. Okay, but the thing is, the fact that you think the hero’s appearance or job is the most important thing about a romance novel tells me that you don’t know anything about the genre, and that’s why people are telling you to read. I’ve seen bestselling romance about a disabled grocery store clerk, for crying out loud. The sooner you break away from the notion that “all romance is the same”, the better off your story will be. ---
**Author:** ![selkie72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@selkie72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/selkie72)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/27 "2016-01-04T20:17:25Z")
Also, you asked about your contempt for women: the fact that you feel the need to walk into a proverbial gathering of women (i.e., romance readers) and stand up and go “Excuse me, you are all doing this thing wrong. I am going to write something to attempt to fix this thing that you are enjoying wrong” is… pretty contemptuous. Like, we know what we like, and we’re all just fine liking that. We don’t need you to fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/28 "2016-01-04T20:27:12Z")
**Velocity** - which subgenre are you interested in writing? If you could specify, I would be willing/able to make some recommendations of good books within that type. Starting with “Romance Fiction” doesn’t narrow it down much. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/29 "2016-01-04T20:30:00Z")
> [@selkie72](#): > > The sooner you break away from the notion that “all romance is the same”, the better off your story will be. Maybe not all the same, but I have noted certain features that seem to characterize all (so far as I know) romance genre fiction: 1. It’s the story of two people, The Lovers, and we know who The Lovers are before the end of the first chapter if not the first paragraph. All other characters are supporting cast. 1a. The love-triangle theme is never explored. Any third person interested in one of The Lovers is a plot complication, not a serious rival. 1. Despite all plot complications, The Lovers will end up together and happy, married or clearly headed that way. Ending the story any other way would be as inconceivable as ending a whodunit without revealing whodunit. 2. Both of The Lovers are sympathetic characters, which means admirable people by conventional standards. E.g., the male can be a “Bad Boy,” but only within certain limits – he can be a pirate or a highwayman or something, but he can’t be the kind of “Bad Boy” who beats his woman, cheats on his woman, avoids work, or makes himself useless with drugs. The male can be a womanizer – indeed he often is, it just shows how desirable he is and how lucky the female is to win him all to herself – but he must be a very rare kind of womanizer with a highly developed sense of chivalry, leaving in his wake no woman who can honestly say he has ever done her wrong, or lied to get her into bed. 3. The male can be highly intelligent, but his intelligence is only a tool for his work; no intellectuals, passionately interested in knowledge and ideas for their own sake, brooding and pondering over the deeper meaning of this or that, need apply. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/30 "2016-01-04T20:30:00Z")
> [@ddsun](#): > > **Velocity** - which subgenre are you interested in writing? If you could specify, I would be willing/able to make some recommendations of good books within that type. Starting with “Romance Fiction” doesn’t narrow it down much. Action/adventure, with a love story involved. So, not \*strictly \*speaking, a romance novel, but there’s bound to be lots of overlap. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/31 "2016-01-04T20:34:03Z")
Is the main focus the adventure story, and the two characters just happen to fall in love along the way? Or is the main focus the romance, and they happen to be having an adventure while they’re doing it? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/32 "2016-01-04T20:35:52Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > \*\*Is the main focus the adventure story, and the two characters just happen to fall in love along the way? \*\* > > Or is the main focus the romance, and they happen to be having an adventure while they’re doing it? It’s this. The love story is a subplot to the bigger overall plot. ---
**Author:** ![selkie72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@selkie72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/selkie72)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/33 "2016-01-04T20:36:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Maybe not all the same, but I have noted certain features that seem to characterize all (so far as I know) romance genre fiction: > > 1. It’s the story of two people, The Lovers, and we know who The Lovers are before the end of the first chapter if not the first paragraph. All other characters are supporting cast. > > 1a. The love-triangle theme is never explored. Any third person interested in one of The Lovers is a plot complication, not a serious rival. > > 1. Despite all plot complications, The Lovers will end up together and happy, married or clearly headed that way. Ending the story any other way would be as inconceivable as ending a whodunit without revealing whodunit. > > 2. Both of The Lovers are sympathetic characters, which means admirable people by conventional standards. E.g., the male can be a “Bad Boy,” but only within certain limits – he can be a pirate or a highwayman or something, but he can’t be the kind of “Bad Boy” who beats his woman, cheats on his woman, avoids work, or makes himself useless with drugs. The male can be a womanizer – indeed he often is, it just shows how desirable he is and how lucky the female is to win him all to herself – but he must be a very rare kind of womanizer with a highly developed sense of chivalry, leaving in his wake no woman who can honestly say he has ever done her wrong, or lied to get her into bed. > > 3. The male can be highly intelligent, but his intelligence is only a tool for his work; no intellectuals, passionately interested in knowledge and ideas for their own sake, brooding and pondering over the deeper meaning of this or that, need apply. Not sure what your point is here. You can literally break down all genre fiction according to its tropes. You may as well say that all fantasy is the same, all mysteries are the same, all science fiction is the same. Or maybe you think that and you have a low opinion of genre fiction in general. Whatever, I got a book to write. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/34 "2016-01-04T20:38:33Z")
> [@selkie72](#): > > Not sure what your point is here. You can literally break down all genre fiction according to its tropes. You may as well say that all fantasy is the same, all mysteries are the same, all science fiction is the same. Or maybe you think that and you have a low opinion of genre fiction in general. Whatever, I got a book to write. Well, no. All mysteries are the same in a way that all fantasy or SF is not; and so are romance novels. (And Westerns too, I suppose, though I’ve read very little in that genre.) It is simply that the nature of mystery or romance fiction imposes certain unbreakable conventions. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/35 "2016-01-04T20:41:44Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It’s this. The love story is a subplot to the bigger overall plot. I’d argue that you aren’t really writing a genre romance, then. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/36 "2016-01-04T20:44:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1a. The love-triangle theme is never explored. Any third person interested in one of The Lovers is a plot complication, not a serious rival. I recall in Stephen King’s _Misery_ that the Misery Chastain character has two lovers and the author has been stringing along the readers for several novels waiting to see who she’ll pick. Makes me wonder if King ever actually read a romance novel – that **never** happens in romance genre fiction. Sequels don’t happen either. There might be a series of novels with related characters, but each one will end with the final and happy resolution of things between The Lovers in that particular volume. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/37 "2016-01-04T20:51:59Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It’s this. The love story is a subplot to the bigger overall plot. If you aren’t planning on marketing your book as one of the Romance sub-genres, it isn’t “Romance Fiction.” Add the human element (including romance) to your “adventure” story the way you would write any novel. Knowledge of human nature & eloquence in expressing that knowledge are what you need. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/38 "2016-01-04T21:02:58Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > I’d argue that you aren’t really writing a genre romance, then. > [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > If you aren’t planning on marketing your book as one of the Romance sub-genres, it isn’t “Romance Fiction.” Probably true, yes. The romance probably has to be central and core to the novel to count as true romance fiction. However… I think there still is overlap of tropes - even in spy thrillers, for instance, James Bond is typically good-looking, has a grim sense of humor, confident, driven, a loner at times, unpredictable, has more experience in a year than many people have in a lifetime, etc. while the women are beautiful and have their own personality flaws. So I think some tropes have overlap. > [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Add the human element (including romance) to your “adventure” story the way you would write any novel. Knowledge of human nature & eloquence in expressing that knowledge are what you need. Good advice for sure, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/39 "2016-01-04T21:18:23Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Physically weak or handicapped? Handicapped in the sense of injured in prior adventures will fly. Also if the circumstances of the injur haunt him or the handicap makes him think he is unlovable. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Make sure to use the word “penis” at least six times in each paragraph. Heh. That would turn the genre on its head. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2016, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048/40 "2016-01-04T21:21:08Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > However… I think there still is overlap of tropes - even in spy thrillers, for instance, James Bond is typically good-looking, has a grim sense of humor, confident, driven, a loner at times, unpredictable, has more experience in a year than many people have in a lifetime, etc. while the women are beautiful and have their own personality flaws. So I think some tropes have overlap. Ha. We’ve just leaped from female fantasy to male. Tally ho! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-dope-ladies-i-could-use-some-romance-fiction-advice/742048.md?page=3)