Creative Writing 101

Lesson 2: Genres

Which Genre? (5) Romance.

ROMANCE.

At one time "romance" was used as a term for any imaginative novel, and included genres now known as adventure, historical and science fiction. Romance was also used as a synonym for troubadour tales, dealing with courtly love. These days, the literary use of the term is confined to novels in which the main plot is concerned with a love affair.

Just as we have the straight historical and the historical romance, we have the romantic novel and the romance novel.

ROMANTIC NOVEL.

The romantic novel is typified by the novel that contains a love affair that is treated with realism. This love interest will be presented as one part of the protagonist's story. The affair may end happily or unhappily, or the romance may appear as an existing, ongoing, relationship. The protagonist may have more than one serious romantic attachment in the course of the novel.

The romantic novel is sometimes known as "women's fiction". A light hearted or acerbic version with a heroine in her twenties or early thirties is sometimes called "chick lit".

THE ROMANCE NOVEL.

The romance novel is a novel in which the love affair is by far the most important part of the plot. The hero and heroine are rarely apart for more than a handful of pages and other characters are kept on the sidelines. The end will be happy, and there will be some kind of positive commitment and resolution. This may be a marriage proposal, a wedding or simply an affirmation that this love is forever.

Most of these romances are known as "category romance", and are sold in "lines" which have their own guidelines and expectations.

Straightforward modern-day category romances come in different models.

The "long contemporary" will be at least 70,000 words.

The "short contemporary" is usually around 55,000 words.

Then there are "sweet" and "sexy" romances which shade from g-rated innocence to m-rated explicitness. There are also "medicals", romances in which either or both the hero and heroine will be involved in the medical profession.

Different lines are slanted so that readers will know by the packaging whether they can expect mystery, detection, or thriller elements with their romance.

Not only the placement of the love affair and the happiness of the ending are set in the contemporary category romance. Heroes and heroines are expected to be well-matched in age, intelligence and ability. Some lines expect the heroine to have a high-powered job. Most still require the heroine to be attractive, even if she isn't classically beautiful.

Heroes need not be classically handsome, but they are still more likely to be taller and more striking than average, just as they will be more commanding and powerful than the usual run of males.

The editors of many lines frown on manuscripts where either hero or heroine is connected with the arts, and most heroes who seem to be mechanics or farmers when heroine and reader first meet them later turn out to be something else instead (or as well).

The overbearing hero has gone out of fashion, and so has the virginal "schoolroom miss" heroine- except in a few sub genres like the regency.

All this sounds very confining for the author, but the strict guidelines have come about from surveys and buying trends. Say a company (call it Sunrise Romance) releases ten romances. Five of these feature tall dark and handsome heroes, and five have blond or brown-haired heroes. Two feature a heroine who is in the arts. One features a heroine who is ten years older than her hero. One features a hero who is exactly what he seems to be - a mechanic.

Initial sales of the first ten books may not tell Sunrise economists a great deal, but over a period the returns will come in. And statistics will almost certainly prove that the books with the tall dark handsome heroes sold better, and those with the artist heroines, older heroine and mechanic hero sold substantially fewer copies. Sunrise Romance has just proved a point.

Why do traditional scenarios sell better than those we might call "more original"?

Part of the answer lies with the familiarity factor. Subconsciously, many readers expect a hero to be tall, dark and handsome.

The other part of the answer may lie in the fact that readers who enjoy atypical romance find it so rarely that they no longer make regular purchases and maybe never look at the books at all.

'In Search of a Husband' is a long contemporary romance adventure. The romance elements develop alongside the adventure, with Rue's pleasant low-key romance with John contrasting with her much stronger feelings for Marcus. The dual heritage of this book is quite clear. Here are two descriptions of the plot. One emphasises the adventure element, the other, the romance.

ADVENTURE BLURB.

"When Rue's fiancé disappears, she and her stepson-elect head into the outback to solve the mystery. Their lives are threatened by landslide and flood, but even when they reach dry land they still have plenty of problems."

ROMANCE BLURB.

"Seeking her lost fiancé, Rue falls in love with her stepson-elect. Stranded by dangerous floods, they come to depend on one another but will their love survive a return to civilisation?"

REGENCY ROMANCE.

Regencies are romances that take place in England (often in London or Bath) during that period of the early 19th Century that the Prince of Wales spent as Regent for King George the Third.

Jane Austen is often named as an author of regencies, but for many the genre began with Georgette Heyer. The typical regency plot is a comedy of manners, often with gothic overtones.

The heroine may be young and innocent, or she may be a sedate lady in her late twenties who will consider herself "quite on the shelf". She may be a governess or a clergyman's daughter, but will almost certainly have good breeding. She may be wealthy, but that is not usual. The younger heroine will arrive in London (or Bath) to do the season and the elder to chaperon a flighty young charge.

The hero will be well-to-do, older than the heroine, handsome or distinguished-looking, and probably of high social standing. He may be a peer, or a military man. He may be proud or else rather rough in his manner- a black sheep. He may also be carelessly generous. He may be trying to avoid marriage, or he may be forced to marry in a hurry by the terms of a will.

The world of the regency novel is one of many caped driving coats, neck cloths, muslin gowns, gloves and vouchers for Almacks. The style, witty and arch, sparkling but occasionally dark, is difficult to describe, but unmistakable once you meet it. If you read a novel in which a youngish woman is desperate to be married and not to be described as "an ape-leader", or in which a man wears "buff breeches" and is "a nonesuch", then you almost certainly have a regency.

The artificiality of the world comes to mind after you finish reading the book. Were there ever really so many earls and dukes in want of wives? Did so many young ladies really emerge from the schoolroom or vicarage and meet their matches at the marriage mart?

The world of the regency is very class conscious. Although an impoverished gentlewoman or a governess may be a heroine, a farmer's daughter may not. A major or a marquis may be a hero, a curate or a blacksmith may not.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE.

Paranormal romance is romance with added supernatural elements. These elements may exist alongside the romance (as when the heroine lives in a haunted house) or may play a big role in the story (as when the hero is psychic or the couple must battle a curse or a demon). They might also lie at the core of the romance (as when hero or heroine is a ghost, a vampire or an elf). Aside from the paranormal elements, which may be dark or comical, the romance givens remain; hero and heroine spend most of the book in one another's company.

On one level 'Translations in Celadon' can be considered as paranormal romance. Rosanna and Rafe find romance with one another, and the strength of their feelings helps them survive what would otherwise be an unbearable situation. However, 'Translations' would not fit in with most paranormal lines. The characters are YA and there are many other important relationships in the story besides the main romance.

Paranormal romance can take place in the present, the past or another world. The paranormal sub genre is split into other sub genres. These include the ghost romance, the vampire romance, the futuristic and the time travel romance.

In the first two, the hero may be a ghost or a vampire, or perhaps the couple will be menaced by a ghost or vampire.

The futuristic is romance in science fiction terms, in which hero and heroine live in the future. Space travel, other worlds and scientific invention all play their parts.

Time travel romance usually concerns a heroine travelling back in time to meet the man of her dreams. Sometimes she will go back fifty years or so, but it might equally be fifty centuries.

Time travel romances have quite a few things in common with the historical romance and the non-historical. If you consider it pragmatically, most modern women would not be attracted to a man from the distant past. The different cultures, social habits, expectations and languages of the would-be lovers would stand between them. In the time travel romance the hero may initially seem rough and uncouth, but he always has finer qualities. And he offers the heroine protection, not only from his own world but from the expectations of her own.

And here we come to the comment I made earlier which linked "fantasy" with "romance". In many ways the romance novel, paranormal, historical or contemporary, is presented as fantasy. Love, instead of being a part of life, becomes life. The lover, just like a magician, has the power to make the heroine's wishes come true.

This is why cynical attempts to cash in on the romance market don't work. As an author you need to fall in love with your hero and heroine, and you have to mean it. And it certainly helps if you like the genre or sub genre just as it is, and don't have an itch to change it.

  1  2  3  4  5  6