Home Long Enough to Catch My Breath

[dr_pretentious]

Back from a lovely weekend in the Adirondacks with some of my old college friends. It rained pretty much constantly, but we'd come for the company more than the sights, and so had a fine time anyway.

As predicted, I had no internet access up there, so if anything big happened to you while I was out of the loop, please let me know in comments.

On the long drive up, I realized that the plot of the short story I'm working on now is a farce from Jane's point of view, but if I told it from Sophie's point of view, it would be a straight-up love story with just enough obstacles to ennoble the happy ending. If I knew a damn thing about romance novels, it might even be workable into a paranormal romance of the sort Anna Genoese likes for her line at Tor. But I'm romance-illiterate, formerly romance-allergic, so that probably wouldn't work out. I had five hours on the New York State Thruway to run the imaginary film of the story through my head both ways, and the farce entertained me more than the romance, hands-down, every time. For Jane, finding the Atlantean stranded on her beach sets off an unwelcome crisis of epistemology that can only end with an embrace of the absurd, which is just plain more interesting to me than Sophie's courtship is, even though that courtship is pretty odd. Well, it's my loss. I like writing love plots, but if the novel I just shipped out is any indication, apparently I can only write them with heavy doses of tragedy and slapstick. How much tragedy and slapstick can a paranormal romance sustain?

And so, two questions for the romance readers and writers on my friends list:
What is your single favorite romance novel of all time?
What one romance novel best displays the virtues of the genre so that even a romance-illiterate reader can detect them?

Yes, I get that those two questions may have different answers. They certainly would for me, if the genre in question were fantasy.

Anyhow, I'm home long enough to catch up on the many phone calls and emails I owe the universe. Hello, universe, expect to hear from me tomorrow. Here's hoping I won't be as thoroughly incommunicado next weekend in DC.

Comments

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Well, you missed the alien invasion and the nuclear war it set off. But don't worry: we got it all cleaned up this morning.

I'm not a romance reader, so I can't answer your questions, but have read any Charles de Lint? He writes stories with love interests being complicated by the supernatural. Mind you, they do tend to be tragic, now that I think about it. Like the time the guy's brandy-new girl friend disappears back in time.

[writersweekend.livejournal.com]

Just write it, you or your agent will find a market for it.

PS I am constantly amazed by what happens in romance novels - stuff you'd think wouldn't pass - so go for it.

I'm not calling you this week, I'll email you later.

[skyefyr.livejournal.com]

I will not admit to how many romance novels I have read in my past, while miserable in my marriages, in an attempt to escape into a world where love was such a tangable thing it could be held in your hand.

My favorite is probably Savage Thunder, by Johanna Lindsey. (She's also my favorite romance writer.)

The formula is relatively simple though.

Girl meets bad boy (usually wealthy, almost always trouble). Sometimes she is a bad girl too, but not usually. They are both, however, almost always pigheaded and determined to get their own way / make their own way in life.

They fall in love at first sight. (May or may not admit it--probably not though.)

They spend most of the book denying love, going through jealousy and doing overall insanely stupid things to piss the other one off while trying to get their attention. Sometimes another woman is thrown in, or a dark secret from the past that "can't be gotten beyond" that will keep them from ever being able to be together. Oh, and don't forget family differences (the old Romeo and Juliet syndrome). Of course, through this all there is usually a friend or two on either side either pushing them together, inciting jealousy further, or overall manipulating things for their own ends.

At some point the innocent young virgin is usually defiled. Because even though they won't admit their attraction to each other (and sometimes not even to themselves) they can't keep their hot hands off each other. Don't forget lots of kissing and groping too, where the girl always loses track of her senses and lets him go too far and is then embarassed over the situation.

About 10 pages before the end they finally come to their senses and admit they are in love and live happily ever after. Although sometimes they get married earier on in the book (family arranged marriages), but only finally admit how much they are in love with each other at the end (in most of these cases either when one of the two is in such terrible danger they are almost killed or a baby is born).

And there is the basic plot(s) of almost every trashy romance ever written.

Hope this is some help. If you need more "formulas" just ask!

[paganpilgrim.livejournal.com]

My all time favorite romance is the Outlander series by Dianna Gibaldon... Read it. Its rad. You could call it a historical romance if you like. Romance allergy is understandable for any real writer but you cant skip the genre entirely... you can skip Nora Roberts and the other pulp though... Dianna Gibaldon was once a marine biologist but then started writing pulp... but she writes well IMHO.

[paganpilgrim.livejournal.com]

Correction: Diana Gabaldon

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I read some de Lint in that other, more innocent life, back before grad school. Maybe if I had some past life regression hypnosis done, I might remember it. I think I liked it, but I don't remember why. Since I don't believe myself to have been Cleopatra or Napoleon, this strikes me as a plausible memory.

Oh, and thanks about the clean-up. Well done, everybody. I'd never have guessed!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Thank you for telling me what you like best about the formula. If you have other big favorites, yeah, I'd like to hear what they are.

One of the subplots in Volume 2 already has a structure similar to this, though the characters are considerably quirkier. Am I capable of writing a non-quirky character? Okay, before vgnwtch comes on here and exposes you to spoilers about the things that befall the one non-quirky character I ever attempted, I'll just say, really, the answser is no.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know exactly when you went to grad school, but checking out my bookshelf, it seems that most of his Newford books, which really got me into him, started coming out in the mid-90s, although some of the short stories were first published in the late 80s. The Newford books are novels and collections of short stories set in a modern, North American small city called Newford, and are about people who are having to deal with the supernatural, which is *just* out of reach for most people.