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I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that the core of my WIP (fantasy novel) is a love story in that love is the driving motivation for my characters(though it would not be considered a fantasy romance). I'm a bit worried because I don't normally go in for love stories but my characters started falling in love and doing all these crazy things because of their emotions, and so I decided to go with it. Now the question is, can I pull it off?
Love stories are some of the most powerful and common stories. The flip side, of course, is that love stories have become trite. I don't want people to groan and say, Oh puh-lease, as if!
So what makes a good love story? Would you enjoy a story that is about people finding love and following their heart? Is it believable that characters would act this way? I guess a lot of the answer to the last two questions has to do with how the story is told... but I thought I'd pick your collective minds.
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I feel the core of any decision like this is try it and see if it works. If not, you can always rewrite--painful as that may seem.
Love as a motivator doesn't seem trite to me. How many humans go through life without doing a few crazy things because of love? It's universal. Most readers can sympathize with it as a motivation.
So, I say do it. If it comes off believable and natural, you've probably got a great story. If not, you know what to do.
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I would say in general that I think love at first sight is a lot harder to portray than love the grows over time, one that you can almost see coming, that has the readers rooting for the eventual hookup, moaning at all the conflict that prevents the lovers from coming together, sharing the collective pain. It seems to me more realistic that people don't always realize that they way they are acting is because they are in love, and that sometimes people do really weird (and sometimes distasteful) things to the people they are in love with - I'm thinking teen stuff where they shun each other because they're afraid of the emotions, afraid of what others will think, etc.
I guess to me making it as real as possible within your fantasy world would be key. And then leaving out the mushy or explicit stuff. Much can be alluded to without having to become a bodice-ripper. I think when love/romantic stories go off the deep end into really physical stories or really gush mush stuff, you'd lose a bunch of readers because that's not (typically) what people come to the speculative fiction genre for.
But you know - love is one of the eternal themes. Played a big part in all of the Harry Potter books (and not always romantic love, but love for friends, love for family) and those sold pretty well, I hear.
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For me, the difference between annoying romance and effective tugging on heart-strings lies in the amount of restraint employed by the author. If your characters are motivated by love, that's fine. Don't let them expound on it, either verbally or mentally. If they happen to be oblivious to the emotions they're feeling, or even mostly oblivious (which happens) allow them to act in natural ways and allow them to realize the romantic connections at a later point in the story, and still in a restrained manner.
Once they have mutually realized their burgeoning romance, allow them to experience it fully, but again with restraint. We don't need to see every smooch or lovemaking session. KayTi was very correct on this measure.
She is also very very correct in another: "love is one of the eternal themes." There's a reason why romantic movies and books tend to be popular. It speaks to the deep core of everyones soul - the desire to love and be loved. Allowing your readers to be swept up in discovering the romance will be more effective than having characters spout trite little tidbits all of the time. Restraint! When in doubt, restraint! When you think it might be mushy, restraint! It'll pay off in the end, and it's always easier to puff up the romance if you find during editing that you've been too obtuse.
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There are romance equivelents of Rory Rocket, Space cadet, and his trusty robotic dog, Astro.
The basic premis of the romance books I have read so far have been where they want to climb into each other's bed the moment they see each other, and something keeps them apart. Their situation might keep them apart, or it could be people around them like needing permission, or a misunderstanding between them and they will not give in to clear up the misunderstanding.
One has to have a good overall story to begin with. You then have to have the good romance woven within the story. I recently re-read a science fiction romance story written by someone I knew on line. It was the same the second time... the science fiction was weak, the overall story was weak, and the romance was weak. Other than flinching at a few places where she made a writing mistake, it was a pretty good story to read once. It was an example of where it survived because there were not as many science fiction romances out in the romance field.
Still, there must be a really strong story overall. The romance should provide situations that effect the story line, like getting someone into trouble or developing complications because of the other, but the story itself must be readable, enjoyable. The romance, then must be strong and believeable. The reason they cannot get together must be believable. How they surmount their problem is also must be believable. There is usually more than one thing keeping them apart too.
This of course, if you are writing an actual romance. If, on the other hand, one wants to add a romantic line to a story, think about the audience you are aiming at and how it effects the story. Above all, make it believeable.
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I'm disinclined to believe most of the situations in romance novels: they run contrary to my experience. If anybody's eager to hop into bed with a total stranger, they're sure not doing it with me. Nor do I particularly want to.
Besides, so little romance deals with the consequences (conception, sexually-transmitted diseases) that it makes it hard for me to take them seriously. This is more of a problem with romance on television than books, but it's true of books.
*****
quote:Rory Rocket, Space cadet, and his trusty robotic dog, Astro.
quote: The flip side, of course, is that love stories have become trite. I don't want people to groan and say, Oh puh-lease, as if!
I can't disagree more. Love stories are not trite by nature. They are common, but only because romantic love is probably the most common desire that humans have. If you can tap into that core basic desire, then what you have is another form of wish fulfillment fantasy that is probably very much like what you are already writing.
Common things are not necessarily trite. When they do become trite is largely a matter of opinion...because it's when the story doesn't have any magic for the reader. The exact definition by Merian-Webster says:
quote: hackneyed or boring from much use : not fresh or original
Well, you make me fall in love with those characters and I will never be bored by a love story. So it can't be trite. Which brings me to...
quote: So what makes a good love story? Would you enjoy a story that is about people finding love and following their heart? Is it believable that characters would act this way? I guess a lot of the answer to the last two questions has to do with how the story is told... but I thought I'd pick your collective minds.
I enjoy love stories immensely and in fact, look for the love story in everything I read. My favorite stories have love stories in them, even if it's a minor subplot. It is very believable that characters act on love. It is one of the most common driving motivations in literature and in reality today. You won't find believability in generalizations -- the believability is in the details, the writing. Can you make us feel the emotions? Can you make us believe that they are in love or falling in love? Can you make us enjoy the journey?
As for how to pull it off...there are many, many ways to do this. Some of the best love stories involve conflict to create tension. The question then becomes "What is keeping them apart?" rather than "What is putting them together?" The latter may even be unanswerable in words -- it's a chemistry thing.
I've given a lot of thought to love stories over the years, since I enjoy them so much. If you give me a little more detail I may be able to give you a little more guidance, since you seem to be a little raw at this topic and a little unsure of yourself. It's a different story if, for example, the characters are together at the beginning vs. getting together during the story. Do they have a lot of interacction during the story or is the motivation that one of them is kidnapped and the other has to go find him/her? (In which case you have the challenge of playing out a romance in the characters' heads, which can very easily get trite and boring if you're not careful.)
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I just finished Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. It's a vampire story, but at the heart, it's a love story. I don't usually care for love stories, but this one was great. It kept me interested, it answered the questions I wanted answered, and the characters were real enough to keep me engaged. So there's nothing wrong with a love story. Not any more than any other stories. Dragon stories get overused, but then there are really good ones too. Same thing with ghost stories or even vampire stories. The same is true of scifi. You could say, 'oh my gosh, not another space ship story'. But no one does. It's the way you use it that makes it good or trite.
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I agree with Christine. I am one that feels bored if there is no romance in a story. I love romance. EVERY story needs to have a romantic plot or subplot, because every single person on this earth is moved by romantic love and will feel it at one point in their lives. Of course, how much romance, and how it should be described, really depends on your genre and on your target audience.
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A story where one of the main motivations is love really isn't *necessarily* considered a "love story", per se. Usually to be considered a love story, that is to end up in the love story section, the main plot has to be whether or not the two get together and that has to be the main tension. If that is simply one of the motivations, even if a main one, for other things that are done then it really isn't.
An example that comes to mind off the top of my head, (don't ask me why because I don't like the book) is Wizard's First Rule, where a huge motivation is the love between Richard and the Confessor (whose name escapes me at the moment). I have never heard it referred to as a love story, but in that entire series I think one of their main motivations is the desire to save one or the other or reach where the other is -- since I think they keep getting separated. (I mentioned not caring for the book, but that isn't because of the love factors but totally different issues with his writing and, of course, personal opinion.)
Anyway as in ANY plot situation, the trick isn't to "leave out the mushy stuff" in my opinion. It's to write your characters in a convincing way and have a convincing and emotionally believable plot. *smiles*
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I'm encouraged by the fact that no one's said they'd just chuck the book in the trash... which I guess on some level I feared. Lehollis, your advice is well taken--one never knows until one tries. The book is in fact written, but I'm trying to analyze it in the process of rewriting.
I think the pattern I'm seeing here in responses is that the love interest and process cannot be removed from either the nature of the character or the story setting. The badly done love stories are the ones that maybe appeal to a sense of higher love that is somehow removed from the nitty gritty of the characters. And yes, restraint!!
Christine, thanks for your offer of help. I've written up several scenarios, but as I was doing them, I began to feel confident that I have enough here to float the story. Though it is a love story, there's more that's driving the story forward and raising the stakes, so that ultimately the outcome of the love story is tied to the fate of the country the lovers live in. And the love is intimately tied to the characters themselves, how they think, and what they do. So maybe I should be encouraged by the fact that this love story sort of emerged organically, as a logical result of what the characters were feeling and where they were going.
Thanks for the clarity, guys! You always come through for me. I think I go through periods of panic when I think, "What the heck am I doing?" It's nice to get a reality check.
*Breathing deeply* Okay, now I can continue with my rewrite!
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited September 05, 2007).]
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If they could put a love story at the center of _Speed_, you can put one anywhere. (That movie springs to mind because my wife and I saw the end of it the other night. Sandra Bullock and What's-his-name-who-played-Neo-in-the-Matrix.) There's a great scene at the end where they might die, Sandra is handcuffed to a pole, and Neo doesn't leave her to save himself. That's a love that develops during the story -- they even joke about it at the end, that it developed during an intense period and therefore isn't reliable -- but I think it still counts.
In real life, love can be really powerful, and central, and all that stuff. Just make me believe in it when you write about it.
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I think when love/romantic stories go off the deep end into really physical stories or really gush mush stuff, you'd lose a bunch of readers because that's not (typically) what people come to the speculative fiction genre for.
