Romance plot conventions

[oyceter]

Because I am having a very interesting conversation with Justine right now...

What are the romance tropes and conventions that drive you nuts? Why?

And which ones almost always work for you? Why?

And which ones are the ones in-between? I.e. if done well, they totally work, and if done poorly, they prompt chucking the book at a wall.

Bonus question: does Doomed Love work for you? What counts as Doomed (or, should I say, DOOMED)? What about love triangles/quadrangles/geometric shapes?

(Note: these aren't limited to romance novels, but to any narrative that involves romance-with-a-small-r.)

Also, please put spoilers in spoiler text! <span style="color:#333333;background:#333333">Spoilers go here</span>

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

okay, so I didn't save it for later.

Generally sword-proof:
*Conflicts that arise from within the characters
*Nice, ordinary heroes (think Carla Kelly)
*PTSD, Napoleonic Wars-style
*Marriages of convenience
*Virginal males (not that you see this one often)
*Banter
*Cross-class romances
*Secretly intellectual heroes/heroines
*Angstful spies, bonus if it's wartime
*Equestrians, musicians, and the well-traveled
*Comfort sex

In-between tropes:
*Virgin widows
*"It was all planned by our parents for us to fall in love! And we never knew!"
*I mostly don't like very young heroines, because I want them to have some life experience.

Things that drive me bugf*ck:
*Destined Lurve and/or reincarnation and/or Genetic Mating or scent-marking or whatever the hell weird shit means there's no WORK to the relationship
*Melodramatic suspense plots
*Instantaneous cures for lifelong angst
*Stupid misunderstandings that could be solved with one conversation
*Historicals in which all behavior is completely modern (though I can sometimes handle modern-sounding dialogue, depending on my mood and the book)
*Women who long to be Mastered by a Man, and not for occasional erotic thrills
*Men who Know What's Best for their women and don't learn better
*Long separations between hero and heroine, especially if reason is stupid

Bonus: doomed love doesn't work for me unless it turns out to be, well, not doomed. I like relationships with more than two characters (have even written some), but get bummed if the triangle turns out to be a pair and one person is left out in the cold.

[cofax7]

Your hates are my hates, although I have an occasional fondness for long separations, because I share katie_m's kink for reunions. I love a good reunion, particularly if there's either hugging or kissing or punching involved.

[oyceter]

I'm actually a sucker for long separations as well, but I think that's because I like people changing while apart and getting back again to discover what's changed and what hasn't and that uneasy space in which you're trying to find out if you're too different now, or if the added depth now makes things work.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

*Stupid misunderstandings that could be solved with one conversation

This is probably the one single trope that is the most sure-fire way to cause me to pitch the book in question into the "take to nearest bookstore and get rid of NOW!" pile.

People who can't talk to each other don't deserve to end up happily ever after.

*Women who long to be Mastered by a Man, and not for occasional erotic thrills
*Men who Know What's Best for their women and don't learn better

These two tropes are almost as bad. I'm trying to think of a book I've read in which either of these happened that I really liked (unless it was a deliberately dystopic or satiric piece) and I"m coming up empty.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Stupid misunderstandings ... one conversation: I think Georgette Heyer's The Convenient Marriage works like this. The heroine keeps one Dreadful Secret from her husband, and the consequences get more and more dreadful -- but you see why she tells the initial lie, and you see why she's trapped in it afterwards. Note that the hero repeatedly invites her to tell him the truth, but she's too frightened.

That book I love.

[oyceter]

Yes! I like it when the Big Secret is there because of psychological reasons (fear, shame) and it's acknowledged as such and dealt with as such. As opposed to "she tries to apologize for an overheard conversation and he takes everything the wrong way and decides she justifies his hatred of the entire female gender and flounces off, trailing dark clouds of Pain and Angst."

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

OK, I grant that there are always exceptions. If it's done in character, and it makes sense, and it's more than jost a plot device to crank up the angst - then I'll accept it.

But so many times it seems to happen just becasue of some convention that people in love don't actually talk to each other about themselves, or don't think that trust is a part of the thing that's growing between them, or something along those lines.

One of the reasons I love Wilde's An Ideal Husband is because he sends up this convention completely.

[oyceter]

People who can't talk to each other don't deserve to end up happily ever after.

Yes! As a converse to this, I always get really happy when people have a potential misunderstanding, and instead of storming off, they sit down and ask the other person first and trust the reply.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

OH yes!

That is such a turn-on for me in romance stories.

[oyceter]

ZOMG I hate the Knows What's Best. I particularly hate the insidious breed of book that has the heroine spunkily protesting the hero's Evil Knows What's Best Ways but never actually doing anything about it and acquiescing to it unthinkingly in the end.

I have to say, I'm a sucker for long separations, but only if it's one of those "we loved each other briefly as teenagers and then grew apart and now we're meeting again" type things or "we had an arranged marriage and we were starting to fall in love but then he was sent away on the Crusades OH NOES and I thought he was dead and then I decided to escape my life and masquerade as my cousin who looks just like me" thing.

Ok, possibly the second one is just Shana Abe's The Secret Swan. But I would totally read another one like it!

Bonus: doomed love doesn't work for me unless it turns out to be, well, not doomed.

Oh, interesting!! I can do DOOMED love only if it's really doomed, like angels and demons (ah hahah, I have such a one-track mind). Otherwise, I hate it when the protagonists think it's DOOMED when it's actually not.

YES to triangles leaving that poor one person out in the cold!

[oracne.livejournal.com]

And when the cold person in the triangle gets their own book later? And they spend pages and pages of their own book pining for the chick in the previous book? Instead of focusing on their own heroine? Not cool.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

What about long separations because the hero is kidnapped by pirates and sold into a Barbary bandit-lord's harem?

Or is that entirely too silly?

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's the hero, I guess that's okay. So long as he doesn't escape TOO soon.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

He's actually not escaping. His husband is coming to his rescue. Rope-fu through the window and all. Of course, Adlai is clutching the rope and looking absolutely petrified as he swings in and starts the rescue-duel.

(It's a complicated revenge swashbuckler.)