So Valentine’s Day has just passed us by and, once again, we get to dump that red, pink, white heart-shaped trash in a recycling bin where it belongs. (shout out to the environment right there) But even though I personally hate Valentine’s Day it did bring up an important part of writing; the love story, the romance, and the sickeningly inevitable happy ending.
Your typical love story is not like a fantasy or thriller novel in that it will have lots of clever explanations, unpredictable storylines, or even any characters with more depth than a House of Commons MP. In fact the formula is so basic that it can be written down and that same formula will still resemble the large majority of love stories.
The formula for your typical love story is one male and one female. At first they probably won’t look like they are going to get together, but then some momentous event will occur where they will start talking to each other more intimately. We will then reach a fork in the road where they will either make sweet, sticky, love whilst the person the individual is currently in a relationship with stands by, or they will just share a romantic moment in a dangerous situation. Wooptifrickindoo!
Of course, the characters and the situations will change, which is why this formula has endured for generations. But why is it still so popular? Don’t people who read this stuff get bored of it?
The answer is of course they don’t because just look at Mills & Boon, for example. They have been in the business of romance novels since 1908 and they currently hold the largest share of the adult fiction novel pie (mmmmmm…pie). Their critics condemn them for their rehashed plots, the inevitable happy endings, and the predictable storylines, but yet it still endures.
And the reason that it’s still so popular is that many people still believe in a very traditional idea of love. If we go back to my formula of a romance novel then we can make at least ten novels out of that exact formula by just changing the setting. Carry out that formula in a medical environment, an office environment, an industrial environment, between two people at a bar, it will all work.
Essentially most romance novels are incredibly trashy, and this is mainly because most romance publishers demand that their writers adhere to a strict format in their work. So we have established that most romance novels are trashy, but what isn’t trashy?
What are not trashy are things with a creative edge to them. The creative edge will most often be seen in sci-fi, fantasy, and thrillers. But none of these categories even come close to eclipsing the domination of the aforementioned trashy romance novels.
So what’s the lesson in all this? The lesson is that in your writing, sometimes it’s wise to follow the crowd as that’s what people want to see. However you do have to decide whether the piece of writing you are working on is for the eyes of others. If you are just writing for yourself then do what you like, but if you are writing for a crowd then it’s more about them than it is about you. So sometimes, trash does work.
Write on and write proud! (and go read some trashy romance novels too)
