Reading: Romance Tropes and Narrative

[sartorias]

I want to throw a few thoughts out and see if anyone agrees, or this is just my idiosyncratic tastes. But first, though I want to jot down some ideas about narrative devices, with a riff on why romance novel tropes don't work for me in the following instances, I'm stating up front here that I would so rather avoid sneers and slams at romance.

Comments

[longlegs21]

I like my romances mixed with action/adventure or mystery or political intrigue or something--but, as mentioned above, the other stuff that goes on has to have real stakes. I tend to get bored and annoyed with romances where nothing but the attraction matters in the main characters' lives.

I recently bought and tried to read Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan, which was supposed to have some fantasy and political/war stuff, and was sorely disappointed. I'm not sure if the author meant to do this, but there was no even remotely believable attempt at a conflict in the story. It's nearly impossible for me to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy romances with situations that don't pose any real obstacle to the couple's getting together.

On the other hand, I enjoyed a few books by Carol Umberger because I could believe in the mix of society, personal history, politics, and personality that kept the characters emotionally apart, as well as the situations that kept them in close proximity.

Your comments on the various orders are really interesting. I don't think the orders affect my enjoyment of the story so much. IIRC, the Vaughan had a mix of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd orders (or tried to), while the Umbergers were mainly 1st, but I hated the former and liked the latter.

[sartorias]

The Vaughn did indeed try some third order, but at least to my eye, the secondary characters were so very stock, I knew what they would say, certainly how they would behave, well ahead of time. But I did read that one all the way through. The sequel I thought was staggeringly awful by comparison.

[longlegs21]

Yes! I have nowhere near your reading experience, but I could predict everything as well. Basically, I just hated everything about that book. I did have fun writing about it on my LJ, though. ;-)

I shudder to imagine how bad the sequels were.

[sausconys_books]

I hated the first book so much that I couldn't bear the thought of trying the other two books in the series. I've heard her new book- which is set in the same world- is even worse.

I seem to have huge issues with paranormal romances because I've only liked one that I've tried. And even some of the fantasy/sf/romance crossovers like the Tor Romances and some Luna books rubbed me the wrong way because of their paranormal-ness. I'd much rather read romantic SFF, not because I'm looking for the romantic plot to be secondary, but because most of the gender issues in romance make me bash books into walls and SFF handles gender in a way more suited to my philosophy.

[sartorias]

That's another aspect: despite how innovative romance bills itself, the requirements are deeply, deeply conservative.