Romance Tropes That Annoy Me...

[shadowkat]

Which means I probably should jump genres soon?

Was speaking to mother last night, bemoaning "The Bride Test" which I could not finish.

Me: I thought I was getting a novel about a Vietnamese immigrant hunting her father with an autistic man, and they fall in love. [Note to self - read the reviews on Good Reads and the snyopsis there a bit closer. Not just the smart bitches rec on the Kindle Daily Deal.] Instead it's all about why he can't say the words I love you, and thinks for some dumb reason he can't love anyone. So she feels worthless - because he can't tell her he loves her. That's 90% of the book. THAT.
Mother: Oh god, I hear you - same problem. They can't tell anyone they love them, and feel that aren't worthy because of it, despite all the great sex, they wonderful things he's done for her, etc, but no...it's about whether or not they can say the words? I just finished a historical novel that did the same exact thing - that was the main conflict.

Neither of us can relate to this trope, and it's an on-going complaint we have. I wonder if people realize how many sociopaths, sexual predators and psychos manipulate women with those words? Heck, the horror film "FRESH" - in that the serial killer manipulates his victims by telling them how much he loves them.

Abusive husbands do this all the time. As do abusive husbands. It's abusive behavior 101, you beat your wife, then tell her how much you "love" her.

I want to throw this song at every nitwit romance writer who feels the need to bore me with this damn trope: Show Me.

So here's the list:

1. They can't say "I love you" so clearly doesn't love me, all evidence to the contrary. (See above)

2. Characters arcs are furthered by rape, either lead, sometimes both. Sometimes rape by the romantic lead.

3. Child out of wedlock. They have to get married for the baby.

4. Infantilizing either protagonist. Use of the word "Baby" throughout to refer to a woman or man in the plot, who is not a baby. (Mainly contemporary romances)

5. Much much older man and wet behind the ears younger woman (works better in historicals, very annoying in contemporaries).

6. Love triangles

7. Stockholm Syndrome (mainly New Adult contemporary romance novels)

8. The women are very girly, usually wears lots of makeup, paints her nails, wears stiletto heels (even while running and during sex), and is tiny, and the men are very burly, usually with lots of tattoos, and ride motorcycles.

9. Guy saves the woman constantly (usually from her own stupidity)

10. Guy is abusive but he's fighting his own demons, and she can save him. (Also more in the contemporary romances.)

11. Big City Heroine (usually an editor, writer, fashion mag, fashion designer, chef or interior designer) comes to small town (her home town or a friends or an ex-s) falls for local rough around the edges guy.(Featured in most Hallmark films)



My apologies if you love any of those. Please don't tell me.

Comments

[mtbc]

While I don't read enough romance myself to be annoyed by some of it, I've enough exposure to enough of those tropes that I can certainly see what you mean. Socially, their prevalence definitely raises questions. Also, the question of, where one's looking for something different, how one identifies those (sounds like Good Reads can at least help). One reason I'm with my wife is that, about all kinds of things, if one of us expresses opinions like this, the other gets it right away.

Very kind of you to not include the writers who describe graphic sex without apparently ever actually having had any themselves. But, I guess that's less about the basic premise and structure, which is a deeper and more ongoing flaw. At least with the bad sex you can kind of skim and still enjoy the rest.

Now I wonder if you find yourself tempted to think how you'd write the kind of romance you wish you were reading.

I used to have a list of pet peeves about other drivers. I then found, when one of my colleagues gave me a ride somewhere, they exhibit some of them.

[shadowkat]

Well, I've already written the kind of contemporary romance - I want to read. It's 800 pages long and I'm in the process of revising and condensing it.

Regarding sex scenes - you don't have to have had sex to be able to write a good sex scene. And despite what most folks think? It's different for everyone - people experience it differently and are turned on by different things. No, what you need in order to be able to write a graphic sex scene is some understanding of anatomy. Women, for example, do not have prostrates (well not unless they are transgender women who have male anatomical parts). And the body doesn't bend in some of the weird contortions these writers think it does. I read a fanfic once that I thought - wait apparently the characters do cirque de soleli in their spare time? I mean I'd think doing a back bend during sex - would be painful, but that's just me. And no it is not possible to put two dicks in one hole, without someone getting seriously injured in the process or more than one person. (I read a book once in which the idiotic writer tried to do this, and it took me out of the story.)

That's not because they didn't have sex before - that's because they have no understanding of how anatomy works.

Not everyone has to experience everything to write about it. Ursula Le Quinn was kind of famous for explaining how it was actually quite easy to write about things she knew nothing about and do it well. It's called imagination for a reason - although I think a lot of folks have no imagination.

Good reads is not helpful. I gave up on it. Been on it since roughly 2012? Possibly before.
Most people on that site have no understanding of how to write book reviews.

[mtbc]

Aha, that rings a bell, I think you mentioned you had and I'd forgotten.

I agree, you're absolutely right: you don't have to have had sex to write sex scenes! Still, I do think that some writers make it clear that they're absolutely not writing from experience.

Sorry to hear of the lack of decent review sources. Especially, anything that isn't really big can get rather little useful coverage.

[shadowkat]

Or haven't read any sex scenes. Seriously - there are how-to books out there, complete with drawings and photographs. Not to mention videos. Or, they can't write well. There's a lot of bad writers out there who have gotten their work published.

The other difficulty is a lot of folks like to get outlandish about sex. (I read one sex scene where they are in the shower, the female is facing the front of the shower or the shower head, he's behind her, her legs are wrapped around his waist...uhm, I don't see how that is possible, although the writer (who is apparently a contortionist in her spare time, insists she did it.) Let's face it, unless you are doing it and ahem into it, by and large - most (or real) sex is pretty boring to read or watch. It's like watching wrestling, except there is ahem, people are fighting in a wrestling match.

Writing a sex scene isn't that different than writing an action sequence. You shouldn't do it unless you are pushing forward the plot or action and the characters arcs in some way. One of the reasons we get a lot of "rapes" in books, television shows, films - is because that's an easier way to push action. It's easier to write conflict in an action sequence. Writing a rape sequence is similar to writing a fight - plus it further's plot, changes the characters, has friction, is suspenseful.
(I don't write them - because I think it is lazy on the writer's part, and in most novels I've read completely unnecessary and a lazy gimmick to break up the characters, add suspense, angst, etc.)

There are ways that you can write it - and be hot, without being too explicit. The mistake many writers make in regards to sex scenes is they feel the need to get explicit and explain everything in detail. That's not erotic. That's well like reading stereo instructions. I read one male fanfic writer who liked to do that. (Male writers tend to write sex scenes like they are writing a how to manual - uhm, that's not how people have sex, and it's not how people are turned on.) Less is more for sex scenes. Often the "aftermath" of a sex scene is more interesting than the actual sex. Or the prelude to the act. But when you write it? Character first. Then plot. Then see if the sex needs to be detailed in any way - sometimes all you need to do is elude to it. The better writers tend to write shorter sex scenes.

The reason a lot of folks add BDSM to sex scenes is that it's more interesting to write. It's even more boring to write a graphic sex scene than to read one. Also, people are weird about sex in our society. They place far too much importance on it. Judge those who have too much. Judge those who have too little or none at all. Judge those who do it or enjoy it differently than they think you should. And Judge people for talking about it. Judge how they write it.

Sigh. At the end of the day - it is just sex.

[mtbc]

Very true about there being simply much bad writing out there. I am often disappointed in mainstream bookstores yet puzzled because I think there are more good writers out there than I see among what I find. Kind of like singers.

And, heh, yes, sex is very much in the eye of the beholder: especially, arousal rather changes one's perceptions! Which is perhaps not easy to write well. And, indeed, it's also a very personal thing in the sense of variability.

Your guidance about sex scenes looks actually rather good. I suppose maybe it might be well-known and it's exactly the people not reading hints about writing sex scenes who also aren't reading about sex itself.

[cjlasky7]

7. Definitely!!!

Oh God, "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down"--an all time great movie for about three quarters of the way--was practically ruined for me because of the Stockholm Syndrome cliche.

(Yeah, he's a young, incredibly hot Antonio Banderas, but he held you hostage for WEEKS!)

[shadowkat]

Ugh, I forgot that. Antonio Banderas has done one too many of those movies. He also did the film Skin, I think? Where he held someone hostage and remodeled them? I couldn't watch it.

There's a lot of New Adult books that are "Stockholm Syndrome" - it's a popular urban fantasy, contemporary romance trope. I find it - icky.

[cjlasky7]

"The Skin I Live In." Another Pedro Almodovar movie that's reaaaally on the edge about love and obsession.

But getting back to "Tie Me Up": I could almost, ALMOST buy into the Stockholm Syndrome plotline. But at the end, the heroine's sister--who's been insane with worry the whole movie--just accepts crazy Antonio Banderas into the family! He's going to kill your sister eventually, you idiot! CALL THE COPS!

[shadowkat]

I can't even remember that movie. All I remember from it - was Wales raving about it and Antonio Banderas, who'd I never heard of. That movie came out in the early 90s or 80s? I don't remember much from it at all. Wasn't it BDSM?

The Skin I Live In - jesuswasabatman aka london did a review of, and that was enough to scare me off of it.

Pedro Almodovar is...welll, hit or miss for me. I think I only liked one of his films. All About My Mother - I think that was the one I liked. Can't remember. The other problem with Almodovar is I can't remember his movies after seeing them. I've seen a lot of them, but I've no memory of them at all.