NINE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF ROMANCE FICTION
Catherine LaRoche
I spend a lot of time thinking about romance fiction. My mom reads the books, and I picked up the love of the genre from her when I was a teenager. She always had a tottering pile of novels beside her bed that I’d rummage through for something to borrow. Now I write historical romances and, in my day job, I’m a college professor of gender studies and cultural studies. For the past several years, I’ve included romance fiction in my teaching while I’ve been writing an academic book entitled Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture (forthcoming in mid-2015 from Indiana University Press).
My students choose romances from a big box that I bring into class and write responses on them. We do cut-up exercises with the novels to create alternative storylines. We write a collaborative online romance with scenes ranging from suspense to spicy erotica. I’ve set up a romance lending library in my office; my eight-year old son decorated a poster for borrowers to write down comments about the novels they check out. As I draft my academic book, I workshop chapters with the students in order to get feedback.
I’d like to invite similar feedback from readers here, on some of the book’s conclusions. I propose that romance novels have nine essential elements. (I’m playing off Dr. Pamela Regis’s work in her wonderful 2003 text A Natural History of the Romance Novel.) What do you make of my list so far? Do you agree or disagree? Am I missing anything? All comments welcome!
The nine central claims made by the romance narrative:
- It is hard to be alone. We are social animals. Most people need and want love, of some kind. Amid all the possibilities for love as philia (friendship) and agape (spiritual or selfless love), the culture often holds up eros or romantic partner love as an apex of all that love can be and do.
- It is a man’s world. Women generally have less power, fewer choices, and suffer from vulnerability and double standards. They often get stuck looking after men or being overlooked by men.
- Romance is a religion of love. Romance entails belief in the power of love as a positive orienting force. Love functions as religion, as that which has ultimate meaning in people’s lives.
- Romance involves risk. Love doesn’t always work out. Desire can be a source of personal knowledge and power but also of deception and danger. Romance fiction is the safe, imaginative play space to explore the meaning and shape of this landscape.
- Romance requires hard work. Baring the true self, making oneself vulnerable to another is hard. Giving up individuality for coupledom requires sacrifice.
- Romance facilitates healing. Partner love leads to maturity. Love heals all wounds. Love conquers all.
- Romance leads to great sex, especially for women. Women in romance novels are always sexually satisfied. Romance reading can connect women to their sexuality in positive way.
- Romance makes you happy. The problematic version of this claim is that you need to be in a romantic relationship for full happiness. Here, romance fiction can be oppressive if it mandates coupledom for everyone.
- Romance levels the playing field for women. The heroine always wins. By the end, she is happy, secure, well loved, sexually satisfied, and set up for a fulfilling life. The romance story is a woman-centred fantasy about how to make this man’s world work for her.
Further information about Catherine can be found here: http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Catherine-LaRoche/407531852
and here: http://popularromanceproject.org/professors-writing-romance/
Thank you so much for the great blog, Catherine, and we look forward to reading your results.
The Romaniacs 
Reblogged this on Lizzie Lamb and commented:
A grea tblog post, better than my conference notes.
I’m so glad that the lovely Romaniacs have posted this informative post. This was one of the two most helpful seminars I attended at #RNAConf14. The other was The Chemistry of Romance. I was able to say hello to Catherine briefly over lunch on the last day, so – hello, again.
I have reblogged this post as I’m sure other romance authors will find it fascinating. Its also a lot clearer than my scribbled notes. I agree with all the points listed above. One thing I would add, although it may be included in the 9 points, discretely, is that a number of my readers say that’s its hard to tear themselves out of the world I created for my characters. That is great feedback for me as I strive to create an alternative world I would like to live in: Scottish Highlands or Norfolk Marshes etc. Thanks again. Have bookmarked this one and I’m sure I’ll return to it time after time.
[…] novels and playing cards 🙂 ) You can read the gist of Catherine’s talk here on the fabulous Romaniacs’ blog, where she welcomes comments on her […]
Hi Romaniacs, thanks for posting Catherine’s talk on your blog. I linked to your post on my own blog, where I’m talking about point number 2 – It’s a Man’s World. This point raised quite a bit of discussion. I thought it might! 🙂 Interesting seminar. Thanks for posting it, and here’s the link to mine if it’s of interest: http://helenafairfax.com/2014/07/25/a-mans-world-the-lot-of-the-heroine-in-contemporary-romance/