The Trouble with Romance

I struggle with formulaic Romances because they focus on the falling in love part. Falling in love or lust is easy. The endorphins kick in and distort thinking and mask the storms that await. Desire is a feral beast that operates on need regardless of the consequence.

Fairly tales and romance novels have programmed princesses to expect princes on white horses who will sweep them off of their feet and be everything they need and want them to be. They expect to live in a castle and be eternally adored. Princes expect princesses to be beautiful, kind, smart, and never annoying or boring.

Romances stop film at the exact moment where couples are blissfully happy because disappointment and pain are right around the corner. The truth is, the ride after the sunset is hard, rough, and smelly. The couple falls off, has to get back up, dust off their butt, and start over. Castle are drafty and cold and too immense to be a home. Princes live in them so they can hide for days on end.

Neither princes nor princesses are what they are cracked up to be. Princes and Princesses should be stopped at the border, questioned thoroughly, and strip-searched until the bare bones until their souls lay open for inspection, for they can quickly turn into antagonists.

Princes piss on toilet seats, belch at the table, and fart in bed. They are rough with fragile things, like feelings. They make mistakes but cannot admit to them. They cannot find anything as simple as the mustard. They become little boys in the face of tears. They are completely lost in a grocery store and refuse to ask for help and come home with everything but what the princess asked for then pretend it was intentional because they did not like her menu for the week. 

Princesses can be whiny and expect the prince to read her mind. They talk too much and ask for opinions they don’t want to hear. They have more needs and wants and thoughts than any one prince can tolerate. They are easily hurt and often passively resentful of sins the prince didn’t even know he committed. They are moody and hormonal and project emotional battles from the past into the present with no hope of a resolution. They are hard to please and can’t always express what they mean.

Romances don’t address the hard part where the prince and princess have to acknowledge their faults and learn to communicate and compromise. These things are too real. They do not make good copy. So we are fed over and over again the first part of the story. 

Literary love stories are more realistic. They explore how relationships are built, broken, and repaired. They analyze and dissect the human foibles that work against a peaceful resolution. They make us cheer when the prince and princess overcome great obstacles to work together as a cohesive team having realized their mistakes.

I prefer literary love stories because they teach us how to handle life after the sun sets instead of promising us rainbows. The world could use more literary love stories.

Casting Mayberry

When I was a child, I loved watching the Andy Griffith show. It was a sweet situation comedy about a small town sheriff keeping the peace in rural North Carolina. The setting was bucolic. The cast was full of benign well-meaning people occasionally beset by antagonists passing through or creating problems for each other.

Let’s take a look at the functions of the different characters. 

The protagonist was the widowed Sheriff Andy Taylor. He had a shrewd mind hidden behind a good-old-boy smile. That was his secret weapon. The antagonists always underestimated him. His role was that of caretaker to a town full of people too innocent to protect themselves. His weakness was that he was too nice, bordering on enabling.

This was apparent when dealing with his sidekick, Barney Fife. Bumbling Barney meant well, but was often more of a hindrance than a help. He occasionally redeemed himself by luck rather than skill.

Andy’s Aunt Bee acted as the sweet voice of reason, but she occasionally got it wrong and this offered mild interpersonal conflict.

Otis, the town drunk, was usually a hindrance or complication to solving the story problem.

Floyd, the Barber, was the town gossip with feathers for brains. His tidbits of information sometimes helped and sometimes hindered.

Opie was Andy’s son and often posed important thematic questions. He occasionally got into trouble.

Goober and Gomer Pyle were goofy gas station attendants who innocently interfered. Their station was the portal to the town.

Andy was occasionally given a love interest who offered interpersonal conflict based on the occasional jealous pang or misunderstanding.

The antagonists were a series of moonshiners and petty criminals passing through. Once in a while they dealt with a real criminal (bank robber).

The characters not only offered local color, they were the source of interpersonal conflict. They aided or impeded and sometimes brought trouble to their door.

Andy’s genuine love for them kept him motivated to save them from their own folly and the bad guys who passed through.

There were no special effects, no guns blazing, no brutal murders. Sheriff Taylor was a loving but firm disciplinarian with Opie (and the rest of the town). Mayberry was a sweet place to pass a summer’s evening full of genuine love and kindness.

I doubt storytelling will ever return to that level of innocence, but the world could use a little country comfort these days. 

The Hot Tub in the Fast Lane

When my daughter began driving, we had multiple conversations about driving defensively, being aware of what is happening around you, and looking ahead to see not only what the cars in front of you but the cars in front of them are up to. She brushed me off with, “Mom, I know!” in that infuriating teenage whine that means, “I’m not listening so shut up.”

One day we were in a fast lane on a highway with my cruise control set at (unspecified) speed. There was a car in front of me and a truck in front of it. The car in front of me switched lanes to the right and the truck hit his brakes. I cut off the cruise control and said a few impolite things. Then the truck moved over to the right and I saw a hot tub blocking the fast lane.

I tapped my brakes, threw the car into Low 2, and coasted into the grass to my left. When I was certain my heart had actually not stopped, I slowly climbed back onto the highway. “This,” I said as I shook, “is why I keep lecturing you. You never know what life is going to throw at you.” Girl child was suitably subdued.

The inciting incident in your story is the hot tub in the fast lane. It is an obstacle that your character isn't expecting to encounter. It requires that he make quick decisions or take instinctive action. There is no time to think or plan or consider and no way to back out. 

The inciting incident doesn’t have to be a murder or aliens descending. It can be a quieter dilemma in a Literary story. He could find out his spouse cheated or his boss is corrupt.

You have to build a protagonist capable of reacting to this obstacle in a way that ensures his survival when others would have smashed against the hot tub or spun off into oncoming traffic.

The special talent is the strength of character, special skill, or weapon that you give him so he can solve the overall story problem when lesser characters would have been killed on impact.

He could be the only one looking two cars ahead. He could be the only one with reflexes quick enough to avert disaster. He may have a special button that turns his car into an airplane. He may have the only magic wand that can make the hot tub disappear.

You don't want to structure a story around a situation that your character could easily walk away from or allow someone else to deal with it. Presenting him with a compelling hot tub moment makes that impossible. Make sure you explain why your protagonist and only your protagonist can solve the problem you create for him and, when the climactic moment comes, the resolution will be believable.

Ch-Ch-Ch Changes

One cannot truly change other people. They have to want to change and be willing to take the appropriate steps and endure the excruciating growing pains all by themselves. Nothing annoys me more than the trope that you can love people into being emotionally healthy. You can love them while they become emotionally healthy, but that isn't the same thing.

That said, when one character changes — as your protagonist should — it naturally has an impact on the characters around him. He does not exist in a vacuum. Those closest to him react to this change either positively or negatively. 

Let’s give Dick a nagging mother. When Dick’s point of change occurs and he finally stands up to her, she may not have a similar epiphany. She may continue to nag as he walks off. However, over time she will shut up or find another audience. People only do what works. When a method stops working, they have to find new ways to achieve their payoff.

The same is true if Dick is fighting off vampires. He will have to gain the right knowledge or the right weapon. This will inspire respect in some, resentment in others. Not everyone will be happy when your hero becomes heroic. Some might try to tear him down or trip him up. That’s where foes come in. Foes don’t have to be henchmen of the antagonist. They can be people your hero once thought of as friends, or at least benign acquaintances. Even good friends might be mildly inconvenienced or outright threatened by this change.

Change creates unease. Subtle shifts in the status quo make your characters uneasy. They have to learn to navigate new terrain. Relationships can fray under the pressure.

Do not spend chapters detouring into side stories or internal journeys of secondary characters. Keep to the main thread and show small changes through dialogue and description in their interactions with the protagonist or each other.

How do your characters behave toward and talk to the characters most changed at the beginning of the story? How do they react by the end?

It can be as simple as a character sneering at the hero in an early chapter and saluting him at the end. It could be an easy camaraderie between them at the beginning and a stiffness in the end.

When you have assembled your cast and put them through their initial paces, also called the first draft, take a step back and look at how the overall story problem has impacted the secondary characters' lives. If they all remain static, you haven’t utilized all the tools in your storytelling tool kit.

The Breakup Letter

Dear Network Television:

This letter has been a long time coming. It's time to discuss the future of our relationship. It isn’t working. You no longer meet my needs or my expectations.

I fell in love with you the moment we met. You swept me off  of my feet. You were dazzling and thrilling. Our time together was filled with singing, dancing, laughter, and sharing stories from the heart.  For years you were everything I needed you to be and more. I couldn’t wait to come home to you at the end of the day. I lived for those weekends curled up in bed together.

As the years passed, I felt us drifting apart but turned a blind eye to your indiscretions. We spent less time laughing and too much time with your band of highly dysfunctional friends. I don’t want those narcissistic, hateful people in my home anymore.

I always knew you were friends with that whore in advertising. It took me a while to realize the extent of your relationship. You don’t even bother to hide your affair anymore. You spend more time with her than me. I’m tired of you conspiring together and laughing at what a gullible fool I am behind my back.

I want a simpler, less stressful relationship and friends that uplift rather than tear down.

No, don’t tell me you’ll change. I don’t want to hear your lies and "sorry" won’t cut it. You need help, more help than Dr. Phil can offer. It would take a complete overhaul to fix what is broken and I don't believe you want to. You rely on these sick people to make you feel better about yourself. You rely on your mistress for money.

I just can’t do this anymore. I shouldn't have to. I deserve better.

Sincerely,

Your Once Devoted Viewer

Opening and Closing Lines

Opening lines are difficult to craft well. That’s why they should usually be left until the revision layers. Why, you ask? Because you could spend a year of Sundays trying to craft the perfect sentence instead of writing the rest of the manuscript.

Opening sentences are crucial in Chapter One. They give your reader a taste of what is to come. They are worthwhile in the rest of your chapters if you are willing to invest the time. A good opening sentence raises a question or poses a challenge the reader can’t walk away from.

Closing sentences are equally important. They are what keep your readers turning the page to read one more chapter, then another and another until they reach the end. The final chapter’s final line should stick with your reader, offering them one last finger lick of deliciousness to polish off the fiction plate. 

Let’s take a look at a few examples from books on my To Be Read pile. Which would you read first?

The Devil’s Bones, Larry D. Sweazy 

Opening Line: Tito Cordova sat on the porch steps, staring at the barren tomato field and empty migrant shacks across the road. Everyone had left for Florida, or Mexico, to spend the winter. He hugged his knees to his chest, trying to keep warm.

Closing line: Welcome home, Tito. Welcome home.

We start with Tito; we end with Tito. The story comes full circle.

Never Tell, Alafair Burke 

Opening Line: It has been twenty years, but at three-fourteen this morning I screamed in my sleep. I probably would not have known I had screamed were it not for the nudge from my husband — my patient, sleep-starved husband, who suspects but can never really know the reasons for his wife’s night terrors, because his wife has never truly explained them.

Closing Line: George had said not all questions needed to be answered, but maybe some questions didn’t need to be asked. Maybe she was still getting to know herself after all.

We begin with an unanswered question and end with the thematic statement that not all questions should be asked.

Dark Places, Gillian Flynn 

Opening Line: I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it.

Closing Line: I didn’t want to meet him, and I didn’t want to introduce myself. I just wanted to be some woman, heading back home to Over There That Way.

We begin with a ghoulish description. The ending sentence probably makes sense once you've read the book. It would have worked better for me if it had also been suitably ghoulish. However, both lines are in the main character's unique voice.

The Sounds of Broken Glass, Deborah Crombie 

Opening Line: He sat on the steps of the house in Woodland Road, counting the bank notes he’d stored in the biscuit tin, all that was left of his mum’s wages. Frowning, he counted again. Ten pounds short. Oh, bloody hell. She’d found the new stash and pilfered it again.

Closing Line: He felt as if he were sleepwalking. Slowly he picked up the envelope, lifted the unsealed flap, and eased out a single sheet of paper. It was a letter of transfer. And his chief superintendent had signed it.

This book begins with backstory and ends with a line offering a view into the main character's future. The last line works better for me than the first, though the first line hints at a problem.

The Other Woman, Hank Phillippi Ryan 

Opening Line: “Get that light out of my face! And get behind the tape. All of you. Now." Detective Jake Brogan pointed his own flashlight at the pack of reporters, its cold glow highlighting one news-greedy face after another in the October darkness.

Closing Line: Jane smiled as she picked up her tote bag. I have a story to cover. “They obviously made a mistake.” 

The opening and closing lines are uttered by different characters but reference the eagerness of reporters.

Read through your completed manuscript. Write down the first and last lines of each chapter. Are they intriguing? Can you make them stronger?

Top 5 Things That Bore Me

As I watched yet another body count trend upward in a recent movie, it inspired me to list the top five things that bore me as a viewer/reader. These clichéd and overused tropes are supposed to wow, but leave me snoring. This list applies to fiction as well as movies.

1) Gratuitous sex scenes, aka sex with a stranger.

It’s stupid. Why should I care? The encounter between two people who truly long for each other, who have been kept apart then finally come together, is far more intriguing. Couples who have a history that reunite or make up are more interesting than random rutters.

2) Random violence.

Killing one character I've grown invested in is more compelling than blasting away with an automatic weapon downing characters I don’t know or care about. It's a fact of human nature that genocide in a distant land doesn't register until the battle is brought to a person's front door. The closer the character who dies is to the protagonist, the higher the story stakes. As much as I love cozy mysteries, there's almost a disconnect when it comes to the victims. The best cozy mystery makes me care that the victim died.

3) Gore.

It’s a turn off. As much as I appreciate special effects makeup artists, they can use their talents to make cooler effects that don’t involve rolling heads or spurting arteries. In books, I really don’t need paragraphs of gruesome details. I scan past them. Same with torture and battle scenes. They make me cringe. I'm a grown-up. I have experienced loss and pain. I get the drift. The reality that people are bestial and kill each other is disgusting and horrifying enough. We never followed Anne Frank to the concentration camp, but the reality of the horror of that story scarred me for life. Why? Because I grew to know and like her and that made what she went through personal rather than abstract. If you want to impress upon your readers true horror, make it personal.

4) Drawn out panoramic shots.

Whether it’s a prolonged movie clip or endless paragraphs describing the setting in excessive detail, I have a tendency to fast forward or skim read past them. Take a picture; it lasts longer. Have you ever sat through an endless slideshow of someone else's vacation? Make description short and make it count, then move on to the point of the scene. It's even better if the setting has an impact on the scene.

5) Adults or teens that behave like out of control toddlers.

Book or movie, I have no patience with these characters. I wouldn't hang out with them in person. I don't waste page time with them either. If this character is the protagonist, I put the book down and it goes on my discard pile.

What tropes inspire you to flip pages or quit reading?