Tried & Trite: Romance Cliches Due for Retirement
It’s February and romance abounds in the air – from movies to plays, poems to music, writing romance is a staple of the writing world. There are plenty of books available on how to write true love into your narrative, whether as the core of the story or a smoldering flame carried through your characters’ journeys, but for purposes of this post I would like to focus on something equally important: how not to write romance.
There are dozens of romantic clichés, and while it’s easy to make fun of most of these, they do have their place and purpose. Today, however, we are going to focus on three of these clichés that do not work and why it’s important to avoid them like the plague in your writing.
Cliché #1: Three’s a Crowd.
Love triangles have become exceptionally popular in romance films and television media: a scenario in which one character must decide between two prospective love interests. Now, before I come off as overly biased, there are situations in which this works. The television series Moonlight (2007 – 2008) featured two men, P.I. vampire Mick St. John and Assistant D.A. Josh Lindsey, separately involved with reporter Beth Turner. For the first half of the series, though feelings begin to form between Mick and Beth, she remains faithful in her relationship with Josh. Likewise, the two men develop a gradual (albeit occasionally rocky) respect and bond over mutual care for Beth’s wellbeing. In a tragic turn of events, Josh is later murdered by a member of the MS-13 gang, leaving Beth and Mick to mourn his passing and, in the latter’s case, exact brutal revenge against the gang members. The relationship between Beth and Mick then progresses naturally, rather than devolving into an abrupt rush into each other’s arms.
Love triangles can, as I said, work when executed via a narrative with strong character development and forward progression on the plot. However, books, movies, and television tend to utilize this formula in a way that is a breeding ground for drama. Worse yet, the characters involved rarely come out looking good. In some of the worst examples, one is a colossal jerk, another is an indecisive twit, and the third (usually the character who deserves their fate the least) is tossed out in the cold.
The long and short of it is, if you are ambitious enough to try and incorporate a love triangle into your story, work with your developmental editor to keep the relationship moving forward with character development that prevents any of them from coming out looking the worse.
Quick Tip: The fantasy genre is a potentially fertile ground for this sort of relationship (as well as a realm where your imagination gets to run free and wild). Brainstorm some fun ways you could incorporate a love triangle into your fantasy tale, and check out Phillip Athans’ The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction for his views on how to use this effectively.
Cliché #2: Will They, Won’t They?
This is what I refer to as a slow burn gone wrong – the guessing game for the end game, if you will. You tend to see this cliché in books or television series with multiple installments, a pattern in which writers will keep readers guessing as to whether a couple will end up together. I want to quickly point out the main difference between this trope and a slow burn romance: a slow burn between characters heavily indicates, from the beginning, that they will end up together and the narrative develops their relationship over time, rather than “love at first sight.” The “will they, won’t they?” trope, on the other hand, is rife with unnecessary drama: the two leads will become involved with each other, then with other people, then with each other again, then trust between them is broken through some unexpected event…you get the idea. By the time their dilemmas are finally resolved, the audience has lost interest.
The best piece of humble advice I can offer is this: remember that your readers are allowed to know which characters are meant to end up together. A slow burn allows the reader to experience the relationship develop with the characters, through the ups and downs which all relationships will encounter. Working with your editor can help keep the drama purposeful, the progression consistently moving forward, and the ending satisfying both for your characters and (most importantly) for the readers who have traveled along this journey with you.
Quick Tip: While extremely easy to make fun of (thank you, Disney), love at first sight has absolute potential to be given a fresh look. Show your readers what the relationship looks like after the three-day romance and take them, via your characters, along the journey of how you keep happily ever after an accurate statement in the characters’ lives.
Cliché #3: Stockholm is Sexy.
By far the absolute worst of the trending romance clichés – the romanticizing of harmful, toxic, and unhealthy relationships. The Twilight series and its fanfiction spawn Fifty Shades of Grey are infamous for popularizing this awful trope, but even television channels like the CW are guilty of the offense. At best, this cliché is simply riddled with red flags. Gaslighting, monopolizing a person’s time to isolate them away from their support system, verbal abuse…the list goes on and can be found in the most generic Google search of “Emotional Abuse.” At its absolute worst, the relationship downslides into outright abuse. Either way, it can get real ugly, real fast.
A closely related issue that often overlaps with this is the “I can change him/her” trainwreck relationship. Generally speaking, these are rarely handled with any degree of realism, mainly because to depict the outcome realistically either ends in tragedy or leaves the audience feeling as broken and hollow as a character’s once-optimistic intentions for their love interest.
One final point to make on this trope: it is not limited to one type of relationship (e.g., male/female) and it is never limited to one gender being the abuser and another the victim. Men are just as capable of becoming the victim at the hands of emotionally manipulative, verbally abusive women. Your story can start with a male character who falls in love with a woman, and even when her overwhelming host of emotional issues come out to play in the relationship, he forges onward with the belief that she just needs to feel “true love and kindness” from him, only to find himself broken and ravaged. A relationship depicting two women and two men is equally prone to this tragic play of events. There really are no limits.
Quick Tip: If you are interested in tackling this subject, collaborate with your editor in the developmental stage and do extensive research into abusive relationships. Not exactly light reading, but you should be able to find a plethora of material in your local library. You may also want to interview editors who have specific familiarity with this topic.
Final Thoughts:
Romance is often an inherent part of a story’s narrative. Whether you subscribe to the fairytale classic of love at first sight or the slow burn relationship, bringing two characters together for their unique brand of “happily ever after” can be a source of great joy and fulfillment for an author. Just keep these tropes in mind as those you will want to avoid, both for your own sanity and that of your reader. And if you ever begin to worry that you might be venturing into dangerous waters, a strong working relationship with your editor can help bring your story back on track.
Suggested Reading:
“On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel that Sells” (Leigh Michaels)
