On Romance
My husband and I have been recently discussing the differences of male and female romance. He was listening to a song by Beast in Black, Broken Survivor, and held it up as a paragon of male romance. After listening to it and contemplating the lyrics, I couldn’t see what was so romantic about it, but I also am not a fan of over dramatized forbidden love stories. When it comes to over the top romances, I much prefer ‘enemies to lovers’ or ‘marriages of convenience’ stories. I do like ‘taboo’ love stories, but only when they’re grounded in realism. No Romeo and Juliet for me. He insisted this was possibly more of a male fantasy, but then over the course of our discussion I realized this was just his toxic love story trope.
I think we all have a secret fetish for toxic romance. These are what make up the bulk of female driven rom-coms and are so prevalent, they have titles now like ‘enemies to lovers.’ But men too have their desires, the ‘femme fatale’ and the ‘fight for your love.’ I think what needs to be stressed though, is these are ultimately toxic. Oh sure, they’re intoxicating, and one drink will not kill you after all, but too much and you’re going to be poisoned. I think it’s starting to become a problem that it seems like almost all relationships we see in literature fall under these toxic categories. Even in serious books, we don’t see healthy, grounded relationships. It seems like every writer today is tempted into these enticing, toxic versions of love that we, the audience, are just getting drunk and having horrific hangovers. I don’t think this leads people to want to read more outside of addicts (which is it’s own set of problems).
Over the last ten years I’ve been trying to hone in on my voice as a writer and the one thing I’ve hit upon is that I always want to put romance in my books. I love romance, I love the warm fuzzy feelings of watching characters (and people!) fall in love, face tribulations, and come out the other end stronger. But I like it best when it’s healthy. So my mantra when writing romance is to keep it healthy and grounded. No toxic fetishes, just good old fashioned love. I know when writing I always feel so good when my characters come together in ways that I never do when reading romance novels, you know the ones. And frankly, it’s way more tantalizing then any description of sex has ever been. I hope you agree.