However, there's a right way and a wrong way to do romance. As an aspiring writer, I constantly pay attention to the methods authors use so I can figure out what to do in my own work. Some authors make relationships work for me, while others turn them into confusing contradictions or laughingstocks. You never want to make me cackle up a storm when a couple shares their first kiss, and you never want to make me roll my eyes when the couple has sex. Here are some of my pet peeves involving romance and how to improve them.
#1: Have insta-love
Insta-love is a concept that was introduced in the past couple of years in YA and New Adult novels. It describes when two people immediately fall for each other during their first meeting. Every time I see this, there's only one word that comes to mind.
For starters, part of the fun of a romance novel is to watch two people and their relationship grow from when they first become acquainted, By having them immediately falling in love when their eyes meet each others', you're taking away that enjoyment.
Also, most of the cases of insta-love these past couple of years have been absolutely disgusting. A girl describing the boy she just met as her soulmate, the love interests passionately making out on page 5, a guy reacting in his nether regions in the first sentence are all examples of terrible insta-love, the ones where the boy and the girl don't care that they've just met and are already convinced that they're perfect for each other.
I'm sorry, but I find this absolutely ridiculous. Where's the build-up? I want people to gradually become lovers, not immediately become so attached that they walk into the bedroom the first chance they get.
It doesn't completely annoy me when characters first meet and one of them thinks, "Wow, that person's attractive." What does bug me is when people act on those desires right away, already having a gut feeling that this guy/girl will be the one *attempts to flail hands around to create sparkles*. Seriously, get to know this person first, and stop thinking they'll agree to your plans!
The best thing you can do with a romance is to develop it. By throwing a couple together within the first chapter, it's only making the relationship more frustrating for the reader. It might be annoying to read a girl pining over a guy, but it's even more annoying when they're together by the first page.
I'm sorry, but I find this absolutely ridiculous. Where's the build-up? I want people to gradually become lovers, not immediately become so attached that they walk into the bedroom the first chance they get.
It doesn't completely annoy me when characters first meet and one of them thinks, "Wow, that person's attractive." What does bug me is when people act on those desires right away, already having a gut feeling that this guy/girl will be the one *attempts to flail hands around to create sparkles*. Seriously, get to know this person first, and stop thinking they'll agree to your plans!
The best thing you can do with a romance is to develop it. By throwing a couple together within the first chapter, it's only making the relationship more frustrating for the reader. It might be annoying to read a girl pining over a guy, but it's even more annoying when they're together by the first page.
#2: Have a love triangle
Love triangles aren't always terrible, but they are incredibly overused and almost always contrived for the sake of the plot. The reader usually knows which love interest the protagonist ends up with: the dark-haired/mysterious bad boy/first significant boy mentioned.
Doomed, The Dark Elements trilogy, the A Beautiful Dark trilogy, and the Halo trilogy follow this formula, and it completely lacks originality. Sometimes, the love triangle really isn't necessary, as authors will willingly make one of the love interests evil or have one of them die just so the girl ends up with the predictable guy. It gets incredibly frustrating, and because of this, I have sometimes turned away from books.
Like I said before, love triangles aren't always awful. The Shatter Me trilogy was a great example of a love triangle done right, with development of both male love interests alongside the growth of the main character. However, other love triangles suffer from no change whatsoever, and the characters are still the weak and unbearable people you met on page one.
Another annoying part of love triangles is when the main love interest goes away and the girl spends time with the other guy (most of the time in the second book of a series), but she can't stop thinking about Love Interest #1. Love Interest #2 may not be all that bad, but by the end, the girl ends up running back to Love Interest #1 and saying it was him all along. Cue the eye rolls!
This aspect is absolutely pointless, especially because in most of these situations, I know that the main protagonist is going to fly back into the arms of the guy she connected with first. Because of this, love triangles seem like just an excuse for authors to push more romance into the book, and they never end up benefiting the plot.
#3: Have a main character who's wishy-washy
*sighs heavily* Don't you just love it when a main protagonist bounces from love interest to love interest, doesn't view herself as special even though she clearly is (it's probably some special ability or power), and criticizes other girls for how they dress and behave? I sure don't (if you couldn't tell, that last sentence was sarcasm). Here's what I would like to do to all those people (in my head, probably not actually):
I'm not normally a hostile person, but if I met one of these girls in real life, things would get ugly really fast. I've seen them in books like Halo, After, one line from Confess (that didn't stop me from loving the book), and probably others in all those books full of girls fighting against mean girls (for some reason, Lisi Harrison and Cecily von Ziegesar pop into mind, even though I haven't read all of their books).
It really annoys me as a reader to be faced with paragraphs about a girl going on and on about how she's such an angel, and that all the other girls in her school are a bunch of skimpily dressed derogatory terms. In Halo, the main character (who's actually an angel) has a (human) friend who behaves like all the inappropriate girls. Whenever they go out and do things together, the protagonist always says that she is a better person than her friend (because her friend flirts with boys, doesn't understand the activities of community service because she doesn't go to church, and a bunch of other ridiculous excuses). By the end of the book, however, the angel finds herself wanting to save her friend so she doesn't get caught up in some demon's clutches. She then goes on to say how much the friendship has meant to her, so she needs to save it.
It really annoys me as a reader to be faced with paragraphs about a girl going on and on about how she's such an angel, and that all the other girls in her school are a bunch of skimpily dressed derogatory terms. In Halo, the main character (who's actually an angel) has a (human) friend who behaves like all the inappropriate girls. Whenever they go out and do things together, the protagonist always says that she is a better person than her friend (because her friend flirts with boys, doesn't understand the activities of community service because she doesn't go to church, and a bunch of other ridiculous excuses). By the end of the book, however, the angel finds herself wanting to save her friend so she doesn't get caught up in some demon's clutches. She then goes on to say how much the friendship has meant to her, so she needs to save it.
I'm going to repeat what I said in the love triangle section: what a bunch of bull. It's absolutely unbelievable. So what this girl wants to do is save her friend, who she's referred to as shallow, vapid, and unworthy of being on her level, but she still values their friendship because she thinks it means something? That just takes the cake for the most annoying type of heroine ever, who's completely perfect when she does everything and ends up getting the hot guy again (heck, even two hot guys).
#4: Have a jerkhole love interest
Don't we just love those men who stalk their lovers, make threats, watch them sleep, force them to eat what they ordered, are possessive, and are basically attractive due to just their looks? Isn't it awesome when they end up/are still with the girl by the end?
This is not attractive. This is scary. If I got bad vibes from a potential lover (maybe they follow me around, threaten to hurt me or abandon me, or get a little too frisky when it's time to turn the lights off), I would run the heck away. Reading these kinds of things makes me very uncomfortable (some people find it hot, which boggles my mind), as these men practically act like alpha males to show that they're in charge, their partner's opinion is insignificant compared to theirs, and that they'll always be more powerful in the relationship. It's simply unattractive. To all of you who want to put a character like that in your book but follow the examples of Maya Banks, E.L. James, and various other authors, I'll respond with:
#5: Fill making love with dirty lingo
Yes, I do realize this argument can be foiled. I understand why crude sentences can be used in the bedroom and in other sexual places, because that's the time and the place for them. But I've heard so many explicit phrases when reading the most tender (or not so tender) scenes, so instead of making me have all the feels,
they make me do this.
During a sex scene, I want to feel super happy for the main couple to have reached this stage, and I want to cheer them on and have them share sweet lines. It's kind of distracting to read all of the vulgar terminology (and yes, I'm not saying all of that stuff because I don't want to get kicked off Blogger).
And yes, some of it I'm okay with if it's in the right place, but some lines feel tacked on to create added sex appeal, which isn't completely necessary. Does a guy really have to describe a girl's {you fill in the blank} as "perfect and pink"? Does a girl have to describe a guy's {you fill in the blank} as "big, long, and/or thick" (I'm pretty sure they're not all like that!)? Will I have to read more words like "tight," "milked," "velvet-encased steel," and "sheath" in those kinds of scenes?
I haven't read all of the books these passages have come from (I may have peeked to look at some things at Walmart because I'm curious, but I won't be reading those), but I'm probably going to have to face more of this. Not all of romance books are terrible because of this (and heck, I've written this kind of stuff before). If I can survive a vulgar scene, so can you!
#6: Have (a) dark-haired love interest/s
This is just a personal pet peeve than an actual problem, but I've read way too many books with the main girl crushing over one or two males with dark hair (brown or black, usually). 95% of young adult fiction romance (I reckon) is filled with romance books with guys who have dark brown or black hair, and it feels so overdone that I would rather see the boys in blonde, red, or even a lighter brown if possible.
I don't know if anyone else has a problem with this, but not all love interests have to have dark hair. It seems overrated and annoying, even though I know that hair color doesn't really affect a character that much. It wouldn't hurt to have a little more diversity with the color scheme of the human cuticles (and ethnic diversity wouldn't hurt either), so don't make all of your guys shades of brown and black in terms of hair color (I would also to see Hispanic, African American, and other races in books).
And now, for the last item on this list, it's time for probably the most annoying part of any book with romance in it. Are you ready?
#7: Have the romance take over the plot
One of my biggest pet peeves in a novel with romance is when it becomes the center of the story. If there's an alien threatening to invade Earth, the girl's moping about why the guy's not with her. If there's a technological shutdown worldwide, and terrorists are threatening to take over the world, the girl's trying to repair her connections with her crushes. Wait, what? I have to fight against someone? I'm too busy right now! I'm having sex with my boyfriend!
This always makes me really upset, especially when I'm reading the story, go back to the blurb, and see that the plot was the only thing that was being advertised (or the romance is referenced briefly). If there's really interesting elements to a story, but they get thrown away for the sake of the romance, I won't be happy. Like I said with the more inappropriate language in sexual scenes, there's a time and a place to put romance into a book. When romance overshadows the plot, the author misses the opportunity to develop their world.
Of course, romance books are solely focused on romance. I know that. But if I pick up a dystopian novel that promises to focus more on the corrupt government and fails because of the mushy love scenes between couples, I'm not happy. Instead, I'd let out my anger through throwing it back into the library return slot.
And there you have it! Those are all my pet peeves about romance novels. Do you agree with my list? Would you add anything else or remove anything?
Until next time *waves goodbye*!
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