The Romance Formula

[rynling]

I figured out how guilty pleasure smutty het romance works!

Before I get to the actual formula, there are three things to keep in mind.

- You have to use omniscient third-person narration, with bonus points for shifting the narrative perspective from the woman to the man whenever it amps up the sexy.

- Neither principal can have any real flaws, or at least not flaws that are treated as such. The woman is going to have to be a little on the passive femininity side, and the man is going to have to be a little on the toxic masculinity side, but that's okay because they love each other (or something, don't think about it too hard).

- Unlike most fiction, smutty romance aims to tell and not show. Characters don't demonstrate their feelings and motivations through action and dialog; rather, you need to describe how everyone is feeling at exhaustive length while the characters do everything in their power to hide their true emotions. Basically, your goal is to extend the reader's arousal by prolonging the inevitable climactic p-in-v sex scene for as long as possible.

This is what needs to happen, in a series of twenty easy-to-follow steps:

(01) Some sort of arranged marriage, either figurative or literal
(02) The woman hates the man, but she can't help being physically attracted to him
(03) The man makes a sudden move on the woman, but she resists him
(04) A larger conflict is introduced; it needs to be something simple yet dramatic
(05) The woman is left alone, and she is threatened by an outside party
(06) The man steps in to protect her and then tries to sex her up again
(07) She shuts him down even though she really wants the sexing
(08) Domestic comedy interlude that demonstrates the man is trying
(09) Introduction of a female friend who is happy to talk about the man
(10) The man is called away because of the larger conflict and tells the woman to sit still
(11) She doesn't listen, and so she is sexually assaulted
(12) The man protects the woman, and she begins to love him
(13) Sexytimes are initiated, and the woman confesses her psychological damage
(14) But now it's the man who is sexually reticent
(15) The larger conflict intervenes, and the man must leave again
(16) The woman hates herself and is comforted by her female friend
(17) The woman goes to chase after the man, who is noble, brave, etc
(18) The man is injured, and the woman must heal him with her vagina
(19) The man reveals his psychological damage, and then more sexing
(20) Remember that marriage from the beginning? It's a real thing now, congratulations

There are variations, such as the inclusion of sections that focus on the man unable to sleep and/or masturbating, but that's basically it, I think.

Comments

[auronlu]

Again and again, as a bisexual, I am baffled and vaguely horrified at what heterosexuals find erotic.

[rynling]

I'm in the exact same position! This reminds me of that article on The Toast, Things I’ve Learned About Heterosexual Female Desire From Decades Of Reading.

I am well aware that there is better written romance out there, and I have fallen in love with books like Naomi Novik's Uprooted and Emily Croy Barker's The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic, but this seems to be the formula for mainstream popularity (inasmuch as trashy romance as a genre is ever going to be "mainstream").

In terms of my own development as a writer, I'm at an awkward adolescent stage where I desperately crave validation. It's difficult and painful to write nuanced and well crafted (she said with no modesty whatsoever) stories that receive almost no attention from fandom, and honestly I'm sorely tempted to spend 2017 using this formula to generate hits and kudos.

(Edited to insert a missing copula; writing is hard.)

[auronlu]

i just came back to this comment in my inbox and did a double take because that last paragraph sounded like I'd written it.

I hear ya.

It is so, so tempting to chase a formula that draws traffic and feedback after carefully-crafted, literary writing earns zip. Once upon a time, I succumbed. I wrote on article farms akin to Buzzfeed and HowStuffWorks for several years. Thousands of comments, tens of thousands of visitors a month, likes and social accolades galore. I even earned money! But it gutted my ability to craft the type of writing I'm proud of.

Even so, I miss it.

Drat that craving for validation.

[lassarina]

....man. I haven't read het romance books specifically like this in a while but it's pretty accurate. (I found better authors and have stuck to them/their recommendations.)

[rynling]

You're right, you're right. I know you have an account on Goodreads, and I'm definitely going to track you down there. I've also been considering creating my own account to get a better sense of the market for genre literature. There used to be some excellent forums on LiveJournal, but none of them has updated since 2014 or so. The forums on Westeros.org used to be good too, but they became a little too volatile for my taste around 2013 when people started to critique HBO's Game of Thrones adaptation for being a little overt in its glorification of sexual assault.

Talking about LiveJournal and Westeros.org makes me feel like such an Internet Elder, oh man.

Anyway, if you could recommend one writer/book blog that you follow, what would it be?

[lassarina]

As a general thing, I am in love with Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. The community there is sharp as knives and they do a lot of thinking about how romance evolves and what that has meant and how characters are treated. (Also, daily sale posts. Which leads to a lot of "I don't know if I'll like this book, but for 99 cents I'll find out." Hence, my reading list.)

If you would like razor-sharp het romance with none of the gender bullshit, I cannot recommend Courtney Milan enough. Her stories are a lot about power, and how that interacts with gender, and a non-idealized view of the past, and she has characters of color, characters with mental illnesses, and a bunch more stuff that's just gorgeous. I just love her stuff and every time a new one comes out I grab it and roll around in gleeful joy.

Most of my other recommendations will be slanted toward the Regency era since that's My Thing, but I do read some contemporaries and other time periods.

[rynling]

THAT IS SUCH A GOOD BLOG.

Thank you for the Courtney Milan recommendation as well! I just bought a Kindle single titled "A Right Honorable Gentleman," and if I like what I read I'm planning on starting The Duchess War next. (^__^)

[lassarina]

ISN'T IT THOUGH. I have it in my RSS feed so that its delightful sass scrolls past my eyes on the regular.

You're welcome! I hope that you enjoy it. The Duchess War is definitely one of my favorites.