Love is different every time. I think those who claim to know what love is have had limited experience with it.
Ummm... I hate to say this but, it's romance fiction. Not a deep psychological textbook about what love is or the dynamics of relationships. If I wanted to read that there are countless psychology books available as well as self help guides for couples. Romance Novels are pulp fiction entertainment, like a movie, game, comic book, or anything else that takes up our time and gives us something fun to do. The fact that it does not "teach love" should be expected. Since when did a story need to teach anything? Do we expect a Fantasy Fiction to teach us about the real life and times in middle ages? Do we expect Sci-Fi to teach us how to interact with alien life forms? Why do we expect anything from a romance novel?
Penhobby, I hope your publisher will grant you the writing freedom to explore your ideas. If the publishing industry (in general) adheres too rigidly to formulaic stories, then creativity suffers. Imagine if your publisher allows you the opportunity to write it your way and it is a big success. The potential rewards far transcend the risks. Good luck.
One could hope I guess, but I think I will have to shop it around. And yeah, my husband is a very...very lucky man. LOL
Ok here is my deal. I guess for cheap thrills romance is good. I am not saying that all righting is teaching you something. All I say is that as a writer who you are and what you believe is put into the story. If I believe that the death penalty is resonable the tone of my writting will reflect that and vice versa. In a way you give explinations through the story as to why you believe that to be right or wrong. In that way, to me, you are teaching someone about your beliefs. Obviously it is entertainment, but the best entertainment should touch you in some way I believe. Some part of you should be left in that story. People should know you a little better from what you write. At least about what you consider to be noble and where people stand in life. So for me, not to be insulting, I could not do Romance novels. I really want a little something of value from a novel. I want to know the author put a little of themselves there and not just spit out another bag of M&Ms. At the same time I can not knock someone for making money and surviving so I guess what I should just say is, Penhobby, Good luck with the novel on love, True love. Make sure and share a piece of you with your reader in that one. ok I am done for real
Here is a piece of me TwinPanther13. It is not entertaining, but it is the truth of love and not in any general term. Love cannot be taught. It must be lived. Last May, I rushed Colin, my husband to the hospital. He was having trouble breathing. I was pretty sure he had pneumonia, but four days before, the doctor had said no he just had bronchitis. We arrived at the ER and waited and waited until Colin’s breathing was coming slower and shallower. Finally I’d had enough. I ran over to the admissions desk and started yelling. I remember shouting and begging someone, to help my husband. For the most part the woman at the desk placated me, telling me that Colin would be seen very soon, and to be patient. I grabbed this bag of Frito’s she was eating, or whatever they were, and threw them in her face. And I may have told her to get off her ass and help my husband. Understandably, she got mad and called security, but before they could arrive Colin collapsed on the waiting room floor. Suddenly everyone was thrilled to help. Once back in the ER, Colin’s heart stopped…and so did mine. There were people everywhere, giving injections and shocking his heart, and I just stood there behind this glass window, doing nothing. I didn’t know what to do. A nurse or someone, closed a curtain over the window, but I still didn’t move. I kept thinking the same thing over and over again. If he was leaving me, then I was going with him. And then I remembered our boys. And I started crying. Whether I liked it or not, I would live for our kids, so there would always be someone there to remind them of how much their dad adored them. Fortunately Colin didn’t die that day, and he received a kidney transplant the very next month. Because of that day, my husband and I created our death vows. They were promises we made to each other in the case that one of us died before the other. In short, we promised each other that we would live. Over the last eight years Colin has been hospitalized and had more surgeries than I care to reveal here. When he’s down, I joke with him and tease him out his bad mood. When I had Uterine Cancer and was recovering from surgery, he was there in the room with me, making me laugh so hard I thought the staples in my stomach were going to pop out. For eleven years we have been the best of friends. I wanted to post this very personal story, to point out that some types of love cannot be generalized, nor are my experiences of love limited in any way Cogito. So I will say it again. Romance is not dead, we just need to go deeper and farther in presenting it to the reader.
Thats what love is! People just are forgetting that bcause of the common "love story, or the story about what love is "supposed" to be. I mean look at every romance movie or book, no matter how creative the plot is the ending is always so obvious. The girl thinks she loves somone then realizes that she actually loves the other guy. She tells him, they kiss and everyone lives happily ever after. Thats supposed to be lvoe and the whole perfect ending. There is so much more to love/romance than that predictable story, but people have started to forget that. Of course this is all coming from the mouth of a 14 year old so i haven't exactly had a ton of experience with love...or any experience really.....
Actually love is like any emotion. You cannot pin it down to any one thing or any number of things. I think when writing about love you want to make sure you are writing from experience or you will end up with a complete mess or subconscious rip off of a Molly Ringwald movie. Teenage love for me was the most heartbreaking. Very powerful stuff when you're that young and Shakespeare did well to capture the essence of teenage love. The love for my wife on our wedding day was sublime pleasure and an intense sense of peace and security. The love that overcome me for her watching the birth of our children, different again. I guess what Im saying is, love is infinite in its possibilities horrid and beautiful. I think romance in whatever form, is written by those with the experience and/or empathy to document its journey tragic or otherwise.
