Young Writers Society

To tell the truth, I love romance. I love the fundamental aspect of two people who are discovering love, or fighting for love and overcoming adversaries. That's essentially the core and the basics and the thing I love about it, how you can have two character arcs, and character growth, relationship growth, and dynamics between the characters all bouncing at each other and affecting the other. That is a lot of fun.

Whether it is Mr. Darcy or Disney princess movies, or Slum dog millionaire or the Great Gatsby, I loved every single one of these stories, but I do feel a bit frustrated with the genre itself in that it's too often cheapened or structured into these repetitive tropes.

At the start of any TV show, movie, or book, you know who the Girl is and who she is going to end up with, or the Boy is, and who he is going to end up with. The solution for me is not so much that we should value twist endings, or automatically subvert for the sake of subverting, like villain gets the girl, or Best-Friend/Sidekick gets the Girl the way you see in HP and then author recants some 5 or 6 years later P:< But I guess I would really just like to see a total re-imagining/reconstructing of the genre itself from the roots up. In other words, it's not that shipping itself is bad, it can be a lot of fun, but it just seems like everything is about shipping now. Now, it's almost like you HAVE to have an obligatory third wheel that could or might become THE second wheel and then nope! Just kidding. Blaergh.

Right now, romance is so hollywoodized that other than the few indie things we get every once in a while (I absolutely Loved Her <3) we conceive of romance more as a sub-genre, or an adjective rather than a whole genre all to itself. For example, you see romance elements play in all of the other genres: Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Scifi and what we're seeing less and less is Big-Ticket-Romance as a standalone item.

Even Her is marketed more as a science fiction rather than a romance, or they'll get marketed as a "Drama" or "Dramedy". Rather than saying "Romance", it's "romantic drama" or "Bromance".

If you were truly to imagine romance as a standalone genre again, there would just be so much potential to it. Romance CAN HAVE elements of
fantasy, sci-fi and action in it, in the same way that fantasy/sci-fi/action have romance in them.

A romance story with sci-fi elements can explore the biochemistry or psychology or neurology of love and attraction.

A romance story with fantasy elements can explore the morality/spirtuality/magic (think of how the concept of soul mates can be as much fantasy as the concept of dragons for example).

But there is a lack of exploring the genre, or exploring the relationships between people, perhaps it is for lack of an understanding of it, or that we've reduced it to such simple matters that need no understanding. Romance can be more than two people coping with adversity, or jealousy or divorce. I mean these are all good themes, but what about the worldbuilding that is created between the two people? Y'know, the whole Aladdin concept of creating a whole new world which they are fighting for. This is the plight of the LGBT community right here. What about "people building", together with and in place of worldbuilding?

What if we had different courting rituals? How are courting rituals expressed throughout cultures, throughout the animal kingdom? What if we lived in a society outside of monogamy, what would a utopian polygamy system look like without a patriarchy? What if we lived in a world where everyone is asexual or everyone is bisexual?

Or instead of valuing logic and independence, we valued emotional competence and empathy? What about corrupt relationships instead of corrupt politicians? In this environment where our ideas of orientation, love, marriage is at this flux, these are the kinds of stories and questions that can be really interesting to tackle, and really interesting to read or see on the big screen.

We never question why we are coupling, other than the need for reproduction we never question why there is a need for coupling, or what would a world look like without that. There are so many worldbuilding opportunities when you view the world through the lens of romance, but these aren't the stories that are being told right now.

TLDR;
We badly need love journeys the way we need heroic journeys. Even saying that we don't have as much of a cultural appreciation in romance today is denying the fact that romance is the NUMBER ONE selling genre across the world!! And that's how it's ALWAYS been!

Perhaps it's because I've got an English degree though, and I am sensitive to the way the community too often considers romantic fiction as "low-brow", I felt the need to rant about it today :^P It really, really doesn't have to be that way.

I am two things:

1. Demisexual, meaning I have to be romantically attached to someone for quite some time before sex. Meaning, no one-night stands. Like my one friend says she would bang Tom Hiddleston without question if she had a chance, whereas--as attractive, talented, and ridiculously polite and kind as the man is--I just know I couldn't. There would have to be many, many dates first, or much hanging out, or...well, no one-night stands, even with a god among men.

2. Borderline asexual? I'm fuzzy on this still because the definition of "asexual" is "someone who does not experience sexual attraction," but that doesn't mean asexual people NEVER experience sexual attraction or arousal, so....?????? Anyway, most of the time I just feel no need for it or interest in it, but then sometimes I do. My poor husband.