The place of men in romance novels
Posted by CM under Writing on Fri 3 Nov 2006
‘m just a little crude in this post. You have been forewarned.
I’m not writing this post with an end in mind; I’m writing it because I don’t know what the right answer is yet, and I want to see how it all comes out in the end. For the most part, heterosexual romance (which is most of what’s out there) demands a man.
What role does that man play? In some romance novels, it’s clear that the man fills the role of “fantasy wish-fulfillment.” He’s got perfect washboard abs, dreamy eyes, and a dick that rivals the Eiffel Tower in length. In these circumstances, he’s most often a bad boy of some kind–a rake, or at least a pretender to a rake. As far as I can tell, the conventional wisdom here is that the woman reading the romance novel identifies with the heroine, and so you want as hot and sexy a man as you can in order to fulfill her secret wishes. (Somewhat unrelated question for those of you have read it: do you consider Georgette Heyer’s “A Civil Contract” to be a romance novel?)
Perhaps I am peculiar, but most–I hope many–of us don’t actually want such a man, no matter what our secret fancies are. Some fancies are much more fun in your head than out. And so I wonder if there’s any room in our wish-fulfillment for stories about love. Really about love.
So, love. This is ultimately what it’s about. There are a few theories about how to get men to fall in love with you. One old saw is that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The more modern take on it is that the way to a man’s heart is through his penis.
But I think neither of these are true. In my experience, men and women have the same path to their heart: directly through the ego. You never really love someone for all their good qualities. You can’t list things about the other person that cause you to love them. Really, love comes down to one thing: you like who you are around the person. There are some consequences to this. First, I think many romances end too early. They resolve the heroine’s last fears, and then BAM! It’s happily ever after, with the exception of the epilogue five years down the road when she’s having her sixth kid (triplets, you know).
In many cases, it’s inexplicable–both to the man and to the woman–why he loves her. And in many cases it’s unbelievable that he could do so from the provocation he’s received–watching her ass astride a horse, for instance, or screwing her silly on three separate occasions. And yet somehow he knows she’s different. I find this sort of love story wholly unbelievable.
No. When you’re with someone you love, you may not be able to explain all the effects. The world is lighter, slights are brushed off, joy is magnified. Cold winds blow less cold. But love is, at heart, not a matter of sacrifice. It’s an inherently selfish endeavor for both couples. You love the other person because of who you are around them. As a personal matter, I’m wittier, smarter, and sexier around my fiance. I always have been; it’s one of the things about our interactions. He makes me feel comfortable in my own skin.
And that’s why–coming back to Pride and Prejudice, as all discussion of good romance must(*)–when Darcy forces himself to open up, to become more friendly and less forbidding, he can finally believe that he loves Lizzy. We already know why Lizzy can love Darcy–he brings out the worst in her, and she’s never lacking for wit when he’s around. But Darcy loves Lizzy because under her influence he learns to shed his discomfort.
What has this got to do with men and fantasies? In fully half the historical romances I read–and these days I pretty much read 80% of the single-title historicals that are published–the men are placeholders. They’re nothing more than tight pants and unbuttoned shirts, demons between the sheets. This is, obviously, something the market will bear. But is it something that the market virtually requires?
Let me rephrase. It’s clear that the market doesn’t require it. There are some excellent books out there that have done exceptionally well with three-dimensional men who grow over the course of the book. But for authors who haven’t broken into publication, who aren’t allowed to violate as many “rules,” is it silly to write men who are not well-muscled placeholders?
Can the romance novel be as much about the man coming into his own as it is the woman coming into hers? Or, shockingly: can the romance novel be more about the man coming into his own than the woman coming into hers?
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(*) I hereby declare the Pride and Prejudice Postulate: Any supposed requirement for romance novels is not, in fact, a requirement unless Pride and Prejudice meets that requirement.
November 4th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Fascinating post, Courtney, and I heartily applaud the creation of the P&PP.
I’ve read A Civil Contract several times, and I remember being taken aback, the first time through. I still haven’t made up my mind about all of it, but over time, I’ve come to find it a thought-provoking change from the conventional historical romance novel. My favorite Heyer would probably either be The Black Moth or The Talisman Ring.
I believe a solid chunk of the romance reading market expects — demands, even — the hero to be devastatingly attractive.* Many of the authors who craft these stories may be of a similar mindset, but some could just be responding to the dictates of the market. I’m to the point now that I usually find overemphasis of the hero’s handsomeness to be flat out ANNOYING. I’d prefer an interesting, believable average-looking (or even unattractive) hero to a matinee idol placeholder any day.
There’s this trend toward inflation of everything — looks, wealth, power, title, you name it. I’ve heard of authors being told to change barons to earls, viscounts to dukes, and so on. Does the market really demand this, or do TPTB just think this is what readers want? I don’t know.
In answer to your question about a romance novel being about a man coming into his own, my personal preference is for this to happen for BOTH protagonists, at least to some extent. I’ve read novels where the man had a lot more growing to do, and they were flat out fabulous.
* Mrs. Giggles has made some amusing observations on the extreme “lengths” to which authors go in endowing their heroes.
November 4th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Courtney, like Lynne, I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much everything you wrote. In fact, one of the reasons I started writing my own romance novel was that I was a bit tired of the “placeholders in tight pants”, though I admit, I didn’t put it quite that way to myself. (My tagline on my website is “Realizing the Man in Romance” because my goal is to create male leads who seem three-dimensional and “real.”) I wanted a male lead I could really identify with and fall in love with myself. And I’m fairly proud of my characterization of the hero of my current WIP, because pretty much everyone who reads it falls in love with him almost from the moment he appears on the page.
He still has his own internal conflicts and hurdles to overcome, of course, but he is definitely NOT the typical historical romance hero: he’s a commoner (not to mention Irish!), he’s not an alpha male (he’s more what’s called, in the industry, a “gamma hero”). I did make him handsome, though, but I don’t spend a lot of time on that aspect once I’ve gotten the description of him out of the way. I HOPE the reason my readers love him is the same reason I love him: because of what he DOES and who he IS, not how he looks. (And, after all, in a book, you can’t SEE how the characters really look–you can only imagine–so it’s far better to make your characters lovable for their personalities and action than for their appearances!)
And I truly believe the BEST romance novels feature a hero and heroine who BOTH have a lot of emotional work to do. From a perspective of the “craft”, it’s absolutely essential that both characters have an internal conflict that’s keeping them apart to grow past in order to reach the HEA. Without that, you just have a story about two people falling in love, and while falling in love is very nice, let’s face it: without tension and conflict, it’s boring!
Also, I am strongly opposed to dick inflation. (As someone once famously said, it’s not the pen, it’s the penmanship.) Abd although my Mae Westian meta-villainess (she’s the heroine of my next story, so she gets redeemed) does once tease my hero by saying that parts of him resemble a horse, she is being Mae Westian, not literal, LOL.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:55 am
This is all so very interesting.
I, of course, heartily endorse any postulate which justly places P&P at the center of its literary universe. But it’s curious that you are also unenamored of alphas - because isn’t Darcy sort of the prototypical alpha? Or not. I don’t really understand those categories.
A Civil Contract is the *only* Heyer I’ve ever read, so I can’t compare it to her others. I think I picked it to read because I heard people say it was the one that readers either loved or hated. Just to be contrary, I am rather indifferent to it. I would call it a love story of sorts, but not a romance.
And I am blushing just *thinking* about even referring to my hero’s .. um. .. you know .. let alone describe and/or inflate its size. Does THAT spell death for my nascent romance-writing career?