Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels

by Sarah Wendell

  “In every romance novel, there’s a key transformation in both the hero and heroine as they learn the give-and-take of love, the importance of bending their wills to align with the will of the one they love. They need to believe in each other, to treasure their differences and appreciate what they have in common.”

  Author Sarah MacLean sees romance as a requirement for real relationships, and points to romance novels as an excellent reminder of what romance is: “I…find that romances have always helped me navigate bad relationships. While there’s definitely a reason why romances end at the beginning of a relationship (dirty breeches on the bedchamber floor do not a sigh-inducing ending make), the idea that love and romance can and should be a part of a real-life relationship is not a bad one. And if we hold our relationships up to that standard—the one where love and romance come along with the dirty socks and Sunday afternoon football sessions—it can only be better for all of us.”

  “You should never stop courting your spouse!”

  —TERESA MEDEIROS

  THE MEDEIROS CHARACTER TRAIT LIST

  * * *

  Teresa Medeiros has a list of traits she feels characters must possess before they can earn their happy endings, a list that easily applies to actual people too:

  To earn their happily-ever-after, they have to learn to embrace their newfound love, flaws and all.

  They must come to understand that people are the sum of all their past experiences, both positive and negative.

  They must mature enough to surrender the “me” to become the “we.”

  And they must endure enough of the “worse” during the course of the book to appreciate the “better” to come. Medeiros says that romance novels have always reminded her “to keep the magic alive; you should never stop courting your spouse!”

  Christina Dodd says that characters “have to take responsibility for their actions, both romantic and in the course of the plot, and be brave enough not only to fix what they’ve broken but admit they were wrong. Since most of us would rather walk on hot coals than admit we’re wrong (at least I would), this is an agony that proves them worthy of love and their happiness.” Those same developed skills can be found in real people as well, according to Dodd: “I see it all the time in real life and in every romance—men and women overcome their basic, intrinsic inability to communicate and form a lasting relationship. When you think about the differences between the genders, it’s a freaking miracle.”

  “The idea that love and romance can and should be a part of a real-life relationship is not a bad one. And if we hold our relationships up to that standard-the one where love and romance come along with the dirty socks and Sunday afternoon football sessions-it can only be better for all of us.”

  —SARAH MACLEAN

  Dodd also recommends communication, though for her, communication in her marriage means her husband reads her books: “I’ve been married to my husband since the earth’s crust cooled. He was the one who supported and encouraged me through ten years of being unpublished, and he’s read a lot of my books, about thirty. Since, in my opinion, most men don’t have any ability (or see the need) to examine the way anyone else thinks (an aside—I don’t believe most men know how they think), for my husband, reading the female point of view is a sort of, ‘Here’s a roadmap to the way a woman’s mind, or at least Christina’s mind, works.’ It’s led to interesting discussions.”

  Even with a roadmap, whether it’s staggeringly honest conversations or a collection of over thirty different romance novels written by your spouse (lucky Mr. Dodd), without the conflict, there’s no romance. Kresley Cole agrees: “Someone once asked me, ‘When you’re writing a romance, do you ever wish you could just have the hero and heroine meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after without all the heartache and hardships?’

  “I answered that without all the heartache and hardships there would be no HEA, because at the outset of a book, my protagonists don’t ‘fit’ well enough to sustain a lasting relationship. There can be attraction between them, maybe even a grudging respect for each other—but without all the trials they endure over the course of the story, the characters would remain unfinished. Those trials do two things: force the characters to grow, so they will be better able to maintain a partnership, and teach them the value of the relationship, so they never take it for granted.

  “One thing I think most outside the genre don’t realize is that romance protagonists earn their HEA. They have to work for it. I believe that above all things, romance novels teach us that HEAs don’t come easy. As in real life, these relationships take effort, dedication, and sacrifice.

  “An entirely distorted view of adult relationships would be the scenario from above: meet, fall in love, live happily ever after without any heartache. If romance novels perpetuated that distorted view, they’d all be ten pages long.”

  “One thing I think most outside the genre don’t realize is that romance protagonists earn their HEA. They have to work for it. I believe that above all things, romance novels teach us that HEAs don’t come easy. As in real life, these relationships take effort, dedication, and sacrifice.”

  —KRESLEY COLE

  Author Anne Calhoun says that she sees the happily-ever-after as accepting imperfections, both in one’s self and in someone else: “A common misperception about romance characters is that they have to be perfect, that they’ve earned their HEA because they are already sane, stable, thin, beautiful, ripped, honest, loyal, rich, and/or willing to risk it all for the person they love, but just need a little nudge to get their HEA. While authors have begun to write physically ‘different’ characters—perhaps ‘curvy’ (as if curves are somehow indicative of a character flaw…like enjoying food), or ‘mousy’ or ‘librarian’—the characters that resonate most with me are the ones who are truly, deeply flawed and somehow manage to be loved for exactly who they are.

  “Maybe that’s the key thing for me. For me, characters ‘earn’ an HEA less than they ‘accept’ the HEA. I don’t think we (or characters) earn love or happily-ever-afters. They/ we don’t start out unworthy and become worthy. They/we start out muddled and become less muddled. If we writers do our jobs well, they start out human and become more human. Sometimes that acceptance comes from the hero or heroine loving them just as they are, and sometimes it comes from the hero or heroine learning something about themselves they need to know in order to move past their pain and become more fully alive and in love. That’s what really makes romances great. The characters, after their trials and tribulations, are more fully alive, more fully engaged in the world, more fully human. They may live the exact same life, but inside they are changed.

  “As a reader I want to see a character grow. I don’t really care where they start from, or even where they end up, as long as that character has grown through the conflict faced and their interaction with the hero or heroine.”

  Sometimes, circumstances are tough and people are miserable, and big girl pants must be put on with aplomb so that the trouble can be dealt with, sword fighting optional. The effort and work to look at one’s own faults is onerous, but any amount of self-examination can make a definite difference when things are in the crapper. Debbie Macomber has examined relationship repair tools in many of her books, most notably Hannah’s List: “In my book, there’s a couple, Winter and Pierre, who have gotten into a routine of fighting, separating, and then breaking up again. It’s a pattern that’s continued for years. They’re in love, but they can’t seem to get along. Another character suggests that Winter make a list of everything Pierre does that irritates her and then write down her reaction to that behavior.

  “A common misperception about romance characters is that they have to be perfect, that they’ve earned their HEA because they are already sane, stable, thin, beautiful, ripped, honest, loyal, rich, and/or willing to risk it all for the person they love, but just need a little nudge to get their HEA.”

  —ANNE CALHOUN

  “When she
sees how she’s nagged and pouted and exploded at him, she recognizes her own part in their troubled relationship. She persuades Pierre to do the same thing, and once they see what’s happening to them they’re able to resolve their problems and eventually marry. A reader wrote to tell me she’d used the same technique in dealing with a situation in her marriage, and it helped her and her husband tremendously.

  “In addition, another character in Hannah’s List, Michael, has to learn how to have a relationship with Macy, despite the fact that a) he’s reluctant to have a relationship with anyone, and b) Macy is just so different from him—too different in his view. He’s still grieving for his wife, Hannah, who left him a letter encouraging him to remarry, even providing him with a list of candidates, which included Macy. So, what drives the story emotionally is Michael’s need to figure out how to see Macy on her own terms, not his, which means he has to see himself differently too. This was an interesting exploration for me, the author, as well as for Michael!”

  Reader Sybylla agrees that recognition of past behavior and the possible need to change it can make a story extraordinary: “Something I do look for is that the hero/heroine challenges the other person in some fundamental way. It can be because he or she makes the other want to be a better person, or forces them to reevaluate their assumptions, or even just causes them to change their social behavior.

  “One of the things that makes Mr. Darcy so appealing to me is his simple recognition that he had been rude, and that rudeness is not okay. To stick with Austen, I like Persuasion in part because both characters have to reevaluate their past behavior and question why they made the choices they did.

  “In Bet Me, Cal challenges Min to accept herself and to see herself as desirable, while she forces him to take a closer look at how he’s always acted with women.”

  Readers and authors also know that happiness doesn’t just show up any more than great sex does. Happiness takes work. As Julia London says, “There are ebbs and flows to every relationship, and the trick is to weather the storms and head for calm seas. That sounds trite, but it is so true. Every relationship has its moments. Every couple has its faults. The couple has to work really hard to reach that happily-ever-after, in real life and in books.”

  Author Robyn Carr says the question of making a happily-ever-after work lies in the focus: “In a conversation with my grown son about the power of intention and a positive outlook on life, I posed the argument, ‘But bad things do happen to good people.’ And he said, ‘Bad things happen to all people, but so do good things.’ Focus becomes a compelling force in life, and in writing romances. Concentrating on the positive, on the good in life, and finding a way to get there makes for good relationships and a successful life.”

  Romance reader Jess Granger says, “My first real boyfriend didn’t love me with a passion that could lead to my HEA. My second was all passion, but no substance. I knew he couldn’t be the one to stand up for me and support or protect me. I found my husband later, a perfect balance of passion, friendship, and support.

  “I recognized those things in him because romances made me think about what I wanted and what I liked in a hero…I learned how I wanted to be treated. I am reaping the benefits of having an open mind, enough sexual power and agency to communicate what I want, like, and need in the bedroom, and a knowledge that every couple has dark moments, but it’s how you work through them that leads to your happy-ever-after.”

  Shannon H. agrees with Jess, and says that romances have helped her figure out that, for her, relationships were preferable to hooking up because she had learned how to create a happy one: “I started reading them when I was around eleven or twelve years old (I’m nineteen now), and immediately set super high standards for myself in what I wanted in a guy. Things like Treats Me Well, Spends Time with Me, Makes Me Smile, Compromises, etc. Things that are perfectly realistic, I feel. It made me choose to not settle when I could have done so just to say that I had a boyfriend, and being in college now I think romance has made me perfectly comfortable in turning down hook-ups in favor of an actual relationship.”

  Professor Sarah Frantz, romance reader and reviewer, says that romances have taught her similar lessons as Shannon has described: “Romances taught me everything I needed to know about how to communicate in a relationship and I credit them with my twenty-years-and-going-strong relationship with my partner. They taught me to make sure everyone got a say. They taught me to make sure everything was covered—everything. No hiding that one last little niggle. It all has to come out.

  “They taught me how to discuss things. They taught me that the relationship, the ‘us,’ is paramount over the ‘you and me.’ They taught me to respect my partner at all times. And most of all, they taught me to appreciate my partner and to express that appreciation whenever possible. He brought me a cup of tea, whether or not I asked him for it? Thank him. And tell him I love him. It’s the little, everyday gestures that show love more than the grand gestures, and romances taught me that.”

  Even classic romances such as those by Georgette Heyer can serve as a prototype for ideal behavior: a commenter at the site who goes by the name DreadPirateRachel told me, “The first romances I ever read were by Georgette Heyer. They taught me to hold out for a partner who would share my intellectual passions and respect me for the person I am. I’m glad I paid attention, because I ended up with a husband who is funny, kind, supportive, and adoring.”

  We romance readers can separate ridiculous from reality, and fact from fiction. We don’t expect all men to be billionaire tycoon dukes who are also Navy SEAL spies and fluent in sixty-nine languages. Not a single one of those things guarantees happiness, or a happily-ever-after.

  But because of what we’ve learned about healthy, admirable relationships, we do expect men to be partners in our lives, to listen, care, pay attention, and treat us as if we are valuable and special. That is what helps foster happiness. No billions, yachts, or tactical weapons experience necessary.

  Reader Caroline learned that lesson from her own romancereading: “Romance novels in general taught me that it isn’t about the bling, but the substance behind the bling that makes it last. Always the heroine and hero, at some level, just want to be with one another by the end of the book. I have rarely read a book where the heroine goes, ‘Well…He’s a billionaire-playboy-oil-baron-secret-Earl-Sheik with a whole barnful of horses, six palatial mansions, and a bunch of jets; I guess I’ll be happy with him. Oh yeah, and he’s got a magic wang.’ It’s always a little deeper than that. The person usually comes to the surface. The need for the person outweighs the trappings, and there is never a second guess.

  “There were a few books I read that taught me love is not easy. It takes work. Just because someone gets you all hot in the pants doesn’t mean it’s going to be a cakewalk down the aisle. You sometimes have to compromise, sometimes examine yourself first, and talk to one another, not just humpity-hump until you say the L-word and have the Twue Lurve ending. Sometimes shit gets in the way and you have to deal.”

  We romance readers can separate ridiculous from reality, and fact from fiction. We don’t expect all men to be billionaire tycoon dukes who are also Navy SEAL spies and fluent in sixty-nine languages.

  Editor Angela James loves J. D. Robb’s In Death series because of its portrayal of the courtship of marriage: “One of the things I love about that series is the progression of the romance, from courtship to lovers to marriage, where you see the relationship grow and build. And Ms. Robb does a fantastic job of showing the give and take of marriage, and being partners and equals. I think this makes an even bigger impression on me than many romance novels because I’m at a different stage in my life. I’m not looking for love or falling in love, but I’m in love with someone I know is ‘it.’ And since maintaining the relationship in a marriage has its own unique challenges, it’s nice to see an author tackling those and not creating a world where the marriage is perfect, without flaws, and doesn’t face adversity.”r />
  “Nothing gives me greater pleasure in my entertainment than reading about people who, with real (as opposed to contrived) problems, overcome them in a sane, healthy, and productive way that sets them up for life.”

  —ROBYN CARR

  Robyn Carr says she envies her characters sometimes: “The unvarnished truth is—I often wish I was as smart as my characters. I wish that, in real life, I could delete and rewrite the things I say, adjust the things I do and make them more intelligent, control the unexpected events in my life. I think reading and writing romances is very good practice for living within relationships—it helps us separate the wheat from the chaff. We know what not to do (in each individual opinion) and we get a good view of things that might actually work. I really appreciate it when characters in trouble get help; I cheer characters who know they’re fallible and want to overcome their weaknesses or faults. My heart races with pleasure when they reach a mutual understanding that gives them a chance at happiness.

  “Nothing gives me greater pleasure in my entertainment than reading about people who, with real (as opposed to contrived) problems, overcome them in a sane, healthy, and productive way that sets them up for life.”

  The fantasy of seeing a painful and horrific situation resolve toward hope and happiness is another reason why romance readers are such avid and enduring fans of the genre. Each novel is a safe emotional space to examine awkward and potentially tricky emotions and see that each experience, and each character, can achieve happiness—a happiness well worth achieving.

  ROMANCE AND COURTSHIP IN THREE EASY STEPS

  It might seem that a mammoth serving of romance novels comes equipped with unending relationship wisdom—and it does, but not because one has read fourteen million novels. Whether one has read a handful or has a book in each hand every day of the year, the basic lessons on relationships and unending courtships are pretty simple to spot.