I read a fair number of book reviews. Because I read everything from straight historical to queer paranormal, there are certain keywords (maybe code words) in a book description that will send me to the reader reviews to confirm initial impressions. If I read a review on a site such as Smart Bitches Trashy Books, I sometimes don’t bother with the reader reviews; I might go immediately to a purchase, or I might dismiss the title.
Or I might click through to purchase, read the description provided by the author and/or one or more reader reviews, and only then think ‘nope.’
Quick post key: MC = main character; HEA = happy ever after; HFN = happy for now.
One thing I not only don’t require as a reader, but often actively dislike, is intra-relationship conflict.
My ideal romance novel is one in which the MCs plausibly meet, fall in love, deal cooperatively with their mutual issues, and find a HEA (or at least a HFN). It is not one in which the MCs bitch at each other (or lie to each other) for 200 pages and then decide they are meant to be together.
It’s not necessarily a turnoff for me if the MCs have as their primary issue a serious ethical, professional, family-history, or personality conflict, as long as it’s handled well. But sometimes these things cannot be worked out, or should not be. I’ve seen a lot of fictional relationships in which serious conflicts are hand-waved, or where conflicts are shoehorned into the story to provide an Act 3 problem for the MCs to solve together, thereby proving they are meant to be. I’ve seen even more where the conflict could be resolved in about two minutes if the MCs would simply have an honest conversation.
There is also a huge pile of romances in which, if the MCs ever had an honest conversation, they would know they are doomed. Of course, a lot of people in love think they can work through anything. Sometimes they actually can! Sometimes they can’t, and sometimes people change. What was tolerable at 25 may no longer be tolerable at 35.
Most of my characters are over 30: they’ve already had that first serious relationship, the one that didn’t work out. They are open to trying again, but they’re also aware it might not work this time either. And that it might not be anybody’s ‘fault.’
Some huge conflicts can be solved but only through time and compromise. (See K J Charles’ The Magpie Lord trilogy. Could that situation have been resolved in a single book? No, I don’t think so. Same for Joanna Chambers’ Enlightenment trilogy.)
My stories tend not to involve intra-relationship conflict. My MCs have issues to solve, but they are usually external. Some reviewers - and some readers! - actually prefer intra-relationship conflict. Those readers might think a book, or even a novella, in which the conflict is primarily driven by, e.g., career change is boring.
I, on the other hand, would rather have my romantic MCs working together against outside forces. A good relationship is a partnership. Problem-solving is a non-trivial component of any good partnership, and there is nothing like mutual achievement to solidify a bond.
Personally, I think when an intelligent adult meets someone they are attracted to, has a few revealing conversations with that someone (which may include sex), and decides to proceed with a relationship, the big potential stumbling blocks are acknowledged right from the start. And if both people want to proceed, they will both work on knocking away those blocks. They won’t simply pretend the blocks don’t exist, but they also won’t pretend the blocks are permanent, immutable, immovable.
As I read back over this, I could point the interested reader to last winter’s A BRAID OF LOVE. That book is bursting with potential for disaster. The central relationship is a love triangle (in the menage sense, not the two-people-both-want-the-same-third-person-and-don’t-want-to-share sense) in which professional considerations lead to compromises that put one of those people in an uncomfortably small box. That does lead to intra-relationship conflict. I’d love to know what people think of the way I resolved it.
