Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

It's a very pretty vignette

It took me a while to decide what to write about in the first of the new Editors Mondays series. I went through a couple of ideas, and then, I was watching Top Design and Jonathan Adler, one of the judges, said something that really rang true for me. The designers were given $1500 to spend in a gardening centre and told to create a corner. No more instructions than that.

A few created a full-on setting, complete with seating area and a function. A few just worked on their floral arrangements, hoping that pretty would sell with the judges. And when the judges stopped at one of the pretty, I heard. “It’s a very lovely vignette, but so what? I’m bored.”

Now, I’m a little less Simon Cowell than Jonathan is (I like to think I’m more Randy Jackson. Yo, Dawg, that was a little pitchy. Teehee.), but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought something similar. I went through a period a few weeks ago where I literally wrote the exact same thing in six or seven letters to six or seven different authors over the course of a weekend. And I went through it a few months ago, and a few months before that, and a few months before that. (In fact, I even blogged about it back in August.)

And it’s a little bit of a bummer, because I get these manuscripts that lure me in with the pretty – great writing, rich characters, the funny, the sexy, and a lot of the things I look for in a great manuscript. And I get all excited until I realize, much like Jonathan Adler did, that they were pretty, but I’m not tempted to linger. Where the Top Designers were missing a function for their corners, maybe a water feature, or a bench to curl up on and read a book, these stories were missing one of the most important things in a romance novel… the conflict.

What I was getting was a vignette. Two people meet, they fall in love, they have a little fun in the boudoir, and then… the story is over and they all live happily ever after. And yes, in a way, I got my happy ending, but so what? It might be pretty, but there’s nothing that’s made me care about these people or their romance. There’s nothing that’s added a little excitement and danger and that feeling of ohmigosh, how on earth are they ever going to overcome this horrible thing and realize they were made for each other?

Yes, we romance readers want the Twoo Luv. But we want our characters to fight for that Twoo Luv. Sure it doesn’t happen that often in real life. When I met my guy, we didn’t have any big obstacles to overcome, or compromises we had to make to be together, (well, okay, I have to watch the odd hockey game, and he has to smoke outside, but those are pretty small in the grand scheme of things.), but we’re boring. Seriously, we’re that lovey-dovey couple you want to punch in the nose, because we’re so darn annoying. Now could you imagine reading a whole book where the hero and heroine didn’t do anything but be all lovey-dovey? You’d probably be sitting there waiting for Godzilla to come in and rip up the town just to shake things up.

Really, we know there’s gonna be Twoo Luv and a happily ever after. We’re reading a romance novel for the journey. And that journey is going to be much more interesting if things happen and there’s twists and turns along the way. Maybe a giant who wants to throw a rock at their heads or a Sicilian who challenges them to a battle of wits. Or even better, a forest full of ROUS and lightning sand, and maybe a ship ride through eel-infested waters while being chased by the six-fingered man. Because I truly believe that Wesley and Buttercup never would have had a story-book romance if Wesley had never gone off to sea and become the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Now, not every story needs death (or mostly death) or even a trip to the Pits of Despair to keep our couple apart, but they need something, because the overcoming of that something, the fight and the sweet sense of victory is what’s going to make their romance that much more special.

Because true love is the greatest thing in the world. Except maybe for a nice MLT.