I’d be the first to admit that I love reading romantic comedies (rom coms). They can be lots of fun, they’re a break from the much darker stuff I often read (as you might guess from reading my blog), and even though you know where they’re going to wind up, it’s still a pleasure to get there.
However, there is a type of rom com that I’ve come across more than once lately that doesn’t work for me, and I think there’s a fundamental flaw in the authors’ approach that makes these particular books fall flat.
They start out with a wish fulfillment premise: wouldn’t you love to be living for a year in a remote village in the Highlands of Scotland, writing a cookbook and becoming enveloped in the life of the people in this small town? Wouldn’t you love to be the kind of person who spends most of her life traveling to wherever she likes, coming back “home” long enough to earn enough money to take off again? My response to both of those is a hearty “yes please!”
And then they bring in the love interest, and he is (it’s usually a heterosexual romance, though I’ve seen this in a lesbian rom com as well) just perfect. He and the protagonist hit it off, obviously made for each other. They immediately have sex and it’s perfect, the two characters achieving simultaneous orgasms the first time they get it on. They’re kind and charming to each other and their romance is clearly just meant to be.
What’s wrong with that? Well, without some kind of conflict, there is no story. Or at least, no story beyond fantasy fulfillment, where everything moves smoothly without a hitch and everybody lives happily during the story as well as ever after.
The authors of these books realize this, I’m sure. They know the genre requires that something keeps the characters apart, that there has to be some question, however slight, about whether they are going to end up together. They even know that the main characters need to have some back story, some serious difficulties in their pasts or their presents that have to be worked out before they can reach their happy ending.
And yet, the authors seem unable to bear the idea of actually creating real conflicts for their characters. Yes, they’ll come up with some last minute argument that seems to separate these fated-to-be-together lovers, and the couple might even split up for a short time, but it’s carefully designed to be something that can be overcome in a couple of pages. And as for the back story, any conflict that can be resolved with a couple of conversations between the people involved isn’t a conflict worthy of the name, but that’s the kind of conflict they create for their characters.
I’m not saying I want to see world war level conflicts between the characters, or in the characters’ pasts. I do want to see the characters having to adjust to each other, to learn something about each other they didn’t pick up in the first five minutes of their acquaintance. If an author is going to pretend that someone is deeply damaged by an event in their past, it had better not be a garden-variety sibling rivalry, or a misunderstanding caused by the characters’ inability to talk to significant people in their lives. And if it is the result of an inability to talk to someone significant, then I absolutely don’t want to see the significant person change their mind after the main character charms them or has a serious talk with them. I feel the author who pulls that kind of thing (which I’ve now seen in two rom coms recently) is insulting my intelligence.
I’m getting to the point where I resist any rom com whose premise involves characters going somewhere or doing something I myself long to do. I want to love those books, but, based on past experiences, they’re likely to be wish fulfillment for the authors as well, lacking the guts and conflict that make for a really good rom com.
It’s not that hard, really: give me characters I like, who aren’t perfect, let them find each other and work toward that happy ending. Give me a plot that actually has some conflict standing in the way of the characters’ happiness, and give me some laughs along the way and I’ll follow you anywhere.
Bookskill 