From Passion to Poison: The Top 11 Most Toxic Romance Tropes You Need to Avoid in Your Novel!

Devlin Blake Author

Avoid toxic romance tropes! Discover 11 harmful clichés and learn how to create healthier, engaging love stories. Elevate your writing!

Transcript:

Romance is one of the most popular types of fiction in the world. Over sixty percent of fiction novels sold are romances. There’s a wide variety in the types of romance novels, At first glance, they look easy to write, but when you actually sit down to write one, they become much harder.

Readers expect certain things from a romance novel, and if you make one of these mistakes, they won’t like your book.

Hi novelteers, I’m Devlin Blake, Novel Writing & self publishing Expert, Coach, published author, and former ghostwriter of over 200 books. If you’re writing a book, be sure to check out my Novel Writer’s Club, featuring self directed courses, ask me anything, group coaching and more. You can find out more about it at the link below.

Confusing Romance And Abuse

Ever since the movie Say Anything became a ‘classic’ Mainstream has blurred the lines between love and abuse. Love bombing, explosive anger, stalking, love hurts, wanting to ‘keep’ someone as ‘all yours’, and not taking no for an answer are signs of abuse, not love. Even ‘classic romances’ like Beauty and the Beast have this issue. If he treats her like something to be owned, rather than someone to be respected, then it’s not love. You could get away with this in a time when women were property, but modern readers are savvy enough to see right through it. (Even if set in the past.)

Using The Wrong Amount Of Heat

Does every romance need a sex scene? No. In fact, if you are writing ‘clean’ ‘sweet’ or ‘Christian’ it should absolutely NOT have a sex scene. ‘Clean or Sweet’ can get away with hinting at a sex scene once commitment is proven. Christian should not even do that unless the characters are married.

However, on the flip side, if you promise steamy sex scenes, or are writing in a genre that does, you need to provide them. In some genres, the sex scene gets a sentence, and in others, it gets a few paragraphs or a few pages. The key is to know what your readers want in the genre you’re writing in.

And the easiest way to figure that out is to read a lot of books in the romance genre you want to write in. After about ten books or so, you’ll get a feel for what the readers really want.

Replacing Intimacy With Sex

Many romances labeled steamy use Intimacy and sex as interchangeable, but they’re not. Any couple can be good in bed. But the reader picked up your book to see how good your couple is OUT of bed. There are other types of books just for the sexy stuff, and they aren’t labeled romance. The reader wants to see true connection; feelings, and caring and deep respect and love. Your sex scene does not prove they love each other, just that they find each other attractive. And since romance is wish fulfillment, you’re cheating the reader out of the escape they’re looking for.

Having A Woman Give Up Her Dreams

This was less problematic the further back you go in history. This trope comes from a time when women weren’t allowed to have freedom, property, or dreams of their own. However, even in the modern age, many romance writers still cling to the idea that it’s the woman who has to give up everything to be with her man.

A smart, ambitious woman who suddenly gives up her dreams to be with her man needs a very good reason to do so. Otherwise readers will feel she threw it all away and will regret it later. At that point, they’ll feel she’s no longer a person to care about but a slave to the plot.

This is still true even if she becomes a literal princess at the end. If she had other dreams besides being a princess, and gave up on them to embrace the royal life, she still comes across as having made too big of a sacrifice.

Characters That Are Too Perfect

It’s easy for a writer to create a character that is too perfect. Readers hate this because such characters come across as constructs, not ‘real’ people. A real character has strengths, weakness, and quirks. And most of all, they face consequences for their actions and their writer's love putting them in hot water. If you have a character that you’re afraid to really throw challenges at, then you’re too close to your character and they are too perfect.

Instalove

When one character meets each other for the first time and ‘just knows’, that’s instalove. And it makes romance readers groan. Unless you're writing about otherworldly characters who have that built into their biology, it doesn’t happen that way. Also, part of the fun of romance is watching the characters come to terms with their own feelings. If they know from the first page they belong together, there’s no buildup or fun interaction for the readers to watch. The reader wants them to realize their feelings slowly and in a fun playful way.

Confusing Lust With Love

It’s normal for two characters to notice each other’s bodies. They’re eyes, their shapes, their hair, but if that’s all they ever notice about each other, they’re not in love, they’re in lust. It’s fine for them to notice attractiveness at the beginning, but even in fiction, that’s not enough for a relationship. At some point, they need to start admiring the other person’s personality. Their strength, their courage, their compassion or other traits. To truly hook a reader, you need to show the deeper below the surface connection.

Love Triangles

Now granted, there have been some famous books with love triangles, but the appeal of them doesn’t hold up to a more grown-up woman. She knows that if you’re really wavering between two men, that neither of them is Mr. Right. Sure, if you’re writing cozies with flirtations and fun, love triangles work, but a real romance is about a connection between two people. That’s impossible to have if there’s a third one present, even in the mind.

She’s Not Like Other Girls….

In far too many books the male lead points out how his loved one is ‘not like other girls’. Either in her ambitions, how she dresses, or some other trait. The problem readers have with this approach is that it’s inherently misogi=sitic, and romance readers are over 90% women. Women who don’t like being told that ‘being a typical’ woman is a bad thing, which of course is what this trope is saying. The simple thing to remember is there is no ‘typical woman’ archetype. There are differences between men and women of course, but each woman is her own unique person. Your woman character is a unique person too, or at least she should be. And she doesn’t have to put down other women to be that.

The Other Half

True love is about giving strength and support to the other person, so they can be the best version of themselves. However, this is a far cry from one person ‘fixing’ another person with their love. A person who spends the story suffering from depression, low self esteem or PTSD doesn’t magically ‘get fixed’ because they fell in love. The best romances are about two complete people who find each other and boost each other up, opening doors that neither had ever considered possible.

No Happy Ending

I can’t stress this enough. If there’s no happy ending, you’re not writing romance. Romeo and Juliet is not a Romance. Nicholas Sparks does not write Romance. Technically, these are Love Stories; stories about love with a tragic ending. A romance always has a happy ending. Always.

Above all, romances are about two characters discovering each other and falling in love. Wonderfully written characters will keep your readers coming back for all your latest books time after time.

If you need help creating these characters, be sure to check out My Novel Writer’s Club at the link below. It will give you what you need to write and publish that book.

Also remember to like and subscribe to see more videos on writing and publishing your novel.

Until Next time, this is Devlin Blake, saying Write on.

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Categories: : ADHD/ Autistic writing advice