Annoying romance tropes #1, #2, and #3

Trope #1 Dainty Women

One of the things that bothers me about adult romance is the emphasis on physical descriptions. Some of them make me roll my eyes. There are actually books written to help romance writers come up with new ways to describe the characters physically. And let me say, I can't remember the last time I read a romance in which the woman was described as anything other than dainty. Oh, she's got curves, definitely. But I feel as if I am being pounded over the head at times with how feminine she is.

The hero can pick her up easily and everything about her is described in terms of how small it is, her feet (Cinderella, anyone?), her waist, her tiny features, her tiny hands (often held by the hero), her knees, legs, throat, and on and on. I am pretty sure that the culture code for this is nonthreatening and subservient. One of the reasons I found Anna and the French Kiss interesting was that the hero was described as small rather than the heroine. I like gender reversals a lot, especially in romance, if you haven't figured that out already, and I especially like gender reversals that are also power reversals.

Trope #2 Losing Her Mind

Another really common adult romance trope is when the otherwise intelligent heroine acts like an idiot around the hot man. I'm not saying that this never happens in real life. Maybe it does. But in romances the tendency is for the problem to affect the heroine a lot more than the hero. I dislike this because I want the heroine to remain who she is so that the hero can fall in love with the real her.

Sure, there is a time and a place for the two leads to be pressed into difficult situations where they change and grow, show their vulnerabilities and weaknesses. But when this happens every time the two are together because she just can't think about anything but falling into bed with the hero, then it is tiresome and it makes the heroine feel like she is a straw woman. I feel like she can't really be that smart if she is so easily distracted. I know, I know, he is REALLY, really hot. She has never met anyone that HOT before. I get it. The physical attraction is important. On to . . .

Trope #3 Undressing Her/Him

I am probably a prude about this. I write what some readers are calling "clean" romances. But I don't think that word means what they think it means. I don't have a problem with sexy romances. Or talk about how handsome or hot the hero is, per se. It's just that I don't like the hero or heroine to be constantly undressing the opposite number mentally. It's not because I think it's dirty. It's because I usually think it's boring. That is, it's not moving the plot forward. It's not making me see the hero or heroine as stronger or more interesting.

Sexual attraction is pretty basic animal instinct. It's there, all the time, and sure, mention it. But then get on with it. And I just cringe when certain attributes are described in laughable terms. I can't help it. It's so awkward in most adult romance novels. That's why I tend to skip that part when I write my own books. I think letting the reader imagine a lot of it ends up being more elegant.

I am thinking about the scene in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. You know the scene where Darcy jumps into the water fully clothed, hot and sweaty. It's a very sexy scene. The sexiness is because it is so understated. Yes, he has a white shirt on, so it goes a little transparent in the water. But not completely transparent. And he doesn't say anything. That's my kind of sexy, and it's not just because it's set in a time period when sexuality was repressed. It's inherently sexy for him to be in nearly complete control of himself and his thoughts and then to come upon Elizabeth when he is vulnerable and they are both surprised.