From a reader's point of view - your positionality vis-a-vis romance authors

[Dorina]

If there were a single advice you can give to a romance author, which one would it be in order to fulfil your expectations? Do and Don't for the authors.

[Linda (un)Conventional Bookworms]

Do make the characters seem 'real'! They can be over the top in some ways, but they need to have something that seems likeable, and that it would be possible to feel close to.
Also, please make the female main character strong - not like a man, but a strong character, who knows what she wants in life, but is still able to adjust her goals...
A very big 'don't' for me is to not have main characters who change their mind ALL the time, and I hate whiny characters...
Of course, this is my personal opinion :)

[Dorina]

Thank you Linda. That is a very interesting point of view. I, personally, don't like the heros cheating and then being forgiven by their partner.

[Linda (un)Conventional Bookworms]

oh, I totally agree with that as well... I was just a little hung up on the heroine :D
Cheating males are a very big DON'T.

[Karla]

i personally hate when they have a "i look at you and bamm i can´t live without you" story, i like to actually be a part of the falling in love process, i mean i do believe in love at first sight (more like atraction at first site) but i like to have a story to back up why they´re so maddly inlove with each other.

[Lauren]

Definitely no cheating and no lying.
I don't like plots that are based on silly misunderstandings that could have been avoided if the characters didn't keep secrets and actually talked to one another. This is one of the reasons I don't enjoy contemporary romance. So many of them are based on this type of conflict.

[Dorina]

Karlaihdez wrote: "i personally hate when they have a "i look at you and bamm i can´t live without you" story, i like to actually be a part of the falling in love process, i mean i do believe in love at first sight (..."

You made me smile, Karlaihdez, and I love it when a post does that. I agree with you, even though I'm a great believer in love at first sight. It happened to me, so it can happen to anyone! But you're perfectly right, it has to have some reasons to really happen...

[Dorina]

Lauren wrote: "Definitely no cheating and no lying.
I don't like plots that are based on silly misunderstandings that could have been avoided if the characters didn't keep secrets and actually talked to one anot..."
Yes, Lauren, silly misunderstandings drive me nuts too.And I encountered them in historical romance too.

[Kathleen]

I agree with the cheating and then forgiving. I might be in the minority, but I also don't like it if the hero or heroine breaks up the marriage of the other.

[Kathleen]

Kathleen wrote: "I agree with the cheating and then forgiving. I might be in the minority, but I also don't like it if the hero or heroine breaks up the marriage of the other."

I say minority since I saw Something Borrowed and everyone loved it, but I thought it was horrible the way everyone was cheating and breaking everyone else up.

[Dorina]

Kathleen wrote: "I agree with the cheating and then forgiving. I might be in the minority, but I also don't like it if the hero or heroine breaks up the marriage of the other."

I don't like that either, Kathleen.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

I agree about cheating. I hate it in romance novels. It just casts a shadow on the HEA knowing that: 1)one of them cheated on the other at some point, 2)they cheated on someone else together. How do we know it won't happen again.

I also agree about misunderstandings.

Lastly, I hate lying and dishonesty between the couple in a romance. It ruins the book for me.

And I also hate love triangles.

[Linda (un)Conventional Bookworms]

Lady Danielle, I totally agree with you! And I, too, really hate love triangles! I have no use for them whatsoever, I have never felt that it brings anything to a romance, or to a plot - it's really to try to make different fan-bases happy, but in the end, I think it only shows that a character has difficulty actually getting really involved.

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

I usually try to avoid love triangle books.

[Linda (un)Conventional Bookworms]

Lady Danielle, so do I, but sometimes, it takes a book or more before the triangle happens :(

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

True! I think that Patricia Briggs in the Mercy Thompson handled the love triangle the best so far out of the books I've read.

[Corina_dana33]

When I look for a book to read if I see in the description things like ,,and a guy loves her or two''I just put it back on the shelf.You can make a book interesting without any love triangles like Good Girls Don't or Real Men Will .Also the hero must be dreamy but not perfect or really protective.This is why Twilight is annoying.

[Dorina]

In my personal opinion there are two kinds of "love triangles":
a) when there is another character who is in love with one of the protagonists;
b) when one of the protagonists has feelings for another character.
I am OK with a) and totally disagree with b)

[Corina_dana33]

Me too.You can not love two persons in the same time equally.Plus it is totally clear that the main character is going to end up will the first guy she felt in love most of the time.