Or, in writer's jargon, the HEA. If you plan to write a romance novel, it's something you've gotta have. Just gotta. No ifs, ands or buts about it. In one way or another, there's to to be a HEA. Because that's what readers want. And savvy writers...well, they give readers what they want.
In romance novels the Happily Ever After can be accompanied by any number of things. Hearts. Flowers. Heaving bosoms. Manly stirrings (you know the ones, don't you? Come on, think about it for a minute. That's right, those stirrings. Now you've got it!). Proclamations of love or faithfulness. Passion. That's right. The Happily Ever After in romance novels is often accompanied by passion, or at least the hint of passion.
But have you noticed the HEA is hardly ever --never, almost-- set against the whine of a dying transmission? Shrouded in the stench of a backed up garbage disposal? Or that undying love is rarely proclaimed with a runny nose? Wearing stinky sweat socks? Or muddy boots? Bosoms never heave while wiping cat fur from the front of a Save Lives! Spay an Animal! sweatshirt? An manly stirrings? Why don't they ever stir while the man attached to the stirring is stirring a pot of soup, cooking up a lasagne or even grilling a cheese sandwich? Hmm? Why?
Does it mean that romance doesn't have all these less-than-lovely components? Absolutely not! It just means that most readers want to see the glow, surge of passion, delicate touch of lips and, let's face it, the heaving bosom and manly stirrings of first love.
But, as those of us who have been fortunate enough to find our own HEA know, those things aren't really the true HEA. They're merely the start of the whole adventure. Happily Ever After, with all the trimmings, commitment and foreverness is accompanied by soup, sniffles, pesky appliances, animal fur, bigger-than-planned-for expenses, noisy mufflers, stinky socks and clogged drains.
I know you're shaking your heads right now but I'm serious. Happily Ever After, if it's true, until-death-do-us-part love, comes with its share of glitches, bumps and hurdles. And getting past all those things to remember the love that brought about the arrangement?
*Sigh*
Now that's a real Happily Ever After. The stuff that, you know, romances are made of!
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6 comments:
okay... I'm liking the cat fur covered heroine idea... can I steal it? LOL...
Idea? Um, that's me...
The Victorians were fond of the dying and the dead. Remember the death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop? it caused an outrage. Lots of their heroines/heroes would have tb etc. but that was their realilty. So many folks died young and they had the death thing off to a fine art.
We don't like grot, or death or leaky appendages. We go for the kind of glamour and romance that is divorced from reality. And looking at the reality who can blame us.
Carry on with the fantasy, Sarita, keep the guy in the dirty t-shirt in his box.
Margaret.
I do love the escape of a good Regency where there is never a dirty dish or a plugged drain.
I like the muddy boots. So realistic!
-Pam
OMG you are sooooooo right, Sarita! Good blog.
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