A Fine Romance

When I set out to write a retelling of Cinderella, I had a couple of points in mind from the first where I wanted to do things a bit differently. To begin with, I knew I wanted to give my Prince Charming character a definite personality and initiative of his own. The Prince seems to be rather a nonentity in most traditional tellings of the tale—we’re never really given any good reason for Cinderella to fall in love with him, besides the fact that he’s a prince, and we’re told (but not often shown) that he’s charming. Second, I wanted my hero and heroine to meet early in the story, so they had time to develop a friendship before the climactic “ball” sequence. In most versions of the story, Cinderella meets the prince for the first time at the ball, which means invoking the old standby, love-at-first-sight (at least on his side; she could have loved him from afar, I suppose).

I wanted to avoid love-at-first-sight for the simple reason that it has been done so often, besides being a bit less believable. It’s not the most irritating romantic cliché for me (that award would go to the misunderstanding that drags on for half a book when it could be cleared up by someone speaking one sentence), but I think it is one of the most over-used. I’m sure it does happen sometimes in the real world, but there it’s probably in the minority. Fiction seems to reverse that statistic. Oh, it’s definitely useful in terms of plot; I can see that—it raises the stakes and kicks the story into a higher gear right off the bat, and in “these days of rush and hurry” when we have to capture and hog-tie the reader’s interest as soon as possible, I’ve no doubt it looks attractive to authors. But common sense keeps me from becoming too enchanted with it when I write. Attraction or interest at first sight, definitely—that can give your plot a nudge and hint to the reader that there’ll be something doing later on. But in nine cases out of ten, you’ve got to give these characters some time to at least get acquainted before they can start considering whether this person is someone with whom they could spend the rest of their life. To me, that has a more authentic feeling.

Another cliché I’ve observed is the brand of forbidden romance with an Unsympathetic Parent obstructing the course of true love. As with love-at-first-sight, one can see its advantages plot-wise: instant conflict. But I think it’s also been overdone to the point of saturation. Now, that’s not saying I’m in favor of arranged marriages or parents exerting an unhealthy amount of control over adult children’s lives; and I know there’s enough bad parents in the world to provide material for a hundred books. But that’s just the point: they already have. I think fiction could use a healthy dash of families where children and parents respect one another’s judgment and share each other’s ideals enough that they’re not likely to come into conflict over something as important as the children’s romantic choices.

Again, that’s not saying I’d never use this plot, any more than I’ve sworn off gunfights in Westerns. As a matter of fact I have used it more than once. But I try hard to keep it from being just a clichéd wail of “They don’t understand!” In “The Ranch Next Door,” for instance, I made a point of having my heroine say she knows her parents would never object to her sweetheart on a personal level had things been different; it’s their unreasoning feud with his family getting in the way of their judgment. In another yet-to-be-published story I took it tongue-in-cheek for humorous effect.

“But Lainey”—Gerald gestured helplessly—“you don’t understand, girl. Why, I always figured for you to marry some nice feller who’s got himself set up proper in the world, and—and have the right kind of house, with one of them newfangled cookstoves, and glass in the winders, and them—doilies on the rockin’-chairs in the parlor.” 

“Pa, we’ll come to all that later. Bob wants to raise horses for the army; he—”

“Yeah, an’ Johnny Wagner wants to be a cattle king!”  

“I don’t want to marry Johnny Wagner!” 

“You’re doggone right you don’t!” barked Gerald. 

They glared at each other for a minute, slightly sidetracked.

~ “The Mustanger’s Bride”

I even have a sketch of an outline for a novel where a parent’s disapproval drives a good half of the plot. But my general rule of thumb is, if there’s going to be a parent/child conflict over a romance, there’d better be a darn good reason for it, at least in the minds of the characters. If a parent is misguided, they ought to at least believe they’re in the right, not just take a random unreasonable dislike to a potential son-in-law to complicate the story. Because that would pretty much make them a cardboard character and invalidate them as a source of wisdom on any other subject.

Do you find any of these plots overdone in your reading experience? Can you think of any examples of books with a refreshingly different or original take on the romance plot?