Thoughts about romance novel form and content

My take is a bit more boiled down: introduce two people who are perfect for each other, then come up with a believable reason to keep them apart until the end.

There are any number of ways to do this, and I was nodding along (more or less) with your description of common plot devices until the final paragraph. I don't think you need to end a war or come up with a solution to infertility(?) to have a satisfying climax--few romances end with an event so huge. But it sounds like you write sf/fantasy romance, and I'm less familiar with those conventions--perhaps they play out on a larger scale?

I think the ending rarely has a climax, it has a resolution. This can be quite quiet so long as it satisfies the reader and resolves any remaining internal or external obstacle. Sometimes the extrnal conflct resolves quite late and overlaps with acheiving the HEA, but this isn't necessarily the case. A lot of romance readers prefer a warm happy last few chapters in which the last internal reservations are swept away and the characters fully open their hearts to each other (often via confessions, admissions or long delayed declarations of love).

I don't think romance structure is either that simple or that complicated. I believe that story is story, and all the same elements apply, regardless of genre. You've got to have a protagonsit with a goal, an antagonist with an opposing goal, assorted secondary characters; a begging, middle and end, conflict with escalating tension; a black moment and a resolution of the conflict.

Applying that to romance, there's no real difference, except for the subject matter -- a growing relationship -- and the guaranteed happy ending. You still need a protag, antag, struggle, rising tension, black moment and resolution, with an infinity of variations, none of which is inherently better or worse (okay, as far as I'm concerned, the "big misunderstanding" conflict really is worse) than all the others.

Sometimes, the protag and antag are the hero and heroine, and, for instance, Susan Eliz. Phillips is good at writing this type of story, but I tend to prefer stories where there's a third person who's the antagonist for both the hero and heroine, and the h/h are essentially on the same side of the external conflict. They aren't ready to commit to a relationship on page one for one reason or another (including that they've just met, for goodness sake), but they're not actually each other's antagonist. Instead, they grow and change as a result of the conflict with the antagonist, so that they're slightly different people at the end of the book, and are now capable of -- and deserving of -- a long-lasting, committed relationship.

Anyway, for me, trying to establish the general categories or define the dreaded F-word (Formula) just doesn't help. It's all about the individual characters, and their struggles, not some theoretical character or theoretical struggle. Characters are -- or should be -- as unique as human beings, so to categorize them and their motivations and interal struggles is to ignore the individuality that is so fascinating about them.

And that's probably why I can't do lit-crit either. I never see that the protagonist is a symbol for such-and-such and the antagonist is a symbol for some other thing. All I see is that sweet Sue is such a lovely person, and she's going through all sorts of drama due to dastardly Dave, until, finally, in the end, sweet Sue has had enough and becomes sadistic Sue, and Dave is dead. Well, not in a romance. But I see the individuals, not the symbols or the archetypes. Other brains may vary.

JD

The story i'm working on involves the MC having trouble figuring out who she wants to date. Eventually she meets somone but it takes about six or seven chapters to do so... I like building and then going from there.

Of course i'm no expert or anything, just how I write my stories.

The one I'm noodling with right now has the hero and heroine meeting right there in the first chapter -- but the romancy part of the story doesnt' kick in till later. First they have to deal with the matter of him being six hundred years old. It's a bit of a conundrum, because it does tend to drag some baggage along with it.