Thank you for all your responses!
Sorry, I'm sure someone would but I don't think I've ever considered romance novels as 'getting the guy' so much as 'being pursued by the guy.' In that way, romance novels are about making seemingly doomed relationships work (the ones I've seen anyway, they're not really my thing) -- the guy is a cad, a rogue, she puts up with him for a purpose but eventually they fall in love. Is that not the basic trope?
What about a seemingly good guy who's just trapped by his illegal job and wants out, but knows he must do horrible things if he wants to escape?
To the OP: I guess what I'd want to know is what do you mean by "seemingly doomed." If this is an established relationship where the guy's got one foot out the door and the story is about all the ways she pretzels herself to keep him - not a romance novel.
How about if she just sees he's better than everyone thinks--even himself--and essentially fights everyone in her life to prove he is that good (which, he really is, once he gets out of crime)?
To me, a romance is about two (or more, these days) people who are right for each other overcoming some obstacle that's keeping them apart, during the course of which they grow enough to earn their Happily Ever After.
Yeah, that's what I'm going for.
Brian, I'm curious. What romance novels have you read recently?
Frankly, not even a handful. I grew up more on movies than books, but I've always been a sucker for a good love story and I wanted to write an against-all-world love story for both page and screen. This is why I have to ask these questions. I want to share my ideas of love with readers; I've become fonder of what I get from books than from movies, and I want to share that, too. You can tell me I have no business writing novels, but I'm still going to try, and learn everything I can about it. Better that than languish without ever trying.
I would think it depends on why the relationship is 'seemingly doomed'. If it's because one or both are being jerks, I don't want to read a story in which the other partner learns to live with jerkiness. If the relationship is 'doomed' by distance, or circumstance, etc. that could still be romantic, as they learn to overcome or adapt.
Their obstacle: she's a vengeful cop on a personal vendetta with a major drug lord, and he turns out to be the drug lord's top assassin. The two met by chance. The drug lord doesn't know about it, and when he finds out he orders the assassin to kill her. When she finds out, everyone tries to tell her he's not worth it, but she believes she's seen a great man inside that killer and wants to help him atone for it (which he wants, too).
What exactly do you mean by "keeping" him? The problem with this is that it sounds like it might veer into "Women, if you're really, REALLY good - never less than beautiful, subservient, caring, self-sacrificing - your man might deign to stay with you. But that's entirely on your shoulders, because the man is entitled to leave you if you're not perfect" territory.
Definitely not the case in my story.
I have occasionally seen a romance novel where the main activity is the female character trying to get the male character to let her in, where the main barrier is his own insecurities or the stifling social expectations on him. It's certainly not the most common romance pattern.
I've also seen a few cases where a writer establishes a romance, then all but destroys the relationship, then builds it up, working through hurt and distrust. Personally I think this is a distasteful thing to do and I'm not fond of reading it, but it is one of only a few ways to follow the same pair of characters for a second novel after the first one was a romance novel. Lisanne Norman is one author who has written this kind of thing, if you are willing to read romantic science fiction.
With mine, they hit it off pretty much immediately, but they agree not to discuss their jobs. Then they really hit it off. Their budding romance is basically the easy part, even though it challenges the guarded cop to learn to drop her defenses a little and let someone in ... just a little at first. When all parties confess, then they really let each other in. The major conflicts are her fighting off the world to keep him, and her trusting there's still a good man inside the monster she finds out he has been (if he was really in there at all vs. being fooled this whole time) ... and, of course, bringing down that drug lord.
Then there's the sequels, where the characters (SPOILER ALERT) are married and trying to make the following work:
1. their marriage
2. her job while being married to an ex-con
3. raising their child well together
4. surviving all the remnants of his old job that are trying to kill them
5. him wanting to be a cop (or at least help cops in some way) despite being an ex-con
6. surviving all the secrets they both still haven't shared with each other
