Valentines

In honor of a recent holiday, (or as a sigh of relief that it has once again passed by for happier days of the year), my post this week will be about a couple of the different types of romance commonly found in stories.

In the world of modern love stories, there seem to be two main archetypes: the Cinderella and the Beauty and the Beast. Both arising from classic stories that are several centuries old, these each follow a basic path to get to the happy ending. In Cinderella, it’s Unhappy Female is rescued from dire fate by Godlike Man. In Beauty and the Beast, Female is doing all right on her own, but is compelled to rescue Brooding Man from whatever spell/deformity/dark secret he is plagued with.

Each type of story has gone through waves of popularity. In the nineteenth century, Victorian romances featuring Edward Rochester and Heathcliff led many young women to conclude that saving your lover’s tormented soul is the highest of callings. Somewhat alarmed at this trend, the youngest Bronte sister, Anne, wrote The Tennant of Wildfell Hall to show the dark side of marrying the bad boy and trying to change him. Today, through the popularity of a series of books that shall not be named, I think that this trend is repeating itself. Men with dark pasts/realities/secrets/fill-in-most-anything-that-will-make-him-suitably-broody are much more exciting than your average boy next door. And Prince Charmings don’t exist anyway, right?

Cinderella stories always seem to be most popular during times of crisis. Walt Disney’s famous movie version was made in the years immediately following World War Two, a time when many women wanted nothing more than to hope that “No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.” These days, we see Cinderella stories as chauvinistic anachronisms, and I don’t see them very frequently anymore (excluding the realm of fanfiction, but that’s another post for another time).

In writing, I think that there is a tendency for authors to veer to either extreme. We either write untouchably wonderful characters or characters so abhorrent that it’s hard to believe when someone falls in love with them. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. My stories, though, have a definite Beauty and the Beast tilt to them. Scars, crushing past tragedies, hidden identities, and unspoken love abound.

There is something to be said for a happy ending, though. So why is it that I have such a hard time writing them? Come back next week for a discussion on killing characters. Be sure to bring your axes!

-Melissa

Posted in: archetypes,love,stories