Ever read a romance where nothing much seems to happen? Girl meets Boy and they live happily ever after? That would certainly make for a short book and a boring one, too. When in real life do relationships ever work that way? When girl meets boy, she sometimes doesn’t even like him…although she may think he’s hot. It’s very convenient when we fall for the right guy, but you’ll never convince me that it’s without conflict.
All relationships run into issues, sometimes ice bergs of issues. When we read a love story, we need to see how our characters respond to the challenges. They lie flat on the page if they never hit a bump in the road. Let’s be honest, we want to get along with the ones we love, but this doesn’t happen all the time. We disagree over some issues and get frustrated over ironing these out.
Characters who learn to work things out—particularly if we can relate to what they’re facing—give us hope and take us on a journey we love. Whether these characters are pixies or millionaires or desk jockeys, if we connect with them, the way they face and over-come challenges makes us cheer. In every book of merit or movie that makes us weep tears of joy, the characters give us hope–or if they inhabit worlds far different from our own—leave us with a wonderful feeling of having been part of a triumph. We want our characters to win. In romances, we want them to win at love.