The Trashy Romance Novel
My roommates and I went to Florida for Spring Break. I did not want to do work... so we avoided "Literature" by reading trashy romance novels. This is what we discovered:
Setting:
1. Present time (includes use of condoms, single mothers, working women, etc.)
2. Frontier life (the New World, Old West, American Frontier)
3. Historical Europe (during wars, political upheaval, etc.)
Plot/Character Development:
1. The heroine’s social identity is destroyed.
A. She may be poor, opposed to the social norm (religious, class, or otherwise), etc.
B. She may have been sexually active in a way that she feels is unappealing to other men, or is single at an older age.
2. The heroine reacts antagonistically to an aristocratic male.
3. The aristocratic male responds ambiguously to the female.
A. He fears commitment and has vowed against it.
B. He has been hurt before.
4. The heroine interprets the hero’s behavior as evidence of a purely sexual interest in her.
5. The heroine responds to the hero’s behavior with anger or coldness.
6. The hero retaliates by punishing the heroine.
7. The heroine and hero are physically and/or emotionally separated.
8. The hero treats the heroine tenderly.
9. The heroine responds warmly to the hero’s act of tenderness.
10. The heroine reinterprets the hero’s ambiguous behavior as the product of previous hurt.
11. The hero proposes/openly declares his love for/demonstrates his unwavering commitment to the heroine with a supreme act of tenderness.
A. He publicly accepts her differences.
B. He reveals a secret.
C. He saves her.
12. The heroine responds sexually and emotionally.
13. The heroine’s identity is restored. (Usually by marriage)