Gen, romance and a happy ending
Dec. 23rd, 2009 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI've recently been in the mood for romance novel and romance-novel-like stories, and have been pondering what exactly it is I've been seeking since some non-romantic stories hit the spot and many romantic ones don't. Reading fanfic has helped make this more obvious since you can so finely control exactly what kind of story you're looking for (to a point). EDIT: I read other types of stories too! Just sometimes I get a craving for a particular sort.
And I've decided that while some of it is that I'm just feeling soppy or whatever, what I'm really after is the characters going through a major positive change in themselves and their lives leading to a satisfying happily-ever-after ending(*).
It's much easier to do this with a romantic plot, they're disproportionately involving and there's this strong cultural belief that finding your true love=happy ever after. But most of Lois McMaster Bujold's stories hit the spot, as did the child-foils-alien-invasion plot of "The True Meaning of Smekday". (You'd think "defeating an alien invasion" would always count as a "major change" but many characters come out of it much the same as they went in)
Meanwhile established relationship or pornish one night stand etc stories do not since nothing significant changes.
And it's kind of annoying, because fic is divided into gen and shippy stories, and I find myself reading shippy fic because there's too much danger a gen fic will be some generic fit-in-between canon casefile type story and I won't feel that the characters have changed in any way. Original fiction is more likely to have a proper character arc, but is less likely to be as straightforwardly happy.
This ties into the fact I don't like episodic tv shows, and LOVE shows where characters grow and change and it all leads to a satisfying conclusion.
For example: I just finished watching "Avatar the Last Airbender". Before watching the show I kept hearing about the shipping wars and since I've been so focussed on romantic plots recently thought this would interest me. But the show makes it pretty clear when people are going to get together and there generally isn't much drama about it, and I found myself more involved in the struggles of the war and the changing platonic relationships (though I did get engaged with the romantic relationships too) One of the things I really liked was the way that they bothered to have complicated and intense relationships involving women that were neither romantic nor familial.
Anyway, I'm happy I came to this realisation since it'll make it easier to figure out what sort of stories to look for and also reassures me I haven't totally turned my back on my gen-reading ways. Not sure what I can do to find stories that do what I want without just reading more romance novels, though (and even some of them are more about the sexy than the emotional arc).
(*)I'm inclined to think that why I'm in the mood for this sort of story is that, well..life hasn't been full of positive change and satisfaction recently :/
And I've decided that while some of it is that I'm just feeling soppy or whatever, what I'm really after is the characters going through a major positive change in themselves and their lives leading to a satisfying happily-ever-after ending(*).
It's much easier to do this with a romantic plot, they're disproportionately involving and there's this strong cultural belief that finding your true love=happy ever after. But most of Lois McMaster Bujold's stories hit the spot, as did the child-foils-alien-invasion plot of "The True Meaning of Smekday". (You'd think "defeating an alien invasion" would always count as a "major change" but many characters come out of it much the same as they went in)
Meanwhile established relationship or pornish one night stand etc stories do not since nothing significant changes.
And it's kind of annoying, because fic is divided into gen and shippy stories, and I find myself reading shippy fic because there's too much danger a gen fic will be some generic fit-in-between canon casefile type story and I won't feel that the characters have changed in any way. Original fiction is more likely to have a proper character arc, but is less likely to be as straightforwardly happy.
This ties into the fact I don't like episodic tv shows, and LOVE shows where characters grow and change and it all leads to a satisfying conclusion.
For example: I just finished watching "Avatar the Last Airbender". Before watching the show I kept hearing about the shipping wars and since I've been so focussed on romantic plots recently thought this would interest me. But the show makes it pretty clear when people are going to get together and there generally isn't much drama about it, and I found myself more involved in the struggles of the war and the changing platonic relationships (though I did get engaged with the romantic relationships too) One of the things I really liked was the way that they bothered to have complicated and intense relationships involving women that were neither romantic nor familial.
Anyway, I'm happy I came to this realisation since it'll make it easier to figure out what sort of stories to look for and also reassures me I haven't totally turned my back on my gen-reading ways. Not sure what I can do to find stories that do what I want without just reading more romance novels, though (and even some of them are more about the sexy than the emotional arc).
(*)I'm inclined to think that why I'm in the mood for this sort of story is that, well..life hasn't been full of positive change and satisfaction recently :/
