Romance Novels

The real problem with romance novels is they teach you to make up scenarios in your head and invest heavily in them and that miscommunication is a one and done thing.

The romance book entire is a scenario, made up in someone’s head, and invested in by the readers. Yeah, if the teen girl gets kidnapped by a dragon rider and things get steamy, the reader is going to be able to figure out that’s not plausible. I think we can all separate our dragon-kidnapping fantasies from real life. Even if not, it’s an unlikely problem to confront in the day to day world.

But inventing a scenario itself and the reader’s investment in it is a real problem that confronts people all the time. And that’s where romance novels get dangerous.

Similarly, most miscommunication in novels is matters of plot and artifice. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen two people talking past each other for two hundred pages, both perfectly clear if you know what they mean, and both completely misinterpreting the other. Yet that’s what’s up.