Bev, could this be because the focus of most L&C stories *is* the romance between the two characters, just as the focus of most romance novels is the relationship between those characters? Maybe it's inevitable in the sense that in each case, you are describing a couple with strong romantic feelings for each other and the ups and downs of how they get together. Maybe "romance" is such a universal theme that we all 'know it when we see it', even if we can't describe it in specific terms?
Hmm . . . again I’d have to say yes and no. Yes, in general terms what’s you and others are thinking is true, Kathy. A love story is a love story is a love story and to some extent all of them are going to “sound” similar no matter how many times and ways one tells it or even who tells it.
However, there is another sense where it’s not necessarily inevitable that they’re all going to sound alike. This has to do with the “language of love” - something that’s been written about a lot by those that actually “study” romance fiction, particularly as popular culture and not necessarily as literature. It’s a proven phenomenon that romance fiction as a whole has a completely different sound, feel, sense or rhythm to it than other genres of fiction with emotional nuances, sub-contexts and symbolisms that are unique to the genre, i.e. almost literally a language pattern of its own, and the primary reason for this appears to be that most of it is written by women for women. This sometimes flowery use of language appears to be the way women “communicate” with each other when storytelling.
This isn’t saying that all women and conversely no men are comfortable writing that way or reading it but simply that the phenomenon exists and isn’t an accidental, one time occurrence. It happens all the time, even with authors who’ve never read a romance before attempting to write one, and is probably one of the reasons romance as a literature form is held in such contempt to begin with – a large portion of the population simply doesn’t feel comfortable reading it and isn’t going to be unless they “learn” to understand the inherent language and accept it for what it is.
What I find curious about the fact that so much of L&C fan fiction “sounds and feels” like a romance novel to me, a longtime romance reader, is that apparently quite a lot of the writers that haven’t or don’t read romances are tapping into those rather unique language patterns without even realizing it. Inevitable? Maybe, but probably not in the way many of you mean and it’s definitely curious all the same. Don’t ya think?
For a great reference work on this phenomenon, check out a collection of essays by romance authors called DANGEROUS MEN & ADVENTUROUS WOMEN: ROMANCE WRITERS ON THE APPEAL OF THE ROMANCE and edited by Jayne Ann Krentz [ISBN 00610084638].
Beverly :-)
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