Struck by Cupid’s Arrow: The Advantages of Insta-Love in Fiction

by Jessica Nelson

Two main characters lay eyes on each other while [insert preferred meet-cute here] and there’s an instant, undeniable, irrevocable connection that sets them on the journey of a whirlwind romance.

Insta-love? Psshh. More like insta-lust.

I object to the “love at first sight” trope in fiction on principle. It’s annoying to see two characters go from strangers (or worse — enemies) to proclaiming their undying love and willingness to die for each other in less than seven chronological days — or 20 pages, whichever comes first. Unless your story involves Cupid literally shooting the characters with love arrows, insta-love is highly unrealistic, even by fiction standards.

That said, I am an avid reader of romances, and I have found that, as a reader, I have very little patience for slow-burn romances.

Maybe the inundation of insta-love has ruined me for more measured love stories, or maybe I’m just a naturally impatient person, but if the characters are still hemming and hawing about whether or not they might like each other by page 100, I’m liable to start screaming, “Get on with it already!” at my Kindle.

Readers like me prove that insta-love has a place in fiction. But there’s a way to do it wrong and a way to do it right.

The most “wrong” way to do it — and most universal example — is the classic tale of Cinderella.

Discarding the other themes, there is nothing more unbelievable than the way Prince Charming falls for the tale’s heroine.

Like, seriously: He dances with a girl for one song and falls so madly in love her that he’s willing to marry her and make her the queen of his kingdom, but he never gets her name, can’t remember what she looks like, and has to use her lost shoe to identify her? Bleh.

The development of love — of a romantic connection — is often a driving force behind emotional conflict and character growth. If a story uses insta-love, then one avenue for growth and development has been taken away. The emotional heart of the story has to shift accordingly, generally becoming introspective: discovering oneself, battling inner demons, healing from old traumas, etc.

A budding romance usually features heavily in the story’s plot; insta-love makes the plot rely almost solely on external forces: something that keeps them apart or pushes them together, or an obstacle they must overcome as a team. If you’re like me, I like my love stories to have some flying bullets or sword fights, maybe a crime or two, and the occasional explosion. I’ll settle for a ghost or other paranormal or fantasy elements.

When done right, insta-love successfully raises the emotional stakes of a plot-driven tale. With the characters already so invested in each other, any threat to one of them or their relationship becomes more intense for the reader.

If there’s insta-love, there’s likely to be insta-lust, which can be just a trite, particularly given its overuse in the romance genre. I’ve read descriptions of characters’ physical reactions to meeting “the one” that have literally made me laugh out loud. And every time I read about body parts “tightening” or becoming erect, I’m liable to roll my eyes.

Don’t get me wrong — such descriptions have their place in adult romance, just maybe not so explicitly in the meet-cute. Even if the author is relying on insta-lust the get the characters together, it can be overdone.

Insta-lust at least has a basis in reality — more so than insta-love at any rate. In every human interaction, we eye up the other person and make a series of split-second judgments. One of those may be deciding whether or not we find the other person attractive and to what extent.

The advantage to insta-lust is it draws the characters into close proximity and keeps them coming back together. As long as the characters are interacting, there are opportunities for love to grow.

Of course, intense physical chemistry can also bring its own set of interesting plot points.

Inta-intrigue, however, hits the sweet spot. It incorporates the physical elements of attraction (without the more explicit details) and the emotional elements of love. How does the person’s appearance make the character feel? What about the person piques the character’s curiosity? What internal or external force draws the characters together again and again?

With insta-intrigue, there’s plenty of room left to develop a romance — as sweet and clean or hot and steamy as you’d like — that can be built into the plot or around which the story can evolve.

All said and done, insta-love and insta-lust have their place in the literary tradition. And there are a lot of readers who look for just that. But there are ways to do wrong and ways to do it right. The key to using insta-love or insta-lust effectively is to balance it with other emotional and plot elements to create a story that still has room for growth and change.

So sometimes it does pay off to be struck by Cupid’s arrow.

Spaghetti Trap

by

Charlotte Firbank-King

You’ve probably heard the term Spaghetti Western. It’s a sub-genre of western movies that reared its head in in the 1960s whose main aim was to imitate what was already a successful genre. They were low-budget movies using unknown actors produced and directed by Italians. The movies were mightily slated by critics in the US, England, and Europe. In fact, an Italian critic first coined the phrase Spaghetti Western. Then A Fistful of Dollars became a box office hit and it was a free for all; everyone in the industry was in on the action.

The same can be said for romance novels. Scholars have made a study of the romance genre, and authors like Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and Samuel Richardson, among others, are seen as the forerunners of romance. In the 1930s, British publisher Mills and Boon started churning out escapist, feel-good books with happy endings aimed at women. They had to be tasteful and chaste with wilting virgins and hunky men.

Barbara Cartland started her writing career in 1901 with a risqué novel, Jigsaw, which became a bestseller. She is still considered the most prolific romance writer of all time. She produced over 700 novels, writing 23 books in one year, for which she holds the Guinness World Record. Georgette Heyer accused her of plagiarism—an accusation the high-flying society gal, Barbara, managed to field with her team of lawyers. Her work naturally deteriorated and became what can only be called Spaghetti Romance.

My point is that millions of authors have followed in her footsteps with varying degrees of success, but mostly failure. With the advent of Kindle, badly written books have escalated the spaghetti trend. The Twilight saga set off a spate of vampire books and movies, and Fifty Shades of Grey has put erotica on a new high with no holds barred.

My question is, are there no original authors out there? I write romance, but I’m almost embarrassed to admit it. Years ago, when I decided that I enjoyed writing romance, a publisher told me to read as much as possible in the genre I’d chosen. I spent an unhappy year reading thousands of romance novels. At the end of this year of penance, all I knew was that I didn’t want to write like that.

I urge every aspiring writer to read as many books as they can in the genre of their choice—then think laterally and be original. Don’t fall into the spaghetti trap.