Male leads in romance novels vs. fanfic
May. 26th, 2008 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockI'm almost halfway through the Key of Light in audiobook format by Nora Roberts, and I'm enjoying it. I don't think I've ever read Nora Roberts before, but she's good. I can see why people like her. Her narrative is smooth, and she builds decent characters. Good dialog.
The story is a little cheesy, but that's okay.
One thing that I forgot, not having read a real "romance" genre book for a long time, is how perfect all the characters are. Especially the men. There's like a set of perfect "types" and all male characters must fit one of those types, and in addition they must be independantly successful, handsome, charming, and nice but not too nice.
Sometimes fanfiction makes you forget what certain book tropes are like, because you end up reading romance stories for what in the actual show are minor side characters, and thus sometimes you end up reading about people who aren't so perfect because they're not the main heroes, but in fanfic they can get their epic romances too.
Kinda spoils you, actually. Now I'm reading about this male character Flinn, who runs a newspaper and has a big dog and is a reporter/editor and decent and noble and sexy, and they just introduced his childhood friend who inherited the family company and is wealthy and sexy and handsome and "the family prince", and I have to roll my eyes.
I mean, these days I'm writing/reading romantic fanfic about male characters that are:
1) a socially retarded, introspective, perverted, and probably clinically depressed ninja assassin whose sense of self-worth is defined by his job
2) a selfish teenage exiled royal with serious anger problems whose face was mutilated so badly by fire that his eye and ear on one side are deformed, in a way that no one would ever call pretty or handsome.
3) an alien who can't stand to stay on the same planet for more than a week and jumps through space and time and is afraid to be intimate and probably has a God complex and definitely has a superiority complex (although he also good and true mostly nice and very fun to be around).
In terms of character importance in their respective series, that's one minor character, one regular supporting character, and one lead character. Naruto, Avatar:TLA, and Doctor Who, respectively. None of them are exactly ideal or stellar examples of what lead characters in a romance novel would be. Interesting how fandom has altered and shaped our tastes, isn't it?
The last romance book where I fell in love with a "perfect" male lead was The Time Traveller's wife, and that probably had more to do with the fact that he was a librarian who had time-travelling adventures as much as the fact that he was supposed to be attractive and charming. I do have a weakness for Indiana Jones-style adventure geeks.
The story is a little cheesy, but that's okay.
One thing that I forgot, not having read a real "romance" genre book for a long time, is how perfect all the characters are. Especially the men. There's like a set of perfect "types" and all male characters must fit one of those types, and in addition they must be independantly successful, handsome, charming, and nice but not too nice.
Sometimes fanfiction makes you forget what certain book tropes are like, because you end up reading romance stories for what in the actual show are minor side characters, and thus sometimes you end up reading about people who aren't so perfect because they're not the main heroes, but in fanfic they can get their epic romances too.
Kinda spoils you, actually. Now I'm reading about this male character Flinn, who runs a newspaper and has a big dog and is a reporter/editor and decent and noble and sexy, and they just introduced his childhood friend who inherited the family company and is wealthy and sexy and handsome and "the family prince", and I have to roll my eyes.
I mean, these days I'm writing/reading romantic fanfic about male characters that are:
1) a socially retarded, introspective, perverted, and probably clinically depressed ninja assassin whose sense of self-worth is defined by his job
2) a selfish teenage exiled royal with serious anger problems whose face was mutilated so badly by fire that his eye and ear on one side are deformed, in a way that no one would ever call pretty or handsome.
3) an alien who can't stand to stay on the same planet for more than a week and jumps through space and time and is afraid to be intimate and probably has a God complex and definitely has a superiority complex (although he also good and true mostly nice and very fun to be around).
In terms of character importance in their respective series, that's one minor character, one regular supporting character, and one lead character. Naruto, Avatar:TLA, and Doctor Who, respectively. None of them are exactly ideal or stellar examples of what lead characters in a romance novel would be. Interesting how fandom has altered and shaped our tastes, isn't it?
The last romance book where I fell in love with a "perfect" male lead was The Time Traveller's wife, and that probably had more to do with the fact that he was a librarian who had time-travelling adventures as much as the fact that he was supposed to be attractive and charming. I do have a weakness for Indiana Jones-style adventure geeks.
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Date: 2008-05-27 06:00 am (UTC)And you have a really good point about the focus on being a ninja - I think that's part of the world as a whole - who you are as a ninja, and how who you are forms you as a ninja are all the characterization needed. I mean, really, do we get THAT MUCH MORE information about other characters? Like, do we ever see Sakura's house or family? Or even her relaxing and not simply waiting for either Sasuke or Naruto to enter the scene? I'm not saying you're not right, because I think you are, I'm simply mentioning that not telling us what he should seems like a large part of the mangaka's weaknesses as a writer.