Writing Romance Novels: Life Lessons in Romance

Lynne K. Fukuda
Instructor of Anthropology
Central Texas College,
Schofield Barracks and Academic Advisor
Atlantic International University
Email:  lfukuda@hawaii.edu

Dedicated to all true-life heroes and heroines, sweethearts, lovers, wives, husbands, and friends.  May they always inspire others with the true meaning of love.  Romance is the icing to the sweet cake of love.  May they never lose that magic, that sparkle, that sweetness.  Let there always be love all around.  Bless you, dear readers and characters, for always inspiring me in my true work. Let me never lose that magic.

            For many young women, starry-eyed with thoughts of romance, the standard fairy-tale is our introduction into romance and romantic novels.  A prince or knight in shining armor astride a white stallion coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress is the scene played over and over in our young, impressionable minds.  The fairy tale then ends with “happily ever after,” meaning that the young couple eventually marries, has a family and grows into happy old people.

            In our Western culture, love is the essence of everything.  In America, people marry primarily for love, and in Europe, especially in Italy and France, amour or love is everything.  Other countries might not allow marriage based on love. Carefully choreographed, arranged marriages are more common where older couples choose for their children who they deem their ideal spouse.  Where is love in this formula?  “Love comes later,” wise men and women tell the young couple.  In some countries, young women are guarded as carefully as crown jewels so that they remain virgins until the day of their wedding.  Cloistered in homes with courtyards, reminiscent of Rapunzel who was kept in a tower by an old woman/witch.  Yet Rapunzel somehow managed to let her hair down to allow a certain young man/prince to visit her without being noticed by the old woman.

            In the western world, though, love abounds.  Perhaps it bespeaks of the freedom of expression.  Like a wildflower growing in the strong wind, love that is unhindered by old conventions can grow.  Those who are free to choose their loved ones can marry for love.  What more can anyone ask?

            Lovers, sweethearts, loving gestures, and sweet nothings abound, creating a fantasy and fiction that draw the lonely, longing hearts of young women.  Yet, what is romance?  Is it something that is akin to fiction, something that did not exist in the ageless struggle of animals as they fought to leave progeny behind?  As a biologist, I find that romance seems a tad bit impractical.  Courtship behavior, if that is what romance may be in human terms, is performed with a purpose of finding and securing a mate and producing offspring.  It is ritualized and perfected.  Each mate chooses for the best traits.  Healthy males with the best genes can outlast their rivals or fight and risk severe injury without dying, winning the admiring female.  The female, if they are chosen, are found to be the best if they are fertile, carry good genes and are physically attractive.

            In my own Catholic upbringing, romance or something similar only occurred with married couples.  “Be fruitful and multiply,” I heard in sermons.  Did this mean that romance led to marriage and then to a house full of babies? As a young girl, I believed courtship was purposeful, with the idea that a man would pursue an eligible young woman to become his wife and the mother of his children and honor her above all women.  The most romantic moment in my young life was the day of the wedding.  The woman would dress in her wedding finery of white lace, pearls, and silk.  The man would be dashing dressed in a formal suit.  When the vows were exchanged, also very romantic, the golden rings would also be exchanged.  Dreaming of becoming a lucky bride like some of my older female relatives, I thought of my prince who would ask for my hand on bended knee and vow to cherish and love me forever.

            It never occurred to me that a man would not be honorable or faithful and not pursue women for the sole purpose of romance.  I had never given a thought to the fact that perhaps there were men out there who took lovers for the fun of it and discarded them as easily as paper napkins.  In my most romantic world, the words of forever, devotion, loyalty, and kindness symbolized what my union would possess.

            Yet I learned as I matured that romance abounded outside of marriage or properly betrothed couples.  Romeo and Juliet went against their parents’ wishes and proceeded to become lovers and elope.  They even managed to commit suicide.  Love suicide crops up in European literature as the ultimate romance when young couples, facing insurmountable obstacles, take their young and beautiful lives to remain together in the hereafter.  Incest, adultery, kidnapping, illicit love, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies and bigamous or even polygamous unions emerged. 

            It was tempting, certainly, to believe that these ill-fated relationships were romantic or the ideal types of relationships, and yet what sort of woman, except for the consort of a dying pharaoh, would pledge herself to an affair that ended only in certain death?  I was no Juliet, nor was I one of the pair of melancholy lovers written of by Goethe who commits love-suicide in a lake.  Loving unto death, “‘til death do us part,” wrongly twisted seemed to draw admirers who heard of such romances.  In times of war, of disaster and uncertainty, when death seems near and love is the only saving grace, perhaps, men and women do indulge in the last bit of happiness, defying convention, morals, and strict upbringing.

            “He would have died in war; she would have never seen him again,” someone might say.  I did dearly admire Gone with the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara’s hardiness in pursuing the men in her life, yet I knew her to be a shrew, a faithless gold-digger, and a mean but pretty woman.  I also sighed when reading Anna Karenina, who abandoned her kind, faithful but boring and dutiful husband for a much younger, passionate lover. Yet I felt badly for her wronged husband and her son, who suffered as a result of his mother’s adultery. I thought of Camille, or the lady of the camellias, the pretty French courtesan who almost led a proper French nobleman into a life of debauchery.  If she did not die an early death from tuberculosis, her lover would have led a decadent and frivolous life. I felt slightly glad that Camille died, still loving her French nobleman and ending her life when she was still very young and pretty. 

            All these tales of illicit love, adultery, suicide and scandal were ever popular because it seemed that in many tales love conquered all.  Did everyone wish to believe that, indeed, love overcame all obstacles and shined pure and golden for two lovers?  Did love make everything right in spite of the destructive path the two leave behind consisting of abandoned fiancées, discarded husbands, abandoned children, broken-hearted losers, and dead sweethearts?

            It is for certain that there are novels such as the Scarlet Letter that punish those who commit sins and also Tess of the D’urbervilles that make the heroine suffer. And yet they seem to be far less than the popular romances that create fantasies of running off with a lover with no consequences.

            I did not admire the abundance of such literature or such stories made into movies, soaps, and television serials.  Where was the story of the fairy princess with her rescuer, the prince on the white stallion?  Where was the brave soldier who protected a young maiden from harm in the dangerous time of war?  Where had the brave men gone who were cowboys, farmers, and dukes who would make a woman feel loved and protected, passionate and devoted?

            When I was in my early college years, Lady Diana Spencer was married to Prince Charles of Great Britain.  It was a fairy-tale affair, and the marriage made even the most cynical of women starry-eyed.  And yet, everyone knows what eventually happened. No longer did the prince love his princess and vice versa. They grew older, and their marriage soured; there was no ever after.  A tragic death ended the princess’s young life, causing yet another sensation for tabloids and tabloid-readers, creating an icon just as strong and lasting as Marilyn Monroe, and yet there was no happy afterglow, no sweet nothings in the very end.  If Princess Diana had been able to find the love of her life, it would not be the man who was supposed to be the love of her life for all eternity, the Prince who married her, but another man whom she met as a young and still-pretty divorcee.

            Ironic and satirical stories of “ever-after,” when even Snow-White and her prince grow older and bored and unromantic, are popular with the cynical crowd.  Cartoon depictions of a middle-aged and sagging prince and his shabby and no longer pretty princess appear, making the readers laugh. Physical beauty cannot remain intact through the ravages of time.  This we know because some have resorted to face-lifts, tummy-tucks, and rigorous dieting and exercise to ward off the evils of aging.  Yet inner beauty remains or perhaps begins to grow stronger.  Some couples become less romantic as time goes on because they are more comfortable with one another.  “It’s too stressful, falling in love, being in love, and being romantic,” some couples confess.

            And yet, does love not make the magic and bring to life the possibility that a romance can last just as a marriage and the fog of love create beautiful men and women even though they are no longer physically so admirable?  What of men who profess to love their wives every day of their lives?  What of women who still think of their balding sweethearts as the youthful hero who swept them off their feet?

            Does this mean that romance and romance novels are things made of pure fiction?  Do they make the women and some men of the world believe that romance is not beyond reality?  I do hope so.  I am in love with the classic romance novel, the Rebeccas and the Jane Eyres that are clean-cut and yet so very romantic.  Gothic in taste and yet appealing to women over the generations, they still speak of the longing of young women.

            I prefer pure romance with beautiful people whether it is physical or spiritual.  It allows me to dream and to wonder.  Like the fading lights of a couple kissing in a scene from a movie in the golden age of film instead of having blatant coupling in modern films, much was left to the imagination.  Love, too, thrives on magic and mystery.  What chemical formula creates feelings of love?  Even ingesting chocolates, bringing forth chemical changes in the brain cannot mimic the feelings of passion and love.  No scientist can ever create a potion so perfect that one can experience love in a bottle.  There has been no love potion, although village witches swear by them.  Love can emerge with two people who are just friends, familiar to one another almost as siblings, and yet, a more powerful and sometimes destructive love emerges from two individuals who hardly know one another.

            Different types of chance meetings emerge.  In the thousands of people one sees in a lifetime, two people are matched by fate.

            “We met in a train station and stared at one another across the train car during the busy, confusing era of the war,” an older couple told me.

            “We met in a car accident. My car collided with his,” another said to me.

            “We met at a party by accident. I never intended to be there,” a happy bride confessed.

            “I met my ex on a holiday. It was a big disaster.  I was in love with him mostly like a summer romance.  We divorced six months later,” another informed me.

            So many situations, so many formulas for falling in love.  The chemistry, the magic, the mystery of love and romance spans the world over.  Even in countries where couples cannot choose their spouses, life-risking love exists.  Veiled women, who never even spoke to their beloved, fell in love by watching their beloved’s eyes.  Love poems, stories, legends, and myths abound.  In ancient times even the gods and goddesses fell in love with mortals and spawned certain populations.  Wars were started over lovers; feuds have lasted because of wronged love.

            I am in love with the idea of love. I know that true love may not be as romantic as what I imagine.  But as a relative novice, as a dreamer and writer, I paint the images of love as an artist paints a canvas.  Almost like reality, and yet an interpretation. I am not ashamed to present my views on love.
 
            My life experience can never possibly cover all the situations, obstacles, conflicts, and romances of my heroes and heroines.  It matters little.  In my imagination, all come alive, telling the tales to the readers of how love should be.  I let my readers know what I think of as the ideal of love, and what sort of wonderful prince or princess a reader should look for in his or her daily life.  “Do not settle with one that seems alright.  Find one that suits you best,” I want to say. 

            Sometimes I counsel friends and acquaintances who are in unhappy relationships, who have bad marriages and sometimes spouses or lovers who are abusive.  “There is a wonderful prince out there, full of chivalry, love, and kindness.  There are true men out there, who are the models for the heroes of my novels,” I tell them.

            In my writing, I wish to relate to my readers, especially to my female readers, that they should never remain in a bad relationship and should look for the very best type of union with another.  Love is out there.  Life is short.  Affection, kindness, and true love is rare and a treasure.  Yet, first of all, relationships should be nurtured carefully with mutual respect.  Shaky beginnings should be secured with repetitions of loving acts and words.  Thankfulness for true love, for one’s spouse or sweetheart should be a daily thing. But if all this does not work, look for your own true love, the man or woman who was fated to be your other half.  A mismatched couple that constantly fights, that resorts to violence or lacks mutual respect should not remain together.

            I give thanks to kind men and women who renew my belief that there are good people out there, capable of loving and caring.  I admire those who love with responsibility, who have big hearts and are able to love for a lifetime.  It is they who are my inspirations to write stories of love and never give up.  It is those couples who populate my fiction and allow me to continue with the belief that there is indeed true love.

            As a romance writer, I try to balance my own beliefs with the stories that draw audiences. I do not wish to write what people say are trashy romance novels.  I do not like “bodice-rippers” or X-rated versions of love novels.  I do not like stories that glorify illicit love.  If my heroines or heroes commit unspeakable acts, they almost certainly pay for their sins. Like Jane Eyre who almost wrongfully married an already married man and almost unwittingly committed adultery with Mr. Rochester, and like Mr. Rochester who loses his home and his fortune and his sight, I make my sinful heroes and heroines suffer hardship, illness, and heartache and fix their wrongs to make them triumph in the end as better persons.

            I do confess that I have heroes and heroines who may commit sins.  Sometimes, a hero is faithless to his fiancée simply because he never loved her or was engaged through an arrangement.  In some stories, a husband does not love his wife because she is too selfish and cold and loves another woman in his heart.  At times, a young maid falls in love with her employer.  Sometimes the heroine falls pregnant due to a night of passion.  And yet I do not allow them to get away with all the pleasures and none of the penance.  Each and every one of my characters struggles to repent and spend years and sometimes decades righting a wrong.

            What would the novel Rebecca have been if Mr.DeWinter was happy about murdering his wife and getting away with it, marrying a much younger, prettier wife and living a quiet, blameless life?  It would have never made a popular, classic novel.  What would Gone with the Wind have been if Scarlett never suffered poverty, hardship, loneliness, disappointment, and embarrassment because of her passionate, selfish nature?  If Scarlett never matured or never became a stronger person, she would have not been the heroine that she is for all time.

            I write my novels so that those who have erred have a chance to make up for their sins and become better beings.  I give the heroes and heroines chances to triumph over the unfairness of birth, of status and fate.  What does it matter if a simple young girl is sold into prostitution but becomes a loving, faithful, ideal wife who is cherished by a scarred, lonely man who recognizes the jewel before his eyes? It tells a tale of love that can heal, that can transform a person so that old mistakes, old wounds can be magically erased. Living richer lives, especially in the 21st century as times changed, sometimes for the better, we can relate to this concept.  Why must a person suffer eternally for a mistake made in youth?  A divorcee can live life afresh and start another new life.  In the past, widows, divorcees, and unwed mothers were cursed for the rest of their lives to live out lonely, solitary lives.  And yet these situations fascinate us, and we learn more about what women struggled against in the past when society was rigid, morals were set in stone, and there was very little breathing space for those who were free thinking.

            I believe in the healing powers of true love.  When a woman or a man is divorced or widowed, when a young mother or father loses a child, when a physical injury robs the character of a normal life, and when illness strikes to deny a once healthy person a peaceful life, it is finding a loved one that bring hope to the suffering.  Trusting the loved one, healing takes place. I think of the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. I sigh when I watch the silent-film version of The Phantom of the Opera.  It is the beauty of the heart, the purity of the soul that redeems a man who is much wounded or disfigured in mind and body.

            How does one deal with a man who seems imperfect in every way and yet deserves to be loved because of the man he wishes to become through his efforts? It is love that allows another to forgive.  It is love that allows another to overlook imperfections that are not truly serious at all in the grand scheme of things.

            Like life lessons learned by those who have loved and lost, the men and women of my novels too, learn the hard way to love once again.  Is it not more valuable and more wonderful when a love is a prize to be obtained after enduring hardship and heartache?  Yes, I believe so.  Just as a good novel has a major conflict or obstacle for the hero or heroine or both to overcome and when they both fight against it and triumph, the climax of the novel appears.  This is the moment when love does conquer all.  A loving glance, a passionate kiss, and the comforting hug of another come as a reward.  United as one, two weak beings feel that they have conquered or can conquer the world.

            And yet, I know, romance novels as they may be, the stories may be too heavy for readers who simply wish to curl up with an entertaining book near the fireplace during a cold winter’s eve or to lie on a beach under an umbrella in the summer and simply leave the book behind when the time is up.  Yet I am certain that there is someone who will love my stories, filled with memorable young men and women, of middle-aged and even elderly men and women, who are endowed with the qualities that I find ideal and loveable.  Human frailty, human struggle, and human triumph endear them to me.  Some bear scars or handicaps from war or have an injury; others are born with a mental disorder that makes them melancholy or prone to suicide.  Some are beautiful but frail and sickly.  Others are plain but feisty and passionate.  There is a hero or heroine in my novel that will remind the reader of a quality they too possess or a quality someone they know or love possesses.

            Once latched onto the hero or heroine or both, the reader wishes to journey with them on a path, sometimes winding, at times painful and eventful to see it to the end.  Then, at the end of the path, is happily ever after.  My novels always end with happily ever after, for the hero and heroine, or at least for their descendants.

            I plan every scene, every nuance. The change of the seasons, the sounds of nature, the favorite meeting places are all in my stories.  The homes, the furnishings, the clothing, the jewelry all appear to haunt the reader. I look for places in the real world throughout the day, throughout the years.  I recall the burning youthfulness of a European spring.  I remember the chill wind of late autumn in New York.  I can envision the sweltering summers near the lake, and the bone-chilling and lonely winters in Europe.  I know the unbearable hot summers of the tropics, and the nagging humidity of the Hawaiian Islands.  Reflecting emotions, the restlessness, joy, sadness, anger, passion, and tiredness of the hero or heroine, I write in my scenes.

            I think of the physical pains and the emotional pains.  Does the old scar throb or the head ache badly?  Does the heroine feel the discomforts of advanced pregnancy?  How does the heroine feel when she is left alone, widowed and with small children?

            The families with servants, children, relatives, and neighbors as well as the community come to life, adding more pages, more adventures, and more words.  But like the tears that are not real, produced by capsules filled with ammonia for old-time actresses to cry without really crying, I too contrive my scene, trying my best to bring out the most romantic of seasons, of rains that cry, of sunsets that rage, and of the spring days that glow with young, green new life.  My heroes and heroines, although they may deny it, are truly works of beauty, possessing features that are enviable to many readers.  And yet, they are not snubbed, because in spite of their special attributes, they are cast into the storm, into the struggle of human lives, to suffer as we all have suffered or even more.

            Sympathy, empathy, and understanding, all combine to create an active reader who will cry and laugh, who will cheer and pray for the hero and heroine.  It is the writer’s art to draw them in, showing the readers some believable characters who are also loveable and imperfect and yet so perfect and beautiful.  When heroes appear, women sigh and say, “I wish I had such a man, such a prince or knight who will bring love and devotion and show me such romance.”  When a heroine is loved, the reader feels loved, enveloped in the hero’s arms along with that of the heroine.

            It is not wrong to imagine such love.  For some women, especially those in bad relationships, unhealthy relationships, or abusive relationships, it may awaken them to the thought that perhaps there are such heroes, such princes who are kind and good.  And so loving and faithful like the heroines in the novels, these battered women, these abandoned wives, these hopeless girlfriends will find a way to end these bad relationships and search for a better one again.

            My divorced friends and single friends read romance novels, consoling themselves when they have no boyfriends or dates, that there may be such a wonderful man out there in the wide world.  I know for certain that there are such men for they exist in my own family.  My grandfather loved my grandmother, almost to a fault, perhaps because she was so pretty and yet so frail and died very young.  My great-grandmother loved her husband, my great-grandfather, who died in his thirties.  They had spent their married life as best friends and rode their horses on their vast horse ranch.  My great-grandmother, although she went on to marry two more times, never forgot her beloved first husband.  It was he who held her heart, and it was he who came to her side when she took her last breath.

            I have seen how sweet my own uncle is to his much younger wife, as she battles depression and clings to him like a young girl.  I have known honorable men in uniform who love their wives and think of them even when far away in another land.  I recall the days when my own father was young and in love with my mother, taking her to special places and sharing sweet nothings.

            Divorced men and women too inspire me with their willingness to try once again.  Divorce, a very devastating life event, scored to be more stressful than a death in the family or death of a spouse, can scar a sensitive soul.  How does a divorcee go about and find happiness once more?  There are novels that tell tales of divorced or scarred men and women who try after overcoming many obstacles to find true love.  These stories too are much beloved, speaking to many in our world who have also suffered much loss.

            Like death and rebirth, like winter leading into spring, life goes through many phases.  It is with love that we celebrate the passing of the seasons, the phases, the difficult times of our lives.  It is when we remember how much we have loved, how capable we are of love, and the magic of love, that is boundless, ever renewing, ever hopeful and full of faith that creates meaning in our human lives.

            I also know of devoted women who loved their dead husbands all their lives and never remarried.  Of the old school, their marriage was once and forever.  This did not mean that their union was perfect or always very blissful. It meant that being of stout hearts the two people who married cherished their union until death.  Through hardship and poverty, family tragedy and death, war and times of uncertainty, disaster and personal loss, they weathered the obstacles of life together as a team.  I watched my own godmother care for her aging husband who was suffering from Parkinson’s and cared for him for many years until her death.  I met loving navy wives who phoned, e-mailed, or wrote love letters to their beloved husbands every day that they were away at sea.

            I scour our local papers to read stories of true love, love that lasts for decades and for a lifetime and try to believe that there is happily ever after.  Going against parents who were much opposed to the union and later being forgiven, keeping a love alive across thousands of miles or even the passage of years, real gems of love survived.  Couples who were forced to separate and reunite also emerged, telling a tale of the hardiness, of the relentlessness of true love.  Even my own aunt, who died a happy woman, was reunited with a childhood sweetheart. Both married separate spouses and moved away.  Then, in their later years, both widowed, they met once again and married, spending their best years together, living out their lives into old age, dying only years apart.  I worked with a schoolteacher who was widowed for ten years, lonely but enduring widowhood by loving her young students with all her heart.  One day, fate brought her a widower who was also alone, who shared her love of charity work, who shared her dream of helping AIDS orphans in Africa.  In their twilight years, she and her husband are living their dream in Africa as they love one another passionately and romantically and live life with a strong passion.

            These stories, these true romances, inspire me time and time again.  I know that they exist, like the miracles of love, almost like the quirks of fate, surviving in the large and confusing sea that is Earth.  How does anyone find anyone else once again, in spite of e-mail and faster planes and globalization?  I have lost touch with friends overseas simply because I moved and misplaced their addresses or their phone numbers.  And yet there have been stories of reunited friends and sweethearts who meet fatefully once again after a lapse of years, not even making an effort to be reunited.  They meet once again and fall in love deeply, feeling that the gods had a hand in bringing them together. Out of the billions of people on this earth, what are the chances that two people should ever meet again in very different places?

            As an unpublished writer of romance novels, I feel like the typical unrecognized writer.  My own beliefs in romance too mirror this incomplete status.  My novels have never been published. I am far too ashamed to publish them for fear of sounding too old-fashioned, too strange, too out-of-touch, and too fanciful to be popular or even widely read.  My own beliefs in the prince astride a white horse, the symbol of undying devotion, chivalry, and kindness as well as manliness and bravery also are incomplete. I have never met my prince.  Locked in the restricted corners of my Catholic beliefs where adultery, illicit love or premarital relations are not allowed, my upbringing prevents me from indulging in the typical graphic and lustful writings of the popular romance novelist. A writer once taught me that a romance writer does not write about human physical relations.  Instead, a true romance writer writes romance, a careful balance of fantasy with reality that allows the reader to dream.  The writer writes about love, not the graphic details of a coupling, but the emotions that overtake a human heart when feeling love.

            I wonder if there is such a place, where my writings, those that are along the lines of Rebecca and Jane Eyre, of Wuthering Heights and the classic fairy tales of old that were written decades and even centuries earlier, could draw a loyal and appreciative audience. I do not give up, writing at least twenty pages a week and working all at once on five to ten novels that I tweak now and then.  New heroines, new situations, new adversities, new heroes, new backgrounds, new ideas flourish in my mind.  As I write each new novel, I become the heroine, dreamy-eyed as I am transported into another time another place.

            Perhaps the escape from reality is the essence of romance novels.  A less than perfect husband who no longer cares to bring flowers or remember special dates, or a boyfriend who takes his sweetheart for granted or burps and swears like a typical caveman, drives many a woman to the sanctuary of the romance novel.  There the cover with a beautiful young woman and a handsome, muscular man, who are equally intelligent, sensitive, and wonderful calls to the unhappy wife or girlfriend to a short retreat into a place where she can once again dream.  Remembering how one fell in love with one’s spouse or partner, recalling what made them so special is also another benefit of reading romances.  It is love that transforms our ordinary spouses and sweethearts into heroes and heroines.  In the eyes of loved ones, they are indeed beautiful, special beings.

            I have not found reading romances to be detrimental.  Although many religious people call them immoral, citing the content of the more popular, more shallow and graphic romances, it does not seem to lead women to do the same thing as their paperback heroines.  Overcoming adversity, realizing mistakes, seeking a commitment, and many ending up married women, the heroines of these novels seem to realize what is right.  Even an adulteress in Casablanca and in Gone with the Wind realizes her mistakes and makes them right.  There seems to be no heroine who is popular for her immoral behaviors.  Only Casanova, a male with womanizing ways, seems to be an epic hero.  Ditto for Don Juan who was also a very famous playboy of sorts who cherished his conquests.

            Instead of leading women into temptations to do wrong, romance novels seem to provide the recipe for a more interesting, lively, and happy married life or union.  Those who read them are often, much to our surprise, college-educated, career types or women who simply love to read.  They are often more creative, have better relationships with their other halves and seem to know how to enjoy their lives.

            I cannot endorse such findings, for as a writer, my romance novel heroines are far more romantic due to the fact that I have never been jaded by the idea of romance or by reality.  I remain, still, the young girl who dreams of her prince who will rescue her from the demons and dragons, who will shower her with chivalry and loyalty. My hero may be a soldier who rescues me in times of war or disaster.  My beloved might be a handsome doctor who saves my life from a deadly illness.  He might also be a melancholy Native American warrior who takes me away from Western civilization.  Hopefully, he will not be an alien from outer space who will sweep me off me feet into his spaceship, for I will be very disappointed to learn that he is not of my own species.

            Yet, at times, I am cynically wondering where my prince resides.  Perhaps he has died, being of a different era when men were more chivalrous.  Maybe he lives far across the ocean, dreaming too of a princess to rescue and finding only self-reliant, strong women who have little need of a prince and hero. I am reminded of the movie with Meg Ryan called Kate and Leopold, where a time travel glitch allows an European nobleman-gentleman to appear in 20th century Kate’s life, who dreams of such a chivalrous man to come to her rescue.  Finding 20th century men to be not so great, Kate dreams about a man who is her prince.  The movie called The Prince and I, where a young pre-med student meets a real-life prince from an obscure dukedom in Europe, also is along the same lines.  Prince meets girl, prince wants to marry girl. But like many modern romances, with the exception of Kate and Leopold, prince does not marry girl.

            Attending workshops in romance-novel writing, I learned a few things.  “Write realistically, write concisely, and write to the audience,” a teacher said.

            “Be modern, be in touch,” another said.

            My mind raced with different thoughts.  And yet, seeing the popularity of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars with Princess Leia and her rescuer-brother, Luke Skywalker, and watching the revival of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, I wanted to believe that fantasy also had a place in romances.  Situations that seem too contrived to be real and environments that are too beautiful to be accurate all arise.  Why is it that the elf-princess is always collected and pretty and never has a sniffle?  Why does Princess Leia always have perfect hair when she walks through dusty planets and flies through outer space?  Why does Scarlett always look so pretty even when dressed in rags or in recycled curtains?  Why is it that none of them ever have the urge to visit the water closet?

            When questioned about the romantic scenes filmed for Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman, who played Ilse, the heroine of the story, confessed that her tears were false.  They were the result of an irritation from a small packet of ammonia that was held under her face to bring out the artfully produced, glistening tears on her beautiful youthful face.  No swollen eyes or nose here, just a romantic, wistful look that made the hearts of men and women of that era sigh.  I do not think Casablanca would have been very romantic if Ilse decided in the critical moment to blow her nose loudly while she cried.

            What Ingrid revealed, as a professional actress who was trained in the academy where actresses of old learned their trade, was that heroines did not have to shed real tears to be sad or romantic.  It is the same for romance novels.  They do not have to be made of the stuff of reality to be romantic or fun, entertaining or popular.  And yet they should not be so remote that they have no admiring audience.

            As a sweetheart, fiancée, and female friend, I have experienced the many emotions that classic novels bring out.  Heartache, longing, pain, torment, bittersweet memories, and passionate love all emerged in my life.  I have been the young Mrs. DeWinter when I became suddenly a fiancée of a man whose girlfriend died tragically in an accident only six months before.  I have been the confused Jane Eyre when I had a crush on an engaged man without knowing it.  Sometimes I feel like Scarlett’s friend, Melly, who is trusting and sweet because I have lost a sweetheart to a much stronger, more passionate rival who pretended to be my friend.  I have lost precious male friends to suicide and to illness, to accidents and to overdose.  All my experiences, all my emotions, all my sadness and disappointments permeate my writings as I relive the moments of confusion, sadness, and tragedy.

            Perhaps if I had never been any of those heroines, if I had never experienced human suffering, pain, and loss, I would have never been able to write my novels with such emotion.  Details emerge as I recall the moments. “What did it feel like when someone died?” I think to myself as I write. I do not use life experience simply as a tool.  In my novels, I honor loved ones and create them into the models of my heroes or heroines.  Reading about writers from the past, I know that many of them also did the same.  There were always models for their characters.  Although they too wrote fiction, not all details are created out of thin air. 

            Like many popular romantic songs of old, romance novels, romantic stories and movies all draw an audience of admirers who feel very much the heroine or hero.  As loving beings, as mature people, as women and men who have loved, we all feel a common emotion that draws us to such tales.  If we have led normal, happy lives that seem relatively common and boring, we may long for a romance that we cannot have and have flights of fancy as we read our romance novels, experiencing the emotions of love, passion, and longing so that we wildly cry our eyes out and sigh until our chests hurt and feel our hearts ache with the feelings of young love.

            “Romance is for the young,” some people said, judging from the passionate unions of young lovers.  And yet, as we live longer and remain healthier, the capacity to love and feel passion is extended. I do not promote illicit love, affairs, or unions out of wedlock, but I do encourage widows and widowers, divorcees and unattached men and women of an older age to seek out the love of their life.  “Romance is for the young at heart,” I say.

            I know of a lovely widow who was alone for ten years.  She then met a kindly gentleman who was also a widower of a similar age who stole her heart.  They lived together happily for many years until ill health made them part and go back to their hometowns to be cared for by their grown children.  Life does not end with the death of a spouse.  Life also does not end with the end of romance.  Some, like many typical Americans, get divorced and married many times.  I feel that it is not the lack of romance but the abundance of romance and the belief in a new beginning that drives many people who have failed in the past to try once again.

            Happy stories in our local paper show the devotion of married couples who made their marriages work. The renewal of vows at ten or fifteen or even fifty years renews my own belief that there is a happily ever after.  I view photos of loving couples, both aged by the passage of time, dressed in wedding finery as they renew their vows and take a romantic second honeymoon and sigh.  Romance is never dead!

            It is these people and many people who are lovingly married even to this day who instill in me the belief that there is true romance, and my prince awaits me on a beautiful, clear day sometime in the future.  It matters little that I may be fat and middle-aged from waiting or that he may be bald or rounded too.  I know that when I see him smile, and when the smile I respond with is the same, that he is the one I have looked for all my life. 

            I am a lifelong romantic, looking for the prince of my life.  I know that I will not bend to modern mores or be less Catholic in my approach to romance.  I prefer a time when a woman was respected for her mind and her upbringing, for her potential as a faithful wife and companion.  I dream of married romance so that no priest will frown upon my union like an avenging angel or have a union that is opposed or hated by all.

            It is for certain that many women and many men also wish to relive the youthful moments when they were first in love.  It is a desire of many readers to recall how they felt when falling in love, when they were passionate, confused, and simply floating about in another realm.  Reading romance novels emphasize these emotions, these times, these thoughts and these feelings.  Romantic novels renew the feelings of youth and create healthier outlooks on life in many of their readers.

            I am a realist and know that we all carry our faults, our differences, our backgrounds, and our quirks.  I am knowledgeable of the fact that all unions do not work and not all couples are well matched. I learned from girlhood that a good relationship takes careful work and maintenance like the garden that I tend.  I watch animal couples and know that devotion and unconditional love, purity and honesty can all coexist.  I learn from successful couples that marriage and unions are not made of a bed of roses. If they are indeed in a bed of roses, I know to expect quite a few thorns. I know that thorns don’t hurt as much if one offers the other a cushion.  Even laughter can cure the pricks of those nasty thorns.

            I write my novels, shaping my heroines of all colors, shapes and sizes. I match them with their heroes, also of many different appearances and personalities.  It is the formula of what works, the conflicts, obstacles, the struggles the couple endures that make the perfect novel, the perfect romance.  None of my heroines are beauty queens and none of my heroes are Mr. Universe, and yet, to one another, they are perfect mates; a match made in the heavens or in the minds of the novelist.

            I manipulate the couple, forming my own ideas of what they must suffer, what they must learn and experience, and what they must know in order to truly deserve one another. I make them work for the reward.  Fighting demons and dragons, swimming against the raging river, suffering sickness and disease, my heroes emerge, their bravery, their lovingness, and their manliness intact.  Suffering ostracism, ill health, exile, wrongful accusations and temptations, my heroines emerge with their purity and gentleness intact.  It is only after the struggles and hardships, the denials, the mistakes, arguments, separations, misunderstandings, and the realizations that the hero and heroine are reunited.

            And like the heroines and heroes of my romance novel, the completion of each novel brings me a sense of happiness and peace.  There is always a happily ever after for each couple, for each life.  Like renewing one’s faith in the goodness of the world, in true love, and the capacity for devotion, I write and read my novel.  I relive the moments, the feelings, and fall in love once again with the thought of love.  If one can create such feelings, such ideas, is it not possible that true love can exist?  I am the most devoted reader of romance novels, the writer of romances and the heroine of my novels. I am truly in love with romance and romance novels of the heart.

Postscript: 

            I thank all the people I have met through my life who have inspired me in all things related to romance and human relationships. It was very hard to understand humans, being more of an observer of animals.  Reclusive by nature and living mostly in isolated situations, I have only been with people socially for the past few decades.  It is the romantic novel that brings people to life for me, teaching me the ways of men and women.  How very strange that fiction can inspire real-life learning.  May there always be romance novels for all to read in the centuries to come.

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