Love Genre Flashcards
(27 cards)
The underlying question in every Love story is:
How do we navigate the emotional minefield that is love? How can we attract a mate, avoid heartbreak, and maintain a lasting relationship through a lifetime?
The universal theme or CONTROLLING IDEA of a Love story is:
Love triumphs when lovers overcome moral failings or sacrifice their needs for one another. Love fails when the lovers don’t evolve beyond desire.
- Core Need
Connection
The core need of the protagonist in a Love story is connection. The protagonist yearns for connection, intimacy, and the assurance that another human being sees and knows them.
This connection awakens during the Lovers Meet scene. Romantic love, or eros, requires more vulnerability, more risk, and a broader commitment than other relationships. Eros includes sexual desire but also asks that we grow and become better versions of ourselves so we can form a tighter bond with our beloved.
- Core Value
Hate to Love
The Love genre is derived from the need for connection, which spans love and hate and gradations in between and beyond. The negative points on the spectrum go beyond hate to indifference and hate that masquerades as love, and the positive aspects of love branch in three directions, depending on the subgenre of the Love story. We see three subgenres of Love Story: obsession, which is driven by desire; courtship, which is driven by a need for commitment; and marriage, which is driven by a need for emotional intimacy.
- Core Emotion
Romance
When the lovers sacrifice selflessly, without hope that it will do them any good, the reader feels the Core Emotion of romance, completing their connection as it should be. If the protagonists can find authentic connection, perhaps the reader can too. Love stories allow readers to feel romance without risk.
- Core Event
Proof of Love
The CLIMAX of the Love genre is the Proof of Love scene—the most powerful moment in a love story because it’s when readers feel the love for themselves. It proves the power of two together is exponentially stronger than the power of one.
The Love genre has eight necessary conventions:
- Triangle
- Helpers and Harmers
- Ordered and Chaotic Approaches
- External Need
- Opposing Forces
- Secrets
- Rituals
- Moral Weight
Convention: Triangle
There must be a triangle of relationships that includes a Rival. In courtship stories, the Rival is the third-wheel AVATARS who is involved with one of the lovers. The Rival might also be a personal ethic: “This person is great, but is morally corrupt. I can’t be with him.” Also see Opposing Forces.
Convention: Helpers and Harmers
There must be AVATARS for and radically against the relationship. Those in favor of the match help out, and those opposed to it will do everything to destroy it.
Convention: Ordered and Chaotic Approaches
The lovers have opposite approaches to love and life, but as they integrate as a couple, their opposite approaches become a balanced whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Convention: External Need
There must be something outside the romance that is driving the actions of the main AVATARS.
Convention: Opposing Forces
There must be forces opposing the match. These may be beyond the avatars’ control (e.g., social rules, family values), or within the avatars’ control (e.g., bad habits, beliefs).
Convention: Secrets
There are secrets in every love story. The four kinds of secret are:
1. Secrets society keeps from the couple (e.g., they discover that they’re related)
2. Secrets the couple keeps from society (e.g., they don’t tell their friends about the relationship)
3. Secrets the couple keeps from one another (e.g., the Rival, past or present sins)
4. Secrets one of the lovers keeps from himself/herself. Essentially the character flaw that prevents intimacy. (e.g., Darcy’s pride or Elizabeth’s prejudice)
Convention: Rituals
The lovers develop rituals of intimacy such as shared traditions, private language, and inside jokes.
Convention: Moral Weight
Love Stories are morally loaded. Those who cannot love have some moral failing. In order for them to live happily ever after they have to overcome the moral failing by story’s end.
The Love genre has six obligatory moments:
- Lovers meet
- First kiss or intimate connection
- Confession of love
- Lovers break up
- Proof of love
- Lovers reunite
Obligatory moment: Lovers meet
The lovers must become aware of one another in order to connect and commit—or not.
Obligatory moment: First Kiss or Intimate Connection
The lovers must acknowledge that they care for or are attracted to one another.
Obligatory moment: Confession of love
One lover becomes vulnerable by expressing the depth of their feelings to the other lover.
Obligatory moment: Lovers break up
Something forces the lovers apart willingly or not.
Obligatory moment: Proof of love
The lovers must sacrifice for one another without the promise that it will do them any good.
Obligatory moment: Lovers reunite
The lovers must come back together again to commit to one another or not.
The Love genre can be further broken down into three SUBGENRES based on the protagonist’s domain:
- Obsession
- Courtship
- Marriage
Subgenre: Obsession
(Psychological Driver: Desire)
In the Obsession Love Story one of the lovers has such a shallow but intoxicating passion for the other that the Life/Death value comes into play. Obsession Love Stories are cautionary. They don’t progress beyond the Desire value, and usually end in tragedy.
The Great Gatsby, Damage, Romeo and Juliet
