Grand Unified Theory of Analyzing Romance Novels
a multipart series in the name of methodology.
my aim for these posts is to explain my approach and the general concepts i use when analyzing a romance novel, by ali hazelwood or otherwise. this work is informed by marianne noble, hayden white, and the anthology work dangerous men and adventurous women, edited by jayne ann krentz, among countless other sources. links generally lead to my own posts where i discuss an idea in greater detail.
this is part 1. part 2 and following will be linked when posted.
Generally when i am looking at a romance novel or other romantic fantasy, my main analytic tool is identifying and focusing on what that “fantasy” is. Not the plot, but what the plot is built to explore. It might be a rape fantasy, a redemption fantasy, an eroticization of a specific dynamic, anything. I look at that fantasy through three lenses: stakes, power dynamics, and framing devices. in practice, this could be applied to any work, and i have especially found it fruitful as well for serialized tv drama of the cw classic sort (buffy, gilmore girls, riverdale, etc). i find it most useful for anything with a propulsive sense of drama, reliance on tropes, and genre conventions.
Stakes in a romance novel, communicated early and often, set up what the two(+) main romantic interests want out of each other and in general. What is the reason they can't just start dating, and what is the reason why they want to anyway? This is often where tropes come in; many different combinations of tropes can be employed to create an interesting scenario. IE fake dating can create stakes; why do they need to fake date? What happens if someone finds out it's fake? What's the appeal of smashing them together this way (friends expecting PDA, forced proximity, usually an “only one bed” scenario, etc)? OR best friend’s brother: what would the friend say? Would it ruin the friendship/sibling relationship? An enormous amount of romance novel stakes rely on women worrying about the expectations/feelings of others, and the release of finding that they can actually chase their own pleasure, it can be worth it, and their partner will support/encourage them. This is an especially common emotional thread for Alibooks. the most important part of the analysis for me here is the level of remove in identifying the stakes. a romance author creates a specific situation in order to act out a fantasy. there is some crucial tension they are trying to evoke in putting the characters together in this format. this becomes most interesting, imo, when the the shape of stakes change but that central tension does not. this is where we move to the next phase, the power dynamic between the characters.
Power dynamics are essential to the contemporary romance novel because they create stakes and inform/justify framing devices and most importantly, they are a tension engine. A romance novel’s existence, as explained above, is based on the stakes: why can’t they just be together? Power dynamics are more often than not part of that equation. If he wasn’t her boss- if she wasn’t older- if she wasn’t recently dumped and afraid of getting hurt again - etc. or, the dynamic could be about information: he knows they are online pen pals and she doesn’t. He’s out and his secret boyfriend isnt. She cant communicate enough to be a stable polyamourous partner. Etc. basically, anything that is going to have two characters entering a scene with differing aims, views, understandings of a situation, or each other is going to have more interesting things going on than two characters who agree on everything/communicate well. And in those disagreements are plenty of opportunities for one or the other to have “the upper hand” however temporarily or permanently. IE, in some romances these dynamics shift constantly/along different lines, like jack and rose in titanic. She is rich but bound down and inexperienced; he is poor but skilled and opportunistic. So much tension in their dynamic!!!!! Or, in ali books, there is generally a one-way power dynamic, in which our romantic interest man slowly but carefully stalks his quarry, pins her down, and keeps her. That is a fantasy too. As I have often discussed before, it is the eroticization of real-world power dynamics that makes the most compelling romance novel fodder to me. What does the described predatory mode have to do with real world stalking? What about his behavior makes it erotic instead of creepy? How are women finding ways to cope and process through this reclamation of real experiences? analysis of power dynamics thus must be informed both by the world of the novel (including any worldbuilt social structures) and by the "real world" power dynamics the novel as an object exists within. my best examples of this are my omegaverse and men love orphans posts, describing two crucial alitropes and their applications.
Framing devices, like my interest in frames in general, are the Everything Else. what world, reality, circumstances do these characters live in that makes the stakes and the power dynamics possible? Where are the general balances of power and accepted truths of that world? Is it something recognizable like a hospital or a bookstore? Or an elven world with mediocre worldbuilding? Or a historical period that contains a level of misogyny that makes a buying and selling a wife fantasy more believable? These things are crucial to reaching the romantic fantasy. For a generation built on fanfiction, the shape of the surrounding world is crucial. It makes everything more immersive. But even before that: when harry met sally is good because we know the long arc of their falling in love, and that can only happen if we zoom out. Emma is good because we understand the intricate social world knightley and emma exist within. And of course, the choice of these frames are not Neutral. When an author is building a fey world, what are the common worldbuilding elements they use, and where do those come from? What’s the significance of ali choosing science academia for her romances when science academia is so frequently the site of sexual harassment for young women? similar to power dynamics, framing devices must be considered both in the context of the novel and in the context in which it was published. often this has a lot to do with trends in publishing, as with ali's college sports setting in deep end, which came after hannah grace's college hockey series became superpopular.
i use all three of these tools in tandem with each other; splitting them out into three categories is more arbitrary than necessary. in reality its like a three way venn diagram with plenty of overlap. but i found it useful to define each of them in order to better understand my own process. next i want to talk about the archetypes, subversions, and expansions common in romance writing, so stay tuned for that. peace hands emoji
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