# An Issue of Principle



## Sam (Feb 7, 2013)

From the very first moment I started writing thrillers, I had one goal in mind: put everything I would like to read in a novel into my own. Fast-paced, action-filled, suspense-laden stories that would make readers want to keeping turning the pages. What I learned along the way is that a lot of modern thrillers employ romantic elements to try to pander -- for lack of a better term -- to every market they can. I have always been a staunch detractor of romance in the thriller genre. In my opinion it serves no advantage other than being a poor plot device intended to give characters human qualities. 

Let's face it: Most sex scenes in thrillers (possibly novels in general) are poor and cringe-inducing. They come across an attempt to prop up a shoddy part of the story with some intimacy and fleshing-out of characters. They're usually fast because in that genre you can't waste ten pages describing something which will have little relevance on the overall story. To write a really good sex scene, it helps if your name is Nabokov or Updike. The rest of us should just stop while we're ahead, in my opinion. 

Which brings me to the point of the thread: In the book before my WiP, a love story began to rear its head a third of the way through the novel. It wasn't intended, but I went with the flow and wrote it. It wasn't the typical hero meets beautiful woman, hero saves her life, woman shows her gratitude. This one took place between the son of my MC and a girl in his high school. But it goes against every principle I have in regards to thrillers. I'm not a man for rules, but this is one that I have never broken to this point -- in any novel I've ever written. Obviously there's no sex involved at that stage. But it's still a love story. It's still a huge no-no for me. 

To what extent do you tolerate -- again, for lack of a better term -- love stories in novels? Obviously the romance genre is out. Am I being unreasonable?


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## Potty (Feb 7, 2013)

I find them highly annoying. If I want to read a romance I will go buy one, I hate hate HATE it when I end up reading some romance between two character that I respected before it all happened. Usually I just end up getting annoyed at the uselessness it gives a character, being in love that is. Eragon is a prime example. He spent three books building up this poor romance (it was almost an after thought in most cases, big fight scene lots of talking and 'Oh! Forgot, we're supposed to be in a romance, want to get busy? No? OK moving on') only to have the whole thing shrugged off right at the end.

"Everything I am is for you."
"Okay, see ya then."
Ends.


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## Lewdog (Feb 7, 2013)

Wait Sam, is your MC the school's principal?


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## Kevin (Feb 7, 2013)

I liked it when Fritz Lieber did it. There was nothing overtly sexual about it. How could two guys(Fafhrd; mouser) go through years of without it? People get together. They often stay together. Why not include it? You don't have to, but I don't see anything wrong with it.


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## JosephB (Feb 7, 2013)

My novel is a love story at it's core. It's about a man and woman who reluctantly fall in love and try to make a life for themselves under very trying and unusual circumstances. The circumstances and what they go through are what make the story. It's not about romance -- it's a story for grownups about love and relationships.

And most of my short stories are about love and relationships on some level -- and all the things that can come with it, including loss and disappointment. I like to write about real life -- things that could happen to anyone -- and love is part of life. Kind of hard to get around it.


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## shadowwalker (Feb 7, 2013)

I read a thriller several months ago that had the MCs (both detectives) develop a romance very, very quickly - and they had sex at the drop of a hat, often when they should have been trying to do something important - like following up on a new lead. It was exactly as you stated - thrown in for no real purpose, sex scenes placed inappropriately, and it dragged down the real tension of the story. 

That said - there are times when having a romance within the story can work. I've mainly seen this with series, though, where the relationship is ongoing and readers really get to know the characters. I guess I could see some sort of "sexual release" scene after some particularly horrendous happening, but... it's iffy, at best.


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## moderan (Feb 7, 2013)

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. An attempt at a grand love affair can ruin a novel or series;Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos is such for me. The characters don't seem naturally fitted or so much of a stretch that things could get interesting. Simmons doesn't handle that as well as everything else he does, and that's a shame because he's just about the best at the rest.
But look at Aragorn and his lady:though it is all formalized, Tolkien's affair works wonderfully in-context.
More to the point in terms of genre, Lawrence Sanders has written some good grappling in with his thrillers, Some of it seems forced, but not as a rule. As a thriller writer, you could work from the suspense stories pool and look at Hammett or Chandler for your torrid affairs. Or James Cain...and have them tear the place up whilst they indulge the peccadillo. Just a thought.
You could look at film too-say, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, which emulates Cain.


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## squidtender (Feb 7, 2013)

Sam, I say go for it. Some of the best stuff comes from just following your instincts and seeing where it leads. Maybe it wont work and you edit it out later . . . or, maybe this gives your story a little extra push over the top. You'll never know until you just let it out

(and if this is the story about the setup at the cabin involving the president . . . I can't wait for you to finish)


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## Kevin (Feb 7, 2013)

Hmm, _Hyperion cantos_, that's another one that it didn't bother me. Maybe I was just so stoked on the rest of it that I didn't notice. The making love on the battlefied, it was so...dangerous. And the idea of this person that you don't know, but the chemistry is so powerful, I think I liked it.


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## Lewdog (Feb 7, 2013)

Kevin said:


> Hmm, _Hyperion cantos_, that's another one that it didn't bother me. Maybe I was just so stoked on the rest of it that I didn't notice. The making love on the battlefied, it was so...dangerous. And the idea of this person that you don't know, but the chemistry is so powerful, I think I liked it.





> I think I love you so what am I so afraid of?
> I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for
> I think I love you isn't that what life is made of?
> Though it worries me to say that I've never felt this way



:rofl:


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## Deleted member 49710 (Feb 7, 2013)

Pandering is bad and sex* for its own sake is boring, sure. But if a love story emerges organically I'd follow it. After all, love is an important concern for most real human beings. Seems to me like a mistake to foreclose it entirely for your characters. Unless they're psychopaths.



*er, I mean, gratuitous sex scenes


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## moderan (Feb 7, 2013)

It is an important part of life. Therefore I have my characters indulge. Tentacles, pistons, transistors, whatever works. Phil Farmer had it right. 
*ducks*


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## Sam (Feb 7, 2013)

Them's my ducks.


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## moderan (Feb 7, 2013)

I have a large magazine. Better get them ducks moving.
*brandishes copy of Interview*


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## Leyline (Feb 7, 2013)

Everything I write these days seems to be a love story. And any story bereft of love, in some fashion, is basically uninteresting to me.


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## moderan (Feb 7, 2013)

Leyline said:


> Everything I write these days seems to be a love story. And any story bereft of love, in some fashion, is basically uninteresting to me.


Waldo couldn't have said it better.


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## Gamer_2k4 (Feb 8, 2013)

You say you don't like romance in thrillers because it never fits with the story.  In your story, the romance seems to fit.

So what's the problem?


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## Eluixa (Feb 8, 2013)

So, Nabokov or Updike, you say, eh? 

I think your muse knows better what you need to do than you do. Let it happen, man.


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## Kyle R (Feb 8, 2013)

Love stories are at the core of the most successful modern novels and films.

I'll just rattle off a few from the top of my head:

Titanic (Jack and Rose), Spiderman (Peter and MJ), Avatar (Jake and Neytiri), The Terminator (Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese).

Pretty much every Disney film made is a love-story at its core. 

I'd say love is a good motivator in stories, if you want to extend beyond the base-urge of survival as motivation (which, in itself, is often good enough to make a great story). 

With love as a factor, the well-being of another character becomes critical to the main character. So not only is love good for romantic, gushy moments, but it's also an intelligent way to raise the stakes (put a loved one in harm's way and then throw every obstacle you can find in front of your main character, and watch him battle aliens, defeat armies, and move mountains to save her).

Men will cheer the action. Woman will swoon for the romance.

/end secret formula for Best-Selling Novel. 

Sell the movie rights and do it all over again. Lol.

So, yeah, I'd say, don't worry about the principle of the matter. Embrace it and see were it takes you. It might be onto the NYT Best-Seller's shelf! :encouragement:


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## dolphinlee (Feb 8, 2013)

Part of a poem I wrote to thank friends for reading my novel goes

Next Sue read it, she thought something was missing.
She wanted more friends, a lover and kissing.

Lise, she took it but the dog she just hated.
She thought just like Sue, “Please get Emma mated.”

As all seven people who read it said the same thing I wove a short-term boyfriend into a couple of chapters. 

I couldn't bring myself to write about them having sex. So what I wrote is a little like the scene from "From Here to Eternity" where Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster are together on the beach. in the film they start to kiss and the camera pans away to the waves rolling onto the shore. 

I use 'talk to text'  when I write. I couldn't even look at the screen when I dictated this bit. Editing it was a nightmare. 

The most amazing thing happened,  because my MC now had to be in certain places this triggered two new chapters (nothing to do with the 'romance') which not only fitted beautifully into the book; they strengthened it.


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## The Rust on the Razor (Feb 8, 2013)

I am new to writing, but certainly not to reading. I've never really discussed what I read with others, and maybe this is my problem as I am properly surprised that there are readers who will only tolerate a certain genre, and if a story does not conform to a genre then it's out. 

As a reader I don't seek to read novels, I want to read a *story,* and the most beautiful things about stories are that you never know what you're going to get. Well, for me anyway. Otherwise if you did know what you're going to get, you'd just get the same thing over and over, surely? Maybe I'm over thinking.

I'd just let your story be what it wants to. You know you've done it justice then.


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## Nickleby (Feb 8, 2013)

Not too sure what the debate is here. Fiction is a reflection of life. Love and sex are parts of life. It's inevitable that some fiction would mirror those components. If there were no sex in the real world, especially the desire for sex, life would be pretty dull.

Every story has a conflict. In many cases that means conflict between two people, and that means a relationship. There are all kinds of relationships. Why include certain types and exclude others?

The OP's complaint seems to be, not that there is romance in fiction, but that there is poorly written romance. Throwing together two characters who have nothing in common is poor writing. Glossing over or ignoring the good parts (or the bad parts) of a romance is poor writing. Reducing a relationship to one-liners is poor writing.

Good characters will tell you what they will and won't do. If they want to fall in love, you'll know. It's not easy to write romance, but if you have good characters, that's a good place to start.


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## moderan (Feb 8, 2013)

[ot]Sssssh. Don't say "debate".[/ot]


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## J Anfinson (Feb 8, 2013)

I have no problem with it, as long as it makes sense that they would. It should be obvious, not leave me scratching my head.


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## Bruno Spatola (Feb 8, 2013)

moderan said:


> [ot]Sssssh. Don't say "debate".[/ot]



What if we're talking about fishing in Jamaican accents?


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## Jon M (Feb 8, 2013)

Including love scenes and giving them the attention they need (in order that they are not half-baked) may just be part of the reason your novel breaks with the formula. Avoiding something 'on principle' just sounds like another way of saying the author is shoehorning his preferences into every story he writes.


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## Ariel (Feb 8, 2013)

There is a time and a place for all things.  Love and romance is a normal human interaction.  Just because there's something exciting going on doesn't exclude love from the real world--why should fiction be different? Also love stories span history and place.

Orpheus braved the underworld for Eurydice, King Arthur died because of Guinevere, and Odysseus travelled for ten years to get home to Penelope.  These are all exciting stories that have lasted throughout the ages that would be so much less if their characters hadn't been able to love.


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## moderan (Feb 8, 2013)

Bruno Spatola said:


> What if we're talking about fishing in Jamaican accents?


I usually fish in the water. Do you catch many that way?
*ducks*


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## HooktonFonnix (Feb 8, 2013)

KyleColorado took the words right out of my mouth. Love increases the stakes, and if you can successfully get your readers to care about the characters you've created, then the romance alone can be enough to keep them rifling through the pages because they end up needing to know how things turn out. One example like this that immediately comes to mind is the show _the Office_. The show was hilarious and everything, but I found myself watching because I *had* to know how things would end up between Jim and Pam. It was subtle but ingenious. I find myself trying to emulate that feeling in all of my writing. Still, if it starts feeling artificial and contrived, it's probably a better idea to kick it out and focus on your main story.


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## JosephB (Feb 8, 2013)

On the other hand if the OP doesn’t want to include a love story in his thrillers -- that’s fine too. I don't read thrillers, but I'm guessing it's not a requirement. But why not just call it a preference instead of trying to make it about “principle?”


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## moderan (Feb 8, 2013)

It isn't a requirement for thrillers. More a spicing up-they generally tend to sex stories rather than love stories.


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## JosephB (Feb 8, 2013)

Then maybe everyone is going on about this for no good reason.


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## moderan (Feb 8, 2013)

I don't think there's any maybe about it, Joe.


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## JosephB (Feb 8, 2013)

There's always the gold star you get for best answer.


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## moderan (Feb 8, 2013)

I don't think that's gonna get it.


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## JosephB (Feb 8, 2013)

Not likely. That was a collective "you" -- the ones that are so popular with the kids these days.


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## moderan (Feb 8, 2013)

Ah yes. So we all get them. Kinda kills the buzz.


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## Sam (Feb 9, 2013)

JosephB said:


> On the other hand if the OP doesn’t want to include a love story in his thrillers -- that’s fine too. I don't read thrillers, but I'm guessing it's not a requirement. But why not just call it a preference instead of trying to make it about “principle?”



I never said it was a principle for every story or everyone; I said it was a principle for me. Since you don't read thrillers, Joe, you mightn't be aware that a hackneyed love story, which a lot of them are, can ruin such a book. I just wanted to get some insight on what other people thought of that. Isn't that what this forum is for?


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## JosephB (Feb 9, 2013)

Sam said:


> I never said it was a principle for every story or everyone; I said it was a principle for me.



I didn't say or imply it was a principle for every story or everyone. It was clear from the OP you were talking about yourself  -- and you said that other thrillers include them. Semantics really -- but it seems like a preference to me. If you want to elevate it to principle -- whatever.



Sam said:


> Since you don't read thrillers, Joe, you mightn't be aware that a hackneyed love story, which a lot of them are, can ruin such a book.



Again, I gathered that from the OP. And all kinds of stories have love stories shoe-horned into them, in books, movies, TV -- etc. It’s not exactly a big stretch.



Sam said:


> I just wanted to get some insight on what other people thought of that. Isn't that what this forum is for?



And I told you what I thought – and that is, if you don’t want to include love stories -- don’t do it. It’s up to you. Basically supporting your take on it --  and yet for some reason out of ALL the responses, you choose to call me out and suggest I don’t know what “this forum is for.” Weird.


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## Olly Buckle (Feb 9, 2013)

> In my opinion it serves no advantage other than being a poor plot device intended to give characters human qualities.


Working that statement backwards, giving your characters human qualities can not only endear them to the reader but can also give reasons for them acting the way they do. Plot devices have mostly been done many times by many people, sometimes brilliantly, sometimes very badly. I would be inclined to the opinion that it is not the plot device that is poor in most cases, but the way the writer has used it; a crude lever always looks like a crude lever, but if it fits in with the other elements of the book, if it is well crafted and sensitive to the overall tone and character, then it has the potential to add enormously to the book, and that could be a considerable advantage.

I recently read 'Smiley's people', terribly dated, and not really a thriller, very little actually happens, but the character of Smiley and the way he goes about things is partially explained by his dysfunctional relationship with his wife. It is not 'sexy' stuff, and definitely not 'feel good'. at times it is even slightly uncomfortable reading, but it does add something to the novel overall and it is not a slapped on generic fix; that I think is what you are complaining of, and quite rightly.


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## Kevin (Feb 9, 2013)

Well then, that's settled. All those in favor of insisting that Sam W. include romance in all his works, say 'Aye'.  Motion's passed...therefore  he must forthwith contain in all his written works, scenes of  kissing, crying, mellodrama, hand-wringing, etc. , but strictly exclude any scenes of gratuitous naughty naughty, unless of course, it is vital to the story, or will increase overall sales... Next!


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## moderan (Feb 9, 2013)

Nay. Longing from afar, quick gropings in the stairwell on the way down to the escape plane, hurried glances. Love in thrillers is mostly theoretical, sex is fleeting. Who can you trust? Just do it to heighten the intrigue or as aerobic exercise.
Wait for the debriefing


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## Bloggsworth (Feb 9, 2013)

Dashiell Hammett & Raymond Chandler? Most of their novels, when you examine them, were driven by the hero's relationship with the women in the story - Little Sister, The Long Goodbye etc.


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## JosephB (Feb 9, 2013)

I tend to thing there are probably two categories here, roughly -- writers who force in love stories and don't do a particularly good job of it -- and those who do it naturally and pull it off. I don't think it's any big mystery why or how a good one can enhance a story -- so there's no good reason to avoid it if you can make it work. In the end, it really all comes down to choice and chops.


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## moderan (Feb 9, 2013)

Bloggsworth said:


> Dashiell Hammett & Raymond Chandler? Most of their novels, when you examine them, were driven by the hero's relationship with the women in the story - Little Sister, The Long Goodbye etc.


That's been mentioned.



JosephB said:


> I tend to thing there are probably two categories here, roughly -- writers who force in love stories and don't do a particularly good job of it -- and those who do it naturally and pull it off. I don't think it's any big mystery why or how a good one can enhance a story -- so there's no good reason to avoid it if you can make it work. In the end, it really all comes down to choice and chops.


Yes. There's no reason why you shouldn't learn how to write a love scene or a protracted romance. It can only enhance your toolkit.


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## Terry D (Feb 9, 2013)

Sam,

If the romance has arisen naturally from the characters in your story, I say run with it.  Trying to force the story in a different direction just because it's never happened in one of your books before would be as contrived and formulaic as trying to stuff in some romance just for the sake of having it there.  Be true to the story being told and you'll be fine.  Just my opinion.


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## Candervalle (Feb 9, 2013)

I would dare to say leave it in and work with it. It was not your intention to create a love story but somehow it blossomed on it's own. I have never found a meaningful relationship by intentionally searching for one. I have always stumbled into them much like you stumbled into it one in your work.


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## dale (Feb 9, 2013)

i've found romance creeping into a few of my horror stories. once i set out for it to be that way, the other times it just happened.
i guess sometimes love and blind terror don't lurk too far away from eachother.


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