"Never annoy an inspirational author or you will become the poison in her pen and the villain in every one of her books," -Shannon L. Alder
Happy Belated Valentine's day post, I guess? Except I despise Valentine's Day, even when I had a significant other. Beside the point.
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As a crazy, stupid teenager, I consume a lot of stories with crazy stupid teenage love.
Like the name implies, a slew of teenage love stories are, dare I say, problematic. They're only problematic because of the negative effects they have on our ideas of love, and, more importantly, teenage relationships.
Unfortunately, this was inspired by the trailer to Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon. Granted, I have yet to read or watch this story. However, while I was watching the trailer, I was struck with this repulsive sense of familiarity. This predictability that infects YA romances. While the genre has become more creative over the years, moving from basic rom-com setups to having more inventive premises and spins, a few things still permeate the genre, as well as how it's worked into stories as a subplot.
Hence, this is me bitching about YA romances.
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1. Love Triangles
Let's get this one out of the way. The most obvious and terrible trope of 'crazy stupid teenage love' is love triangles. Two people are madly in love with one person - or find them just super hot.
-Why It's Problematic
Very rarely do love triangles like the ones seen in YA fiction develop in real life. Surely, two people can like one person, but most of the time, the person caught in the middle is not so indecisive. If they are, it's a general rule that people dislike to be strung along like the way they are in YA fiction, so one base of the love triangle will drop off. They realize that the pursuit is useless.
Love triangles are only used to create drama, and to appeal to everyone's - especially girls' - desire to be desired, and this becomes wish-fulfillment. Don't use them, unless you put a unique spin on them, because most readers can see a bad love triangle forming from a mile away.
-How We Can Change It
Observe how 'love triangles' form in real life. See their nuances, and how un-dramatic they really are. Stay away from the stereotypes. Realize that there are very few times that you should employ a love triangle.
2. Misunderstandings
You know how it goes. Information gets omitted, people read into meaningless things, and suddenly, the girl thinks he cheated, or some variation thereof.
-Why It's Problematic
It's extraordinarily frustrating for the readers, because they know the whole story, most of the time, or they realize how ridiculous the reactions and emotions of the characters. This portrays that misunderstandings are an integral part of relationships, and that they always must be this dramatic. That every little glance means he's cheating. That every little comment means she doesn't like him anymore. It portrays a hyper-dramatic, unhealthy relationship that only breeds fighting.
-How We Can Change It
Realize that misunderstandings do happen in relationships, but never make them the central conflict. When they arise and are resolved, make sure your characters learn from the. Never use it as a way to create unnecessary drama.
3. Lack of Emotional Connection
This is when no reason is given why these characters are able to connect. What are their shared experiences? Common interests? All too often, the author never gives the reader a clear reason on why these characters are connected emotionally and mentally. All we're given is that "they make me feel all fluttery inside" BS.
-Why It's Problematic
Not establishing a strong emotional connection between characters gives the idea that romantic relationships are only based on good feelings and attractive people. This is so unrealistic, because if we only gravitated towards friends because they made us feel good, then we'd leave them if and when that feeling subsided. Relationships - any relationships - are based on emotional and mental connections. What differentiates platonic from emotional is the phsyical attraction factor, which should not be the defining factor in a relationship.
-How We Can Change It
There's no real other way to change this than to create a way that your romantic interests have an emotional connection. Think about why you connected so well with your friends or past or current significant others. Was it because you have the same morals, or sense of humor? Make sure there's an emotional and mental connection at the same time, if not before, a physical one.
4. The Manic Pixie Dream Character (MPDC)
Definitely the most critizied of tropes along with love triangles, the Manic Pixie Dream Character serves to only further the main character's emotional journey. I've already written a whole post dedicated on how to avoid this trope - check it out here!
But alas, I'll go over the basics here.
-Why It's Problematic
This sets up the idea that there is this perfect person out there who is just waiting to fix us. That another person can cure all of our problems, and show us all there is to life. And surely, people can teach us lessons. But the problem happens where the MPDC devolves into a plot device, and become two dimensional.
-How We Can Change It
Give the character a goal in the story that doesn't concern helping the protagonist. More on that in my previous blogpost, Writing People Not Plot Devices.
5. The Magnum Opus
This is a Latin phrase meaning 'greatest work', as in reference to an artist's most successful accomplishment. But in this context, it means - or rather, I want it to mean - is that "this high school romance is the best it's ever going to get and I'm so in love that nothing could tear us apart so dramatic much sappy". In other words, that the romance that these teenagers are experiencing is so world-shifting and heart-wrenching that it could never get any better and that it will last forever and ever. Right.
-Why It's Problematic
You're seventeen. How likely is it that this cute boy from your math class is your soulmate? Yet again, this portrays the idea to teenagers that high school romances are so important and detrimental. Acting so dramatically about relationships at such a young age exposes the heart, which isn't always a good thing, because people sure do love to step all over hearts, and crush them. They make good doormats.
-How We Can Change It
Don't make everything so serious. The characters are young, probably in high school, and, realistically, immature, relatively speaking. Realize that a lot of what teenagers focus on in relationships are feelings, despite whether this is a good thing or not.
And most importantly, if you take all of the above advice and culminate it in your story, you can probably avoid the "Magnum Opus" trope all together.
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Surely, not all of these apply to every YA romance on the market, but a good handful of them do. Hopefully, we can eliminate these annoying stereotypes - which are mostly wish-fulfillment - and write real romances.
~The WordShaker
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