Romance Novels - WTF?!?

Personally, I have never read a 'romance novel'. Y'know, the ones that are all the rage, with a painting of Fagio or Fabio or whatever on the cover. But these seem to be really popular, especially among the middle aged ladies crowd.

I was wondering, who here has read one of these, and what, exactly, is the appeal? Is it full of steamy sex?

I am asking because in my story, I need to do a romance between two characters. Not mad, passionate sex all night -type romance, but more like 'love story among all the killing and war' that is going on. And I was wondering if - even though they are called 'romance novels' do they actually do romance well? Are these worth checking out just to get a good feel of how romance in novels is suppose to be done?

Romance novels are basically fantasies. Much like soap operas in print. I'm not sure if there is a way romance "should" be done..I mean look at life. People's romances are very individual and how they are conducted depends on the people involved.

You would probably be better off knowing your characters and letting it flow from their personalities. Sometimes romance novels are so unrealistic it's kinda stupid. I doubt you want it to become a distraction from the main story and it would if it becomes blatently unrealistic.

Most of the ones with Fabio and his successors on the cover can best be described as soft porn. There's usually several hot sex scenes throughout the book and at least one if not two or three folks trying to keep the heroine and hero apart. Something that you can read without really thinking about what your read. And if you miss a few "key" scenes, it really doesn't matter.
The romances that I prefer are the gothic novels. Victoria Holt is the best author I can think of that did those and Daphne Du Maure (sp) is another one.
No sex but plenty of romance because the characters (as one of the previous posters noted) relied on the character instead of sex -- the more modern ones are really character driven, at least as far as I can see.

I love Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied.

You can trace a direct line from romance to a lot of today's sci-fi; where would Star Wars be without it?

And of course Tolkien would never have existed without those epics.

Oh - you are talking about THOSE romance novels - or shit, as I prefer to call them. They dirty the very word 'Romance'.

I never could get into the Harlequin romance stuff cuz they're all so vapid and there's no substance.

Never picked one up. They always struck me as the dirty old ladies' alternative to natural, All-American porn.

Woman who read romance novels have to right to complain about porn.

I've never read romance novels, just a bunch of bad romance fanfiction. Even wrote one about Archer and T'Pol and my computer crahsed within three hours after I finished the last chapter.

Was it squicky?

Romance novels are great, but only the special ones at Longmire's, along with his reader submissions.

I'd say read. You should be able to skim through a couple in an afternnon. I thought about trying my hand at romance and did just that. Not my cup-o-tea. Mark the passages that would be useable in your own story, note the style, and you're good to go. Go with the "better" authors, ones who have a following. Once you're done with your article, do a re-write to make the passages you wrote, while under the evil influence of the romance genre, flow within your storyline.

DD

See for yourself

Not bad...nice escalation of the tension there.

I get all my romantic stuff from the pages of Forum.

Thanks.

Would you like to read some fanfic where Archer does Polly doggie style?