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Cut Out the Swoon-Worthy

  • Writer: Alissa Yarbrough
    Alissa Yarbrough
  • Jun 20
  • 4 min read

Nearly everyone enjoys a smidgen of romance in their entertainment, be it cinema or literature. Why, it's hard to find a storyline that doesn't include a happy ending between a guy and a girl, even if the plot focuses on something else entirely.


The Scarlet Pimpernel, Great Expectations, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...(Okay, the last classic is one of the exceptions, without introducing a single female character, but it's sooo good that you have to read it if you're into adventures!) Even the war film The Guns of Navarone (1961), featuring a team of elite soldiers tasked with destroying the impenetrable defenses of a Nazi-held Greek Island in WWII, touches on a romantic relationship between one of the team and a female resistance fighter.


While romance certainly isn't a must for me to enjoy a well-written story, this gal appreciates it as much as the next reader – within boundaries.


As briefly mentioned in my previous posts, when I began to seriously explore the Christian literary market, specifically searching for the niche my book fit in, I came up with my arms empty. Everywhere I looked, I came across romantic suspense, romantic suspense, and suspense... filled with heart-throbbing romance.


Where was the plain, honest-to-goodness, Christian suspense genre?

Okay, now I was confused. Surely I must be getting something wrong. Maybe the market had changed their definition to include any girl-guy romantic relationship be it however small, I thought. And Safecracker, my suspense novel, had what I deemed a realistic amount of romance in it, so I briefly started placing it in that category.


But something didn't seem to fit, and the more I was exposed to the genre, the more it was apparent that most of these books followed a formula where the focus was on the lovers' relationship and often quarrels, with the suspense merely used as a catalyst to push them together in desperate situations where they need each other more than ever.


Nope. My book did not belong there.


I want more than the standard hero and heroine character with everyone else fading into the background of obscurity. And I desire other meaningful relationships besides the romantic relationship of the protagonists. As an author, your story is your world, so why not populate it with genuine life – people with more concerns than what he thinks of her or how she feels about him.


My eyes were opened, and then it was all I was seeing – all I am seeing. Every Christian suspense author I run across can't just leave it with suspense in their bios, the R-word has to pop in eventually, inevitably, until I'm beginning to be sick at the sight of it.


The aspect of romance goes without saying, and we naturally accept it. As in the film industry, we don't label the different movies romantic-westerns, romantic-wars, romantic-sci-fi, et cetera, unless the romance is a major ingredient. Then why are we doing it now in literature?


Because the publishers are trying to sell us on something: a fixation on the emotions – something women tend toward naturally – so they can keep the female readers coming back again and again for shallow gratification.


Speaking of terms, I also learned a new word that may just be the worst yet: swoon-worthy, as applied to most book descriptions or masculine characters therein.


Uh, no. Just no. Please, stop.


What happened to show, don't tell? These writings are profuse with swoon-worthy, heartstopping, heart-throb, revealing where this unrestrained mania is focused instead of letting the reader discover some of these merits on their own. You can find out whether the hero is loveable and good-looking without exhaustively expounding on his rugged features or the rippling of his extraordinary biceps.


The infatuation with romance is out of control in this modern age, with the only difference between the Christian fiction market and secular being that the former keeps it on a so-called tamer level.


You know why, don't you?


A well-known proponent of romantic suspense is the Love Inspired Suspense line, which is a branch of the whole Love Inspired publication. And this publishing house is an imprint of a much more popular and notorious publisher by the name of Harlequin Enterprises.


Remember those raunchy book covers you avoided making eye contact with as you tried to reach another area of the library? Yeah, those are the same mass-market Harlequin romances we're talking about. Only the publishers decided they could make a tidy sum from the Christian faction as well, so they cleaned it up and smacked "faith-based" on this specific imprint.


No wonder this obsession! Harlequin thrives from selling X-rated trash, and it's a shame Christian readers and authors have fallen for their ploy.


As Christians, we need to desire more than the cleaner variants of an ignominious literary house. And as Christian writers, we need to get back to deeper fiction with less romance formula.


Let's start writing things that are more complex, more edifying, and Christ-focused than romance-focused again.


What say you?


~Alissa


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