What Makes a Good Romance Book?

This is the Ultimate Dumbo's Guide to Chosing a Good Romance Book/Movie.

What does make a good romance book?

1. More than one genre.

No-one just wants to read about romance, romance and more romance. A good romance book/movie should be classified into more than one genre, any genre: Western, Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi.

2. Original storylines.

People have to get more inventive with romance books - seriously, some of them are so unoriginal. I have watched about ten big-screen adaptions of Cinderella and I haven't enjoyed one of them. Boring.

3. Not mysogynistic.

Believe it or not, you can write a damsel in distressed themed book without it being anti-feminist - Rachel Dawes in Batman is a classic example. Why does the prince/guy/idiot always save the day? The girl can still be the hero whilst still portraying the soft delicacy always portrayed by the female characters.

4. NO SEX SCENES.

My god. It's so annoying when you're in the middle of a really good book, and there's a sex scene. And when you hastily flip about twenty pages, then double back five because you've gone too far, there's another sex scene. Sex in romance books is sort of unavoidable, but seriously, does it have to be so descriptive!? What kind of person directs a movie or writes a book and actually expects people to watch through the sex scenes without barfing!? Breaking Dawn, the last installment of Twilight, I think, dodged the sex scenes pretty good - maritial sex is mentioned, but you're not forced to read through ever gory detail. Gross.

4. Believable characters.

As a romance writer myself, I have always been tempted to do the classic prince-gets-the-girl-and-saves-the-world, but then I stop. How many princes actually go out of their way to do that? Princes, as far as I know, pass their days getting drunk and going to clubs and hunting and doing rich sports like polo. But neither can you do 'normal' characters either, because no one is really 'normal' in this world. Characters have to be believeable, and readers should be able to easily relate to all of them.

5. Sans Cheesy Dialogue

One of my favourite loves stories is Anakin and Padme in the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, but it is COMPLETELY WRECKED by the ABSOLUTELY CHEESY DIALOGUE. I'm writing some dialogue for my own romance story now and it is SO HARD To make it not cheesy, but it is possible. Cheesy dialogues are the WORST.

6. Don't overdo tragedies.

Seriously, the amount of death, death, death, and for a change, suicide, in stories like Romeo and Juliet is alarming - do they want couples murdering themselves now? Sure, a death or two adds to the atmosphere, but I can't help thinking that Romeo and Juliet go a bit OTT.

That's it from me! Happy New Year!