Currently, I am reading the novel, “How to be Single”, I would classify its genre as a romance/comedy but when I tried to look up it was actually only labeled as “women’s fiction”. The conventions of a “romance novel” are more appropriate for this book rather than the broad description of “women’s fiction”. Some of the conventions used are woman/women with a broken heart(s), cheating men, one woman with the perfect relationship, married couples, exclusively dating couples, lack-luster dates vs. phenomenal dates, point of view is from a woman, comparing the female narrator's life with that of other women, woman pining over a particular guy, man makes incredible gesture to win over the woman that he is in love with, and of course the detailed sexual experiences.
The audience for romance/comedy is woman, but there is a certain type of woman who specifically read romance novels. The most obvious convention for this genre is a woman looking for love, that is the type of woman that are most likely going to be reading these types of books. Other types of women that could be reading these books are women that are in love but don’t receive the same type of affection and attention that is glamorized in romance novels.
The convention that in the end man and woman, regardless of the struggle that was presented throughout the book, will still end up being together and even more so in love is the message the author wants one to receive. They want all the women reading their book to remember that love will find them eventually. Not giving up on love and one’s enduring search for it will one day solve their problem of not having love. The purpose authors have for romance novels is that they want women to believe romance and love still exist.
Context could be that the idea of love is related to happiness and this idea is especially directly at woman from a young age. Love is important for both genders, but the importance of finding one’s soul mate is emphasized more towards women. This makes the conditions relating to love more appealing to women and because the idea of falling in love is important in our culture. Another context within romance novels is that women don’t want to feel like they are the only one’s experiencing things so by reading these novels they can identify some aspect of themselves in the characters of the story.
The style of a romance novel could be considered one of its conventions. Romance novels are often written with fluffed up and extremely detailed descriptions. The description of just the bedroom could be an entire paragraph. The style also includes portraying the entire atmosphere that is surrounding the event as well as reporting what the character is doing externally and their feelings internally. Having the story be told in the point of view of a woman is also a characteristic of style.
Overall the tone of a romance novel is optimistic. Women do not want to read a “romance” novel if the girl does not get the guy, there are other genres of books if one wants to read that. The attitude of romance novels is to build anticipation until the girl and guy can meet again, finally be together, or until the guy makes his grand gesture that everyone has been waiting for. There can be moments of the novel where things look bleak or are sad but the main tone of the genre comes predominantly from the ending where everything seems to work itself out.
A romance novel is a romance novel because it describes romantic encounters and relationships that woman wishes they would see in their real lives. The events are fictional and overly drawn out but that is what makes them appealing because these events would be very uncommon to see in one’s daily life. Romance novels always have a happy ending where the girl ends up falling in love whether it is with a man, her job, her family, or even learning to love herself.
I think your analysis of the genre of romance novels as a whole was great, it definitely included many of the conventions that I initially thought of when I read name of the blog. I don’t know if all the conventions you listed are coming from the book or just the romance genre in general, but if it were to be the second the one, I would suggest you do what Zack wants us to do and try to get a genre that is specific as possible. One great that that I notice in your post was how you explained the various styles and what each of their purposes were for and you always keep referring back to genre you chose, thus embedding in the reader how the romance genre is prevalent in this novel.
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