(Sorry for bad English, i try to improve it)

How I noticed many love stories are writing only for specific audience, but what is worse only liked by this audience(like lgtq romatic books are commonly for lgbt people and stories about vampires for women and old france/byronic stories for women too).

So, I’m interested what do romantic book universal and good in all ways and not only for one kind of people. Surely, something that do any book good and universal, but something specific must be here too. What do you think this is?

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+ I want to add, that I speak about almost purely romance books(“Modame Bovari” is surely very good bok and have many about love, but this book isn’t about love at all)

  • PennyLovesPasta@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I don’t think there is one perfect romance book that everyone will enjoy. People are too diverse and like too many different things for one book to please everyone.

    Of course we can all relate to a character who is a different gender/class/ethnicity/species. But for something as… specific as romance it helps readers to relate more closely to the characters and story being told.

    So what makes a romance book great has 8 billion different answers 😊

  • frogmelladb@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I like quite a few different flavours of romance. Vampire, shifter, cowboys, military, Motorcycle Club, billionaire, historical, etc. But the one thing I enjoy in all my books is humour.

    I’m not talking about slapstick comedy but more a bit of banter or judicious sarcasm within the dialogue. The sort of thing where, if a plot line is getting quite dark, the author uses humour to lighten the mood (even if it’s black humour).

  • DoctorBeeBee@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    There are no universals. Even with the most popular and best selling books there are still plenty of people who couldn’t stand them, found them boring etc. If there was one universal thing they could make a book appeal to everybody we’d all have the same books on our shelves.

  • fitfbook@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I don’t think any book is inherently made just for a target audience. You can read a book about two gay men and still find it worthwhile in the romance department, even if you yourself might be a straight man. Same with any other pairing.

  • fitfbook@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I don’t think any book is inherently made just for a target audience. You can read a book about two gay men and still find it worthwhile in the romance department, even if you yourself might be a straight man. Same with any other pairing.

  • Least-Conference-335@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Good writing and adequate buildup. I’ve read a lot of romance books where the characters are “in love” suddenly after lots of tension and care so much about each other despite the reader and characters knowing nothing about each other. But really, I love a slow burn. If the writing isn’t good, the plot doesn’t matter.

  • Least-Conference-335@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Good writing and adequate buildup. I’ve read a lot of romance books where the characters are “in love” suddenly after lots of tension and care so much about each other despite the reader and characters knowing nothing about each other. But really, I love a slow burn. If the writing isn’t good, the plot doesn’t matter.