Some readers are here for him. The hero is the reason they pick up a book, the reason they stay up too late reading, the reason they ignore texts from actual men who will never, in a million years, deliver a grovel as satisfying as the one on page 327. Maybe he’s brooding and broken, maybe he’s charming and cocky, maybe he’s the kind of man who listens—really listens. (Honestly, that last one might be the hottest of all.) Whatever his type, he’s the draw. These readers want to see him fall hard, to feel the weight of his devotion, to watch him become the kind of man who deserves the heroine. They live for the grand gestures, the reluctant confessions, the moment he realizes he’d burn the whole world down for her. The heroine can be wonderful, but if the hero doesn’t deliver? Neither does the romance.
Others are here for her. The heroine is the reason the love story sings. Maybe she’s ambitious, maybe she’s a disaster, maybe she’s spent years expertly avoiding feelings and now has to decide whether love is worth the hassle. Whatever her path, these readers want to follow it. They don’t just want a love story; they want a heroine who earns her happy ending. A woman with agency, drive, a personality that doesn’t read like she was conjured in a lab for maximum inoffensiveness. They need a heroine who wants something beyond love, who makes choices that shape the story, who feels like a full person before she ever meets the hero. A great hero is a bonus, but if the heroine is forgettable, so is the romance.
And what shapes these preferences? Do hero-centric readers love the fantasy of devotion—the thrill of watching a man wreck himself for love? (Because let’s be honest, a good grovel can fix a multitude of sins.) Do heroine-centric readers want to see women take up space, claim their own happiness, refuse to shrink? Do some readers want the glossy, larger-than-life romance of a man who never makes mistakes (except, crucially, the one that requires the aforementioned grovel), while others prefer the messy, real-world friction of two people figuring it out? Does experience—first love, long-term love, lost love—shift what readers crave in a romance?
Every great romance needs both, but to many, one matters more. Is it the hero, the one who makes the falling worth it, the devotion undeniable, the grovel unforgettable? Or is it the heroine, the one who drives the story, earns the love, makes the romance feel like it means something? If you had to pick: Who makes or breaks a love story for you? The hero or the heroine? (You’re not allowed to say the dog….)
*While this post examines only straight romances, that choice reflects the topic at hand rather than any exclusionary intent.
“Every great romance” doesn’t need both. Many of the best crafted romances I’ve read have been M/M. 🙂
Many of the most frustrating romances I’ve read have been M/F that lean into gender stereotypes. One notable one was when the hero of a popular rom-com in the opening pages of the book sees the heroine across the street and immediately dissects her looks and wants to bang her. It was shallow and, for me, didn’t set the hero up for a win in the “I see women as real people” category. Then he snipes at her (he hates the reason the woman is in town which is to help the family business) while also getting agressively possesive whenever one of his brothers or another male talks to her. In other words, he’s a jerk. And that’s all in the first chapter or so. I gave it up a few chapters later.
If a similar thing happened in a M/M, I would still think the guy was a jerk but situation wouldn’t disgust me as much, maybe because there is at least the illusion that the men are on equal footing power-wise. With women being historically objectified and being the victims of most sexual harrassment and abuse, I just don’t want to read about women being casually disrespected. (There are plenty of toxic men in M/M romance, but I rarely read those unless I know there is a really good redemption arc.)
I’m hero-centric, which is why I tend to read a lot more M/M than F/F. That’s not to say I don’t like wonderfully female leads. I’d read more M/F if I could get more books that had insteresting couple dynamics that didn’t slide into the minefield of gender politics. The reason I don’t like them is I feel protective of women. Sexist behavior towards women just makes me angry. (But I also don’t want women who dislike men or who are the one’s being sexist, as per the earlier blog discussion.)
Carrie, as I wrote in my postscript, this post is about m/f romances.
It’s not implying that m/m romances aren’t great. But I don’t read many of them and can’t write about them.
I’d love a column about what types of heroes there are in m/m romances–I’m just not the person to write it!
Oh dear! I honestly didn’t see the postscript! My bad. you can delete it if you want. 🙂
As far as heros in m/m romances, I’d love to see that, too, but I’m not the one to do it either, for different reasons. I don’t tend to have the kind of memory needed to recall precise details of many/most books I’ve read. it’s one of the reasons I try to write some sort of review–so I can remember what the book was about. 🙂
I don’t think it would be possible to write something similar about ‘heroes’ in m/m (or ‘heroines’in f/f). Fo a start, the terminology doesn’t work, and for another, we’d be talking about a character who is defined by personality traits rather than their gender. A lead in an m/m romance can be “brooding and broken” while also being the one “who drives the story, earns the love, makes the romance feel like it means something”, or he can be cocky and charming while also having “spent years expertly avoiding feelings and now has to decide whether love is worth the hassle”.
So it would end up as a list of preferred character traits as seen in certain specific characters rather than a means of talking about which traits are preferable in heroes/heroines in general.
It’s funny because in film many many m/m couples have one male that is more “feminine” and one that is more “manly.” Does that not occur in m/m much?
No, it doesn’t – and the movies need to catch up because that’s an awful stereotype, isn’t it? In books, you might see some stories with a character who is femme (I just read one) – but that doesn’t make them a substitute woman. In fact, in the one I just read, the femme character was tough as nails and wasn’t one of those bitchy stereotypes.
I might have read – and disliked – m/m romances where one character is obviously coded as “the woman” – but they’re rare and none of the really good m/m authors out there would touch that dynamic with a bargepole. They write characters who are unambiguosly men, with multi faceted personalities, and who have some of the same characteristics and/or hang-ups described in the post as belonging to a hero or heroine.
Incidentally – the m/m romances I’ve read where one of the leads is ‘feminine coded’ have almost all been written by authors inexperienced in the sub-genre, say in an m/f series where they’ve decided to include an m/m romance for some reason, and have clearly been under the impression that they can turn Daisy into Daniel without actually making any real changes other than when it comes to genitalia and the sex act. As I say, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have come across too many of them. Maybe there were more in the early days, but there aren’t so many now.
This is so true, and makes me think of the book I just finished. One lead was an almost perfect “male”: a star hockey player, sensitive, caring, and wanting to “take care of” the other lead, who I realze is coded for “the woman” in the story, down to being femme, having had little agency in his life, and an eating disorder, to boot. (80% of people with anorexia are female.)
At the same time, some gay men are very recognizable as gay even when you just talk to them on the phone. I don’t mind that. I like that M/M romance portray very masculine gay men, but I also don’t mind the “stereotype.” No group of people is homogeneous.
Hah – that was the book I was referring to. (The Husband Game by Brigham Vaughn for anyone interested.) But even though Charlie has faced a lot of challenges that may happen more to women, he’s unambiguously a man – he is obviously NOT a recycled Charlotte. But the point is well made – both characters have personality traits that are male and female, and illustrates your point about m/f romance still playing to stereotypes.
This is a great insight and one I hadn’t even considered. And it kind of highlights the fact that m/f romances still play to stereotypes since we don’t generally describe female leads in the same way as male leads. Pretty much all the descriptions Dabney uses above for heros and heroines can be used for men in M/M romances.
Yes, exactly.
What do you mean “play to stereotypes?”
This isn’t a criticism, because I think it’s realistic.
You used different descriptors for male and female leads, and while I realize there is a lot of overlap, one generally won’t describe a man as not having agency in his life (although in real life it happens), or a woman looking to make grand gestures or grovel (although some should). Women are more likely to be described, often affectionately, as “disasters,” and men would rarely need to strive to “take up space.”
All of this is because we know what women actually face in real life: the harrassment, the barriers to career advancement, and the very real and casual dismissal of opinions and even rights. If you picked up a M/F romance, you probably wouldn’t be able to just swap the genders of the lead characters and have the story feel right. It coud (and I’m sure does) happen, the male dog walker meets the billionaire woman executive. But it’s a lot less likely to see the female SEAL coming in to rescue the male tourist caught in the crossfire. You could write a book like that, but I don’t think you could just take one already out there and simply swap names and genders. That’s becasue we still have very firm gender expectations.
“Stereotypes” might seem like it’s always a derisive word, but they are what they are for reasons, and those reasons are often valid and ok.
the illusion that the men are on equal footing power-wise.In my experience, that is most definitely an illusion. Typically, one person in a couple – whether m/f,m/m, or f/f – has more authority. It may come from a more dominant personality, it may come from a more successful career, it could be money, it might be age (we do tend to defer to someone significantly senior), or it could be as simple as physical strength, but few human relationships, in general, have completely equal footing. Family dynamics studies among same-sex siblings have yielded some interesting data on this but even when everything is equal, it rarely comes out entirely equivalent.
“Typically, one person in a couple – whether m/f,m/m, or f/f – has more authority.” I was thinking about this recently from a historical perspective. My father was 50 when I was born and I’m in my 60s, so family anecdotes give me some subjective historical insights. The two controlling influences from my father’s childhood were his mother and grandmother. His grandmother was said to be “five foot nothing in her stockinged feet” and rule her husband and family of eight sons and three daughters “with a rod of iron”. My father never talked about his grandfather but I have the impression that his father – my grandfather – was a mild mannered man.
This is very different from popular perception of the Victorian and Edwardian era, in which the man ruled the family. It is also very different from the stereotypes and tropes I dislike in too many historical romances.
I am fascinated by Caroline Chisholm (1808-1877), another woman whose life ran contrary to stereotypes. When her husband proposed, she agreed to marry on condition that her husband would support her in her charitable work. Her husband was a soldier and was posted first to India and then to Australia. In both countries, Caroline Chisholm was actively involved in women’s welfare. In Australia, as well as establishing charitable residences for destitute immigrant women, she travelled long distances through what was then pioneer country to find permanent placements for them. As an interesting aside, Charles Dickens caricatured her as Mrs Jellyby.
I guess I’m heroine-focused in finding particular interest and inspiration in the lives of women who battled the odds to survive or to achieve their goals. It’s a theme I’d like to see better explored in historical romances.
I’d honestly say my husband and I are, and always have, been on equal footing. That doesn’t mean we don’t have different strengths, and different areas in our marriage we tend to have more investment or expertise. But we make all important decisions together, and we always have. I can’t imagine not having a marriage of equals. Respect is everything.
What I think you are talking about is relationships that both people would define as equal which is what matters.
I think, though, many relational analyses of power tend to over simplify. I’ve been thinking about all the kinds of power there are in a couple.
There’s financial, both in terms of who makes the most money and in terms of who is in charge of spending. (In my marriage those are two different people.) There’s sexual: who initiates the most sex, who asks for the most sex, who decides, in sex, what specifically will happen. There’s how a house is run–who decides the decor, the temperature of the thermostat, the make up of the meals, and who does the cleaning and the laundry. There’s parenting–who makes the calls for how the kids are both raised and cared for. There’s emotional–who decides the terms of conversational intimacy and openness.
I tend to think when we just say, oh, one person makes more money, we often elide over the complexities that make up most relationships.
Relationships are complex, and I didn’t mean to imply that there is always a doormat/authority situation. Most people (I think), even in historical periods, saw the value in a partnership over a master/servant style relationship. American Western history and even early American settler history show that men sincerely wanted and needed a partner in their wives. However, I disagree that a same-sex relationship is devoid of the power struggles that a m/f relationship has. Data doesn’t show that at all.
“However, I disagree that a same-sex relationship is devoid of the power struggles that a m/f relationship has. Data doesn’t show that at all.”
But it’s devoid of power struggles based on gender, and that wipes out a lot of issues and expectations from the get-go. For me, that is very important for my enjoyment of a romance. And I’d love to see the data you are refering to.
These aren’t newspaper articles but actually studies, so I just use the name of the study. Most are behind paywalls for the full paper. “For example; research has found that older men and men with higher income in same-sex male couples have been shown to have more power in their relationships” (Harry, 1984; Harry & DeVall, 1978). Blumstein and Schwartz (1983) also reported income as a determinant of power for gay male couples. I’ll add that this has also become more of a factor in m/f relationships as women gain more financial independence. Other studies show age (Mustanski & Newcomb, 2014) HIV risk is also a factor in m/m relationships but frankly, I don’t have a clear understanding of that issue or really, any understanding of it. Here are some of those studies. Arrington-Sanders et al., 2013; Bingham et al., 2003; Joseph et al., 2011; Newcomb & Mustanski, 2013).
I’m going to add that good fiction often runs off weird power dynamics. We accept that Voldemort, a grown man, counts as his arch nemesis an eleven year old child, because of the prophecies and magic but strip the story of that and you see just how messed up that really is. Twilight runs on the unequal power dynamic between Bella and Edward because he is a vampire and supernatural but really, he didn’t need that advantage. He’s rich, handsome, athletic, and white. Bella, clumsy and lower-middle-class, was never really his equal in terms of economic or social power. Obviously, she was his equal (some might say superior) morally and in terms of intrinsic worth. Stripped of the magic it resembles the structure of Pride and Prejudice, its alleged inspiration, a lot more.
A good romance is all about balance, I have to care about everyone in the situation.
Me, too. A great hero picking a sappy/silly heroine or a wonderful woman picking a jerk doesn’t work for me. There has to be give and take.
When I read m/f I was always a hero-centric reader – no idea why. Like Carrie, I read m/m pretty much exclusively these days, for similar reasons – the absence of male/female gender politics is a relief, as are the Not Like Other Girls heroines, the ‘strong’ heroines who treat everyone around them like shit because the author seems to think that’s what makes them strong or the heroines who are Good At Stuff who never make a sensible decision.
*I’m not claiming stereotypes don’t appear in m/m, but I don’t generally read the horribly trope-y stuff there either!
I’m neither I just hate it when the MC’s are too perfect that makes me want to quit reading ,I like flawed characters. I will carry on reading if the story is meh and I like the characters, I’m a character driven reader.
That’s my issue with some recent romance that I’ve read. It feels like all the edges have been sanded off the characters so there’s no journey or growth.
As a heterosexual man I am strongly heroine centric (I have a Pantheon of Heroines but no Pantheon of Heroes) and the hero’s main job is to not lose my respect.
My preferred storyline is hero and heroine working together to Get. Shit. Done. which is why Aral and Cordelia, The Flashpoint series by Rachel Grant and Jessie Mihalik’s Consortium Rebellion series (and The Night Agent season 1 for that matter… the less said about season 2 the better) work so well for me.
We quit S2 after three painful episodes. Such a bummer.
I quit after about 10 minutes of episode 3 then went to the appropriate reddit sub for a final time (I had already complained during the first episode) to complain vociferously about how Rose and Peter had been completely fucked over.
Would you believe the showrunner said with a straight face he understands how much Rose and Peter mean to people?
It seemed to us to just be one long fight scene. Nothing irks Dr. Feelgood more than heroes/heroines who have the shit beat out of them and are unscathed/unfazed. That happened again and again and most of the fights added not a whit to the plot.
And most fight scenes bore me.
A heterosexual man that reads romance? I’m wondering how did you start reading romance? just out of curiosity, I’m not judging by the way but vast majority of men make fun of romance and avoid it like the plague.
You’d be surprised. My husband reads romance!
I’m a bit Surprised I thought the majority of men hated romance.
My husband also reads romances, including m/m romances if I recommend them. He just loves well-written books, no matter the genre. It’s fun because we can talk about the books we both read.
I think men don’t like the expectations imposed by romance. But most men don’t read on average, and how many have actually read a well-written romance? Let’s be real, some of the great romances in history were written by men, so clearly at some point men had to like them.
That’s not my take as much as men are less interested in emotional stories and even fiction than women.
Not an uncommon question which is why I have a copypasta answer.
During my Feb 2016 Vorkosigan reread I was astonished that the romantic Shards of Honor rather than Memory was my favourite. In late 2017 I once again watched, and enjoyed Pretty Woman. This led me to try romantic movies in 3 spurts of effort over a year and a half. Eventually finding 39 good ones imdb.com/list/ls020993747/ After giving up on the soul crushingly hard work of dredging through the dregs of romantic movies I eventually ignored the fact that I am supposed to have testicles, rather than ovaries dangling between my legs, and tried a romance book. I was extremely lucky it was The Duchess War by Courtney Milan, the third chapter of which is superb. I was led to this by asking on Lois McMaster Bujold’s blog for romances like in Shards of Honor.
Now my favourite book is a romance, The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanne Bourne.
Interesting. I’m going to look at your movie list. I feel as if there’s an Ask in there!
How can you not have Working Girl? It’s a flawless romcom!
DNF due to boredom I am afraid. I don’t remember why but I do know Melanie Griffith doesn’t have the most mellifluous voice on Earth (that would be Helen Hunt) which might be some of its lack of appeal to me?
SMH….
I’m with you, that movie is so good. And some excellent supporting characters in Sigourney Weaver and Joan Cusack. “I may sing and dance in my underwear, doesn’t make me Madonna. Never will.”
I love so much about that film!
I’ve been a heroine centric reader for most of my life; the first book character I ever became deeply attached to was L.M. Montgomery’s Emily Byrd Starr, and that pattern has pretty much continued. A richly drawn heroine is always a special draw for me regardless of genre, but in the context of romance, I find my impressions of women characters sometimes differ from other readers. I know that where others have seen passivity, stubbornness, or “TSTL” qualities, I’ve seen emotional guardedness. In romance, there’s little I love more than seeing this guardedness gradually erode when the heroine falls in love. Most of my favorite heroines appear in M/F romance, simply because I find most sapphic stories in genre romance to be lacking in some way. They’re too low-stakes, the heroines are too flat or faultless, there’s too little of the urgency or transformation I love. My favorite F/F love story is in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Summer Will Show, a beautiful, thorny, and vibrant novel, but definitely not a genre romance.
I’m drawn to books with strong, clever or amusing heroines but my interest can be sparked by hero, heroine or, even better, the combination of both. Unfortunately, all too often the hero is a two-dimensional character created as a foil for a slightly better developed female character.
I just read a set–they’re reviewed today–where the heroines are weaker than the leads. If a grown woman has no friends, no hobbies, and no uniquely identifying traits, she bores me.
I can read a lot of romance but I don’t really love many because I can’t choose…a wonderful hero won’t make me like the book if the heroine doesn’t deserve it and I’ll think the heroine is a fool no matter what virtues she has if her hero is an irredeemable jerk or I’ll hate the book if the hero is not up to par. I simply MUST like both and both have flaws neither should be perfect and I don’t want the hero to be a perfect plastic doll either. If these conditions are not met the book simply falls apart for me.
High standards! Which, IMHO, romance needs. If we want to be taken seriously, as we should, romances should have leads that work apart and together in a plot that isn’t eye rolling.
Creating two complex human beings and making them fall in love is difficult and respectable when achieved and done well. I have many male friends (who are traditionally said to make fun of romance) who think the same. The problem is that today many romances rather than being coherent and complex stories are: wish fulfillment (the hero is a dream or a woman’s fantasy come true, not a real character), simple (plots that are not very complex, light or ridiculous), insta love- insta lust (they see each other and they already love each other) or even things that are porn are called romance… lots of sex, little plot without sexual build-up and for my taste that should be classified more as plain erotica (I don’t know if it’s erotic romance, I’m not that knowledgeable about the exciting subgenres of romance).
It’s interesting how unhappy many romance readers are with perfect leads.
Back in the day, the heroes in particular were super flawed. (I’m looking at you, Devon, Warrick, Sebastian, and Clayton.) Heroines were less so although they too were often clueless (Jane), appallingly depressed (Catherine), liars (Hope), or just bratty (Lily).It’s so much more interesting, IMHO, to have flawed people who improve than leads that are perfect from the get go.
I’m a heroine-centric reader and probably always will be. The whole reason I started reading romance as a teenager is b/c I wanted to read books where female characters are important to the story and they don’t die. Like someone mentioned below, I was a huge L.M. Montgomery fan growing up. I also loved Jane Austen, Jane Eyre and gothic romance. The only other type of reading I did (at that age) was a lot of hardboiled mystery and literary fiction. I was so sick of women being wimpy, nonexistent, or conveniently killed so a male character can feel some feelings. Finding authors like Jayne Ann Krentz felt like a breath of fresh air.
That doesn’t mean I like every female character I read in romance (or elsewhere!) but just that’s what I gravitate to in M/F (I do read F/F as well). If I like the female character and find her compelling somehow, I’ll give a book a chance. I do read the occasional M/M but there has to be something really special and different there to spark my interest. I feel like I’m in the minority but it’s just my personal preference. (shrug)
My tastes may be slightly more heroine-centric than hero-centric, but I think relationship-centric is a better description for the strongest factor in my enjoyment of a romance.
As another male reader of romances responding to a tangent below, the proximate trigger for my starting to read romances was a trip decades ago where I found myself without any of my then-usual F&SF on hand and borrowed a Heyer book from my sister. This Reading Choices post describes a bit more (http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/rdchoice.html ). This is my list of romances with humor that I’ve read: http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/romwhumorlist.html .
This lists my Favorite Books as of a few years ago: http://www.ccrsdodona.org/markmuse/reading/mostread.html .
I tend to ask myself: “would I like to have lunch with this woman?” or “would I like to spend an evening with, maybe have mutually agreeable sex with him?” If the answer is NO then the book is not for me and it gets expunged PDQ from the kindle whether completed or not. I find myself more and more these days not finishing books because often the author is apparently TSTL and the story is just plain, unmistakable crap. I do like stories that reflect both his and her POVs and sometimes there is a book that comes along that is largely from his POV and I find that can be very engaging.
Definitely more hero-centric. I’m not a man, and don’t always know what a man is thinking, so even if it’s an illusion, the idea I’m getting into their heads feels more interesting to me. Which is interesting because all my favorites growing up were usually from a girl’s point of view and my least favorite were the “bildungsroman” of some boy (Red Pony, gag me with a spoon).
But I think we actually get very little about what men think about women and romance in mainstream literature. Or if we do, what they think always seems really superficial.
I am more hero-centric just because I have so many female family members and friends. Men are a bit more exotic!
Yep, it’s exotic. Although it’s kind fo silly, given that most of literature was written by men and in actuality most male characters in romance are written by women, but go figure!
I’m not heroine or hero I just like flawed complex characters that feel human, characters recently are very meh too safe in romance.