Sam Sykes Touches Men and Women

Look at that title up there.  Yeah. That just happened.  We’re going to get into a serious thing here.

So, I have several gurus in my life: people whom I can count for solid advice without having to pay for the privilege.  One such guru is my friend John, who has been the guy I have hurled story ideas at with the thought that he will hurl back whether or not they’re interesting.  Typically, he hurls back a useful answer hidden amidst a pile of feces.  And so, when I wanted to talk about what was coming up with Black Halo, I turned to him.

“So, what happens?” he asked.

“In the book?”

“In your urethra.”

“…so, in the book, a lot of the questions raised about the characters are answered.  We see more of what makes Dreadaeleon tick, we see a bit into Denaos’ past and the vision he had on the Riptide, we learn more about Asper’s condition and Kataria as she relates to the shicts when she meets the s’na shict s’ha (one of my favorite bits).”

“And Lenk?”

“Oh, totally.  We learn more about his voice and what makes him open to–”

“No, you fuck.  What about Kataria and Lenk?  Do they get together?”

If you haven’t told, John is a pretty manly man.  A man so manly he has threatened to sodomize other men for the sheer fun of it.  He watches sports on television, he drinks beer and he eats pizza and poops in sock drawers.  And while he is so manly that his exact language was not “get together,” he’s interested in the dynamic between Lenk and Kataria.

And he is not the only one.

Romance has always been present in fantasy, I think.  And men have always read fantasy.  But men have rarely read fantasy for the romantic elements.  Frequently, a woman is a throwaway character, something for the male protagonist to do (hurr hurr) when he’s not kicking ass and being a general anus to the forces of evil.  Because of this, romance in fantasy, from the male perspective, has sort of been considered a throwaway subplot.

Listen to any marketing or publicity associate in publishing and you’ll typically hear about the great gender divide.  Women buy more books than men.  Women won’t read military sci-fi.  Men won’t buy a romantic subplot.  Men won’t read strong women characters.  Women love romance.  Men hate romance.  Women hate fighting.  Men fucking love that shit.

Garbage.

Women and men like different things, it’s true, but that’s because people, in general, like different things.  I’ve met plenty of women who enjoyed Tome for its romance and many whom liked Gariath stomping a man’s crotch into his anus.  Likewise, John isn’t nearly the only man who’s asked about the relationship and that’s due to something that may come as a shock to a lot of people.

Men actually like romance.

Holy crap.

To be specific, men like the dynamic.  Men like seeing how it matures and how it evolves and how they eventually get together.  In the end, that’s pretty much what the romance element boils down to, isn’t it?  It’s a story, same as seeing how the hero overcomes the forces of evil.  We want to see the protagonists end up together as much as we want to see them save the world.

And the reason it hasn’t really worked up until now is because there hasn’t been an entire lot of classic fantasy that has relationships that capture the imagination.  And, sadly, that hasn’t happened because a lot of that part of the story that has long been considered the throwaway part: the female character.

It’s not shallow to have a female character want a male character.  It is quite shallow to have her want a male character and do nothing about it.  She has to be active about it, be it struggling with her desire or struggling with something external.  And he needs to be active, as well for it to be interesting.  Their actions don’t have to be identical (and probably shouldn’t be, otherwise there’s no conflict) or even equivalent, but it’s got to be there.

And the action, I think, is what we all want to see.  We want to see how it all happens, how they struggle with each other and themselves.  That can’t happen when one character is passive and that can’t happen when one character’s list of character traits begins with “the girl.”  They have to act on their own, they have to have motive to do so, they have to deal with the consequences of those actions.  It’s the same as writing anything else.

And that’s pretty much the sole rule of a story: everything should have consequence, everything should have meaning, nothing should be throwaway.

Fuck this divisive garbage.  Don’t shy away from exploring a complicated romance in your epic swords and sorcery story.  Don’t cringe at the thought of putting violence in your fantastic romance.  Do what you love and the audience will love it, too.

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