A frequent criticism of romance novels is that the men in them behave the way women wish men would behave, not the way they really do.
To some extent, I agree that’s true.
To some extent, I also think there’s nothing wrong with that.
I don’t expect truth in fiction. To be perfectly honest, if the men in romance novels behaved like some of the men I’ve known in real life, I’d rather read about them getting hit by a bus than living happily ever after, so by all means, make the romance hero a little bit too good to be true.
However, I do expect enough realism to lend fiction some plausibility, and there is a point at which my willing suspension of disbelief throws up its little hands and says, “Oh, HELL no.” That point sometimes occurs when a male character says something no man would ever say (i.e., “my BFF”—the first time I ever heard a male say this was in a commercial for a Bratz movie, and I thought then the dialogue must have been written by an 8-year-old not yet aware there’s a difference between boys and girls; I read it in a story recently and thought the same thing) but more often occurs when male characters are just talking, talking, talking, talking.
The only time real-life men talk that much is when they’re selling something or performing or both, and they’re more likely to be doing either or both in the presence of a woman, not amongst themselves. Even in group therapy, men do not sit around openly discussing their feeeeelings. They’re not brought up to be expressive that way, they’re not comfortable doing it, and no amount of Oprah is going to overcome that system of training on a large scale in our lifetime.
My WIP currently has a three-page (single spaced!) stretch of dialogue between two male characters. There’s a great deal of information exchanged that’s crucial to the plot, information the heroine needs in order to make a decision in her immediate future and has no way of knowing other than listening to this conversation.
I have to find another way, because there’s no way in hell I’m leaving it as is. By about the third line of the scene, I’m taunting my own characters: “You seem to be missing your testosterone, Max(ine). Why don’t you check your purse? Careful, Nick(ole), you don’t want to spill appletini on your skirt.”
It’s a point at which I know a good portion of readers will stop reading because I’ve violated a basic rule of human behavior and can’t be trusted. What will I sacrifice next, physics? Geography? History? Spelling and punctuation? They won’t keep reading to find out.
There are situations in which fictional men will have heartfelt speeches (fatherly-type interactions, the I-love-you moment), but the rarity of those is what makes them powerful.
In every other situation, writers should find more realistic ways for male characters to communicate. A hero who behaves the way women wish men would behave is okay.
A hero who behaves like a woman… not so much.
I agree completely. Men ought to be men, but it’s also healthy to sometimes take a look at how women wish we would be. And I agree with you about the idealized nature of heroes in stories. It would be boring to read stories that were about your average Joe.
Just for the record, Clint would sooner cut out his tongue than say “my bff.”
For the matter, so would I.
I like my men to be the slightly romanticized version but still recognizable as, yanno, MEN. I like them to show their feelings with their actions. And when a man starts describing a woman using flowery prose most WOMEN would need a thesaurus to disect, I toss the book out and move on.
In one of my college courses, I learned that most men have 10k words a day. Women have more like 30k. So it makes sense that men act out their crap rather than talk it out.