A question on a writing term

[8letters]

Let's say Marge and Homer meet and fall in love. Homer's family pressures him to end the relationship and he does. For a long time, it looks like love will be denied. Later, Marge and Homer are reunited and Homer decides he loves Marge too much to not marry her.

Is there a term for this type of story? Where it looks for a long time that love will be denied because of the choice of one of the two people in love?

 

[SimonDoom]

Let's say Marge and Homer meet and fall in love. Homer's family pressures him to end the relationship and he does. For a long time, it looks like love will be denied. Later, Marge and Homer are reunited and Homer decides he loves Marge too much to not marry her.

Is there a term for this type of story? Where it looks for a long time that love will be denied because of the choice of one of the two people in love?

A good question. I don't know if there is a particular term for it, but most romantic comedy takes this form in some way or another. It's comedy, as opposed to tragedy, because in the end the lovers end up together despite being parted for most of the story by some plot device or contrary character motivation.

On the other hand, Love in the Time of Cholera has a form somewhat like this, where the man is separated from the woman for most of their lives until he reunites with her, and it's not exactly a comedy.

 

[NotWise]

Let's say Marge and Homer meet and fall in love. Homer's family pressures him to end the relationship and he does. For a long time, it looks like love will be denied. Later, Marge and Homer are reunited and Homer decides he loves Marge too much to not marry her.

Is there a term for this type of story? Where it looks for a long time that love will be denied because of the choice of one of the two people in love?

This just reads to me like a complication within a Romance. I don't know of any other term for it.

 

[PuckIt]

This is typically referred to as "the forbidden love" trope, where an outside force (familial, cultural, etc) is the cause of the hold up on the way to HEA.

 

[John988]

This sounds like the plot of half the rom-coms ever made.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I wrote a story just recently, two in fact where the male was in love at an early age with a girl that was taken away from where they lived by her parents relocating to another part of the country.

In both cases I called it "Lost Love". You had it, then it was gone...Lost.

 

[Handley_Page]

Let's say Marge and Homer meet and fall in love. Homer's family pressures him to end the relationship and he does. For a long time, it looks like love will be denied. Later, Marge and Homer are reunited and Homer decides he loves Marge too much to not marry her.

Is there a term for this type of story? Where it looks for a long time that love will be denied because of the choice of one of the two people in love?

I think it's called "Romance".

 

[lovecraft68]

Chick Flick

 

[jomar]

A good fit trope is the breakup demand.

 

[KindofHere]

.................

 

[someoneyouknow]

If you read the book Contact, a tangential character relates a very similar experience. Parents didn't want her marrying an untouchable (this is in India).

Though she married the man right away rather than at a later time as you describe, the character says she was too much in love not to get married or care about being disowned by her family.

So, love?

 

[PuckIt]

"Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parent's strife. The fearful passage of their death marked love, and the continuance of their parent's rage, which but their children's end not could remove, is now the two hours' traffic of our stage."


Seriously. What's confusing the issue is that "Romeo and Juliet" is a tragedy (non-HEA) where "The Ballad of Homer and Barge... er, Marge" is a comedy (HEA). However, the commonality of the star-crossed lovers versus those that conquer the fates written in the stars is best defined as "forbidden love."

However, if you are looking at discussing what you read on Literotica THAT closely, you need to pick up a Raspberry Beret for your head and go hang out at the local university with the English Lit Majors.

 

[8letters]

Out of curiosity, why do you ask?

I got a comment to one of my stories (a brother-sister story where at one point it looks like she'll end the relationship and go back to her ex-boyfriend) that the reader liked the story overall but didn't care for cliffhangers. I took "cliffhanger" to mean he didn't like that the story had a period where it looked like that the main characters wouldn't have a HEA. That's not what "cliffhanger" means, but I didn't know a better term. In my next story, a brother and sister have an affair while on vacation and at the end of the vacation, the sister strongly wishes to continue the relationship. The brother stomps on her hopes like Godzilla stomped on Bambi. There's quite a bit of time where there looks like there's going to be no HEA. One beta-reader said that stretch was really hard on him. I thought there must be a literary term for that period of time. I guess not.

Name of your next story?

"My Cookie-Baking Sister"

And no offense, there is no way Homer's family would try to stop Homer from marrying Marge. It would be Marge's family trying to stop her from marrying Homer, I've seen that cartoon.

There's a cartoon?

Seriously. What's confusing the issue is that "Romeo and Juliet" is a tragedy (non-HEA) where "The Ballad of Homer and Barge... er, Marge" is a comedy (HEA). However, the commonality of the star-crossed lovers versus those that conquer the fates written in the stars is best defined as "forbidden love."

It's an incest story. It's by definition a "forbidden love" story.

 

[Hypoxia]

It's an incest story. It's by definition a "forbidden love" story.

Depends on how it's handled. We've seen some fantasy worlds where incest is the norm and sex outside the family is forbidden. In other tales (including my No-Nonsense Niece) the romantic incest is redemptive.

I think we can build incest tales to reach any ending we wish. Of course IRL incest is overwhelmingly abusive. Not erotic for sane readers, I hope.

Back to forbidden love. Besides Romance, we have cheating or its avoidance. Their lifelong unrequited love is blocked by fidelity to their mates, for better or worse. Do they succumb? Why, when, how? The story is in the details.

 

[JasonClearwater]

There's quite a bit of time where there looks like there's going to be no HEA. One beta-reader said that stretch was really hard on him. I thought there must be a literary term for that period of time. I guess not.


In limbo? In suspense? On edge?

Or, on tenterhooks (never, ever 'tender hooks', unless you're a Canadian named 'Ricky' living in a trailer park).

 

[KindofHere]

................

 

[PuckIt]

--snip-- There's quite a bit of time where there looks like there's going to be no HEA. One beta-reader said that stretch was really hard on him. I thought there must be a literary term for that period of time. I guess not.

Oh! I completely misconstrued the original question.

I've heard a few semi-technical terms for it for when the resolution is comedic (HEA) versus the tragic denouement.

Delayed HEA (sometimes shortened to DHEA) - this one tends to be post-70ish bodice rippers union. (Harlequin, Silhouette...)

Comedic Resolution Twist - I think this one tends to be English Lit majors since everyone else tends to think of "comedic" as "funny".

False Climax - Also English Lit majors since the switch from non-HEA to HEA is the real turning point rather than the larger, more obvious Climax on the plot chart.

 

[weftandwarp]

Let's say Marge and Homer meet and fall in love. Homer's family pressures him to end the relationship and he does. For a long time, it looks like love will be denied. Later, Marge and Homer are reunited and Homer decides he loves Marge too much to not marry her.

Is there a term for this type of story? Where it looks for a long time that love will be denied because of the choice of one of the two people in love?

Are you thinking of unrequited love? I don't think it quite fits though.

 

[8letters]

False Climax - Also English Lit majors since the switch from non-HEA to HEA is the real turning point rather than the larger, more obvious Climax on the plot chart.

I like this one. The story does build to the false non-HEA climax and there's a false Non-HEA denouement. The switch to HEA is kind of surprise (but I'm certain readers will expect it).

Thanks!

 

[Boxlicker101]

It's called "boy meets girl." "boy loses girl." "boy finds girl."

 

[Hypoxia]

I've been away from academic study awhile. Are English Lit majors now actually taught to write, or are they still applying postmodern deconstruction to elucidate deep texts?

 

[Boxlicker101]

I've been away from academic study awhile. Are English Lit majors now actually taught to write, or are they still applying postmodern deconstruction to elucidate deep texts?

I think most of us learned to write when we were in elementary school.

 

[NoJo]

It's called "boy meets girl." "boy loses girl." "boy finds girl."

Yep, read through the replies, expecting to find that one before posting!

I tried to find the origin of that phrase, which sounds like it could have been by an old Hollywood mogul or perhaps an acerbic 1920's movie critic.