Giving a Girl the Archetypal Romance

Women fantasize about a type of ‘archetypal romance’. They read stories about it; they dream of it. As a man, you can give women just such a romance, too.

We have a thread on the forum where we’ve discussed how to better write female characters. It started with a discussion on how poorly written most modern female characters are (with them basically being written as “men with breasts and zero character development”), then discussing better-written female characters.

Recently, that thread revived, with a discussion now centered on archetypal female characters. I weighed in with some examples of variations on an archetypal female character progression:

1. Heroine is either single or dating a boring guy who is pressing her for commitment.

2. Heroine then meets an exciting scoundrel and begins to fall in love.

3. Heroine realizes the scoundrel is “no good” and pushes him away… yet misses him.

4. The scoundrel redeems himself and the heroine rushes back into his arms.

5. Heroine transforms scoundrel into a dependable mate. Happily ever after; fade to black.

We might title this character arc ‘taming the untamed man’. It fits well with what we’ve discussed before on the female prerogative to tame males.

Today I’d like to talk a little about this archetypal romance – and how you can construct for a girl you’re seeing a similar adventure that creates a deep and fulfilling romantic story for her.