John A. Heldt: Love stories vs. romance novels
John A. Heldt, author of the recently released The Show, enjoys a little time travel with his love stories that focus on every-day characters in extraordinary situations.
John: Author Nicholas Sparks has said that one difference between a love story and a romance novel is that "love stories must use universal characters and settings." Put another way, they must use characters and settings the average person can relate to.
In romance novels, authors are allowed to write about the rich and famous, the people who are not like you and me, the folks with exceptional pedigrees and résumés. In love stories, they have to keep it real.
I like this approach to romance because I think it makes for better stories. When we read about universal characters and settings, we are able to draw connections to our own lives. We are able to say, "I've been there. I've done that." Or at least say we know someone who has.
In the first three books of my Northwest Passage time-travel series, I have taken what some might call the Sparks approach. I have taken ordinary people and put them in extraordinary situations with the hope that readers can better relate to and enjoy both the characters and the stories.
In my debut novel, The Mine, protagonist Joel Smith wanders into an abandoned Montana gold mine in May 2000 and wanders out in May 1941. Suddenly the cocky college senior is not a man of the world but rather a directionless youth without riches or resources. When he strikes up a relationship with shy honors student Grace Vandenberg, he is a humbled soul who must play by new rules and win over his love interest the old-fashioned way. The way his father and grandfathers did.
Do love stories make better romances? That's a question only readers can answer. But I think a case can be made. The romance between Joel and Grace is compelling precisely because they act like ordinary people. They flirt, set boundaries, and make life-changing decisions based on circumstances and events bigger than themselves. The result is a romance many can identify with.
When you write about time travel, of course, there are limits to making a romance, or any story, real. While millions of young men and women maintained Joel-and-Grace-like relationships in 1941, none, to my knowledge, brought time travel into the equation. Joel faces challenges unlike any character in a Sparks novel.
So does Grace. In The Show, the recently released sequel to The Mine, Grace moves through time not once but twice. She travels from 1941 to 2000 and later from 2002 to 1918. In both instances she must learn the social norms of an era that is not her own and find love amid obstacles unique to someone who has traveled through time.
What doesn't change in The Mine and The Show, and also in The Journey, the unrelated second novel in the Northwest Passage series, is the nature of the characters and settings. It remains universal.
The protagonists in all three books may be time travelers, but they are also ordinary people – the kind most of us know. They confront familiar problems and resolve them in familiar ways. They fall in love. They keep it real. And the end result, in my opinion, is a more interesting story and romance for the reader.
Here's the blurb about The Show:
Seattle, 1941. Grace Vandenberg, 21, is having a bad day. Minutes after Pearl Harbor is attacked, she learns that her boyfriend is a time traveler from 2000 who has abandoned her for a future he insists they cannot share. Determined to save their love, she follows him into the new century. But just when happiness is within her grasp, she accidentally enters a second time portal and exits in 1918. Distraught and heartbroken, Grace starts a new life in the age of Woodrow Wilson, silent movies, and the Spanish flu. She meets her parents as young, single adults and befriends a handsome, wounded Army captain just back from the war. In The Show, the sequel to The Mine, Grace finds love and friendship in the ashes of tragedy as she endures the trial of her life.
You can connect with John on his blog and Facebook.