Cap Hit

Chapter 4: Formal Acceptance

After a weekend spent away from romance books, in which she did groceries as well as play some more games on air, she stands at a crossroads on Sunday night.

Should I resume reading these books, or just accept the challenge issued to me with my current preparation? Would reading another book from a different author be of any help at this point? Caroline has a bunch of questions in her mind for Capitolium that she didn't feel appropriate to voice on air. The two then go into the voice chat after the stream:

"Yes, I know what value I'm getting out of reading various authors, but I think I read too much, too fast" Caro voices her concern to her loyal subscriber.

"Three books in three days is, yes, a lot, and an infernal pace" Capitolium points out to her. "I mean it, Caro, your complaints about the first two books are common in romance books, but I believe you might struggle to write characters that aren't, like you said, flat. Unfortunately, you must have realized by now that much of what makes a romance swoon-worthy depends on characterization. I read a lot of yuck and excessive sex, as well as flat characters are part of what made me bitter about hockey romance"

Now I must think of what would draw my leads into each other, Capitolium's words give her pause. And what makes them want to stay together, too.

"Life outside the relationship seemed to fall by the wayside in the first two, but the third one devoted more space to it"

"However, I am fully convinced that you are able to fit in various aspects of hockey"

"Just being able to fit in the hockey in a plot is not enough to make a hockey romance book better than an epic mess! My characters must mesh with each other, but at the same time, life outside the relationship must get in the way at some point! What makes you think I will get a sufficient grasp of characterization during these thirty days to make this challenge of yours feasible to me?"

"You said it so yourself that the resulting book would likely be an epic mess, and yet you feel that not even a manually written, fifty-thousand-word epic mess of a hockey romance is feasible to you in a month?"

"No one else among my regular followers expressed any opinion on its feasibility, and they made me feel like they were at my throat sometimes because of what I implied I valued in a hockey romance book!"

"The only consistent things about romance are the following: a meet cute and then a happy ending. If the source of happiness cannot be sustained in the long term, your happy ending is then called for now, but they must be happy and together for a happy ending to even qualify"

"I was willing to accept that books varied wildly in quality, and these endpoints, but no more than that"

"Caro, if you think of entering the challenge, just don't worry about the book's quality. You said it so yourself on air that you had to start somewhere, be it reviewing books, or writing them" Capitolium then DMs her a list of resources about plotting and characterization as relevant to writing romance books, as well as various tropes that come up often in the genre.

It might not be very good, but there's only one thing I'm confident about: building my plot around the male lead's hockey career and, of course, fitting in the transactional aspect of the sport, Caro thinks while she starts reading about various romance tropes. But I wonder why Capitolium seems to push me towards accepting the challenge. I now have a better idea of why he's bitter about hockey romance to the point where he feels I can somehow write a better one, but I think that holds only to the extent that he values integration of the hockey aspect. He did tell me about the need for major characters to have flaws, though.