Instalove

or, Why You Should Not Include Instalove in Your Novel

Alright, I knot this topic has been mused on forever, and that we bloggers are all agreed (well, most of us, anyway) that instalove has no place in our fiction. However, I'm astounded by how often I see instalove pop up, even after years of bloggers saying that your book will get rated down or removed from our to-read lists if you include this dreaded romance element. Authors clearly aren't getting it. So many times I've been reading a book that was headed towards a 4 or a 5 rating that I had to rate down significantly for suddenly going that way for no good plot reason whatsoever. This happened just last week, so I need to vent. Yes, instalove can work in EXTREMELY RARE CIRCUMSTANCES, like Halley's Comet rare. In every other circumstance, we will hate your precious characters for being disgusting and moronic.

What Is Instalove?
Just as a little refresher, let's rehash precisely what instalove entails. On a simple level, instalove is characters who have met and, so they say, fallen in love in a matter of days, or, worse, hours. These couples have known each other for hardly any time at all, and, perhaps worse, they have been in a state of crisis the entire time, meaning that their emotions have been running haywire, so, generally, they are mistaking crazy hormones for a lasting connection. They tend not to have any knowledge of what the other person is like outside of running for their lives/saving the world/whatever. Instalove involves a profession of feelings, often with an accompanying promise that these feelings will last forever, completely unshakable and unsinkable.

Why Is This So Awful?
Generally, instalove tends to be a cop-out for writers. More often than not, I find that instalove has been used in place of creating an actual bond between the main couple. Instead of showing me what a powerful relationship the two leads have and how they support one another, would sacrifice themselves for one another, the author tells me by having the leads pontificate constantly about how much they love one another unto eternity and would die for one another. Bloggers complain about showing instead of telling, and this is a prime example. On top of that, instalove couples tend to use overly flowery language, so sappy that I could pour it over my pancakes for brunch.

Why Instalove Is Pointless
What authors perhaps forget sometimes is that readers don't necessarily believe what they're being told. Oh, X just confessed his love to Y and asserted that his feelings would never change. Surely, Author A would not mislead, so this must be the most epic romance since Romeo and Juliet! Listen up, authors, we see through this formula. We really, really do. I never believed in Romeo and Juliet's love, and so I'm certainly not going to be convinced by your characters wordy protestations of love, because, sorry to tell you, but Shakespeare you are not.

Here's the thing, guys. This trap is SO SIMPLE to avoid. Let me let you in on a little secret: JUST STOP TELLING US HOW IN LOVE THEY ARE. Use the couple's actions and conversations to show us that they have a real and potentially lasting connection.

No matter how much I'm shipping a couple, if they confess their eternal feelings to one another within the space of a couple of stressful weeks, I immediately want to kill them with fire. Okay, maybe I don't want to go that far, but I would totally be willing to singe off their eyebrows so they can look as stupid as they have just proved themselves to be.

My confidence in a couple when it comes to instalove is inversely proportional to how much the author beats me over the head with how perfect and in love they are. If they simply trade 'I love yous,' then I roll my eyes, shout a brief epithet at the book, and carry on. That alone will lose the book about a .5 from the rating in most every case. If the couple vows to love one another ad infitum, I laugh my head off at them and lose any connection I had to the characters. This loses the book at least a full point off of the rating. If the instalove goes all out with the main characters uttering nothing but cheesy platitudes of affection, all while mostly not liking one another at all or ever having a real conversation about nothing (because let's be honest, most of a relationship is talking about nothing, the boring, everyday stuff), then I bring out the snark and rip the book into little wobbly shreds of illogic. As a reviewer, I try not to be snarky in most of my reviews and take more of an analytical approach to cut your book off at the knees, but you pull this shit, and you deserve EVERY sassy, insulting gif I can find on the internet to throw at you in judgment. Also, you deserve NONE OF THE STARS.

Back to that little secret on instalove avoidance. Author A might be thinking "but if they don't tell one another how much they care, how will the reader know?!?!?!?! Besides, isn't communicating your feelings important in a relationship?" Why, yes, Author A! You're right, communication is in fact utterly vital in a successful relationship, which is why you should probably focus on having them communicate about more than just how in love they are and how much they want to bone. This does not a relationship make. They just freaking met, so they have plenty of time to fall in love; there's no rush! If you don't hold the readers' hands and tell them how to feel, we can make up our own minds, and will likely enjoy your book much more as a result. The romantics can imagine that your couple has fallen in love for realsies and will go the distance. The cynics can imagine them parting ways at the end of the crisis and applaud you for having the characters be so honest about not knowing precisely how they feel yet. We can read what we want into your writing. Scary, I know, Author A. However, another little secret: we totally will anyway, so you might as well write it in a way more people will approve of.

Instalove Will Always Make Me Stabbity When:
1. The couple has no reason to be interested in one another besides sexiness - Instalove annoys me in 99% of cases, but I will feel less likely to be malicious when reviewing your book if I can at least see that these two people do have a real connection and shared interests. At least in that case, I can assume the misguided declaration to be a case of teenagers not knowing any better than to confess their feelings during the honeymoon phase of their relationship. I'll feel more pity for them than rage.

2. The heroine is terrified of the hero - You know what's not love? Being afraid someone will kill you. I will never, ever ship it. Sure, he might not really be a bad guy, but she's only known him for four hours and doesn't know yet, so she probably shouldn't assume she's in love with him. That makes her a naive ignoramus, and the whole romance utterly creepy and horrifying. This would probably be just as maddening with a hero afraid of the heroine, but I don't think I've seen that.

3. Accompanying a love triangle - If you take nothing else away from this, know that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THIS CAN WORK. EVER. THE MC CANNOT BE IN LOVE WITH BOTH OF THEM. AS SOON AS SHE/HE CLAIMS TO BE, I WILL STAB THEM IN THE FACE.

To Conclude
As I said, there have been some very rare occasions where instalove did not bother me, but these are exceptions to the rule and not hope to cling to that surely your book will fall into that category. Yeah, it might, but it's best to assume that it does not and work on their relationship until you don't need to assert their love to make people feel things.

Readers, what say you? Am I right? Did I forget anything important?