Why is romance in fiction almost nothing like how it is in real life?

[SuperHeroMan]

Here are just a few examples of what I'm talking about:

 

Often in fiction, a pair childhood friends will end up becoming lovers later on in life. But that rarely happens in real life.

 

It also happens in fiction a lot that 2 teenagers who fall in love with each other will end up getting married with each other later on in their life and they will spend the rest of their lives together. But that also rarely happens in real life too.

 

Also often in fiction, when a character (who doesn't have much dating experience or has never dated someone in their whole life) ends up finding another character (who also doesn't have much dating experience or has also never dated someone in their whole life), and ends up falling in love with that character and start dating them, and then they end up spending the rest of their lives together. But however that also rarely happens in real life too.

 

Also often in fiction, when 2 characters fall in love and start dating, they are bound to stay together for the rest of their lives. But however when 2 people fall in love and start dating each other in real life, there is a high chance that they will either break up or divorce each other sometime in their future.

[stillafool]

Because people need an escape from the realities of life. If movies were as stressful and boring as real life no one would go.

[Lorenza]

Some real life stories are even stranger than fiction

But think about it like that - there are so many people on earth and most of them will end up with regular uninspiring love stories. Most likely you and the people you know as well. Nobody's gonna write about those. Fiction highlights stories that actually are very rare.

[Gaeta]

Maybe you watch too much Walt Disney?

 

 

 

The Titanic

Moulin Rouge

Brokeback Mountain

Ghost

Sweet November

Love Story

 

 

They all die at the end,

[carhill]

Fiction is like fantasy. One's own mind controls the narrative. The id always wins. Good fiction feeds into that since one's mind interprets the words being read.

 

Real life, OTOH, is random and often outside of one's control.

[somanymistakes]

Fiction also tends not to include long depictions of exactly what the characters had for breakfast every day, how boring the daily commute was, and how long the characters spent in the bathroom.

 

They want a good story. They cut out the awkward bits.

 

It's usually not a good story if you can't believe it could EVER happen... but unless something a bit outof the ordinary happens, it's probably not worth telling a story about, either.

[preraph]

Authors and film makers have to make something someone wants to watch. Most people like a happy ending, so they give it. In real life, there's happy moments, but no ending is every very happy. Same with porn. For men, it's one thing, a woman who does everything. For women, it's what they wish, a romantic man who cares.

[Mr. Lucky]

It also happens in fiction a lot that 2 teenagers who fall in love with each other will end up getting married with each other later on in their life and they will spend the rest of their lives together. But that also rarely happens in real life too.

 

My son's in-laws were high-school BF and GF, lost track of each other and reconnected decades later. They've been married for twenty years, second marriage for each.

 

I think in both books and movies, there's a lot of details to communicate. So one often keeps the narrative fairly straightforward to provide a comfortable structure on which to build the story arc. People also arrive with certain expectations which an author, writer or director ignores at his/her peril...

 

Mr. Lucky

[major_merrick]

Often in fiction, a pair childhood friends will end up becoming lovers later on in life. But that rarely happens in real life.

 

It also happens in fiction a lot that 2 teenagers who fall in love with each other will end up getting married with each other later on in their life...

 

It happened to me... there was just a breakup and a lot of partners between my youthful match with my husband and my current relationship with him. I think romance in fiction has some threads from real life, but it is watered down and simplistic.

[Gretchen12]

All that romance happen in real life. The only difference is the movie ends in about two hours. I am having one of those great old time romances right now. But one of us has to die tragically to make it everlasting.

[basil67]

Maybe you watch too much Walt Disney?

 

 

 

The Titanic

Moulin Rouge

Brokeback Mountain

Ghost

Sweet November

Love Story

 

 

They all die at the end,

 

Romeo and Juliet

Wuthering Heights

The Fault in Our Stars

Doctor Zhivago

The Dressmaker

 

So many great works of romantic fiction don't have happy endings.

[basil67]

but unless something a bit outof the ordinary happens, it's probably not worth telling a story about, either.

 

Indeed. It's the complication which makes a story worth reading...not the "happily ever after" bit.

[Gaeta]

The Dressmaker

What a great movie that was! We found it by accident, we had never heard of it, no publicity, I think it went straight to dvd.

[carhill]

Dressmaker was good fiction, Amazon Studios production, while the Winslet/Hemsworth romance/tragedy was the lead, I was introduced to a tertiary romance and an actress I then watched in a number of other films, Sarah Snook, who herself became quite entangled in romance of a different sort in 'Predestination'. In a similar vein, the realm of the unreal, Blake Lively and Michiel Huisman have quite the twists and turns in 'The Age of Adaline' with Harrison Ford in a supporting, yet pivotal, role.

 

I've had a few Dr. Zhivago moments in real life but generally it's never approached the realm of fictional romance. Fun to dream though.