Hamartia by Scarlett Drake

Another structural mess of a book, but it got me thinking about what the third-act breakup actually means for a romance novel.

What is a Third-Act breakup?

Think about it, we call it the third-act breakup because it usually occurs at the beginning of the third act – but if you plot that back onto your hero’s journey (or other non-romance story structure), what should become clear, is that for a romance the breakup is the climax.

It is the point at which the relationship you have asked the readers to get so invested in gets tested. The point where your heroes get tested. Because that’s the thing with a romance. It’s not about two available people who meet a nice somebody and decide to have a relationship. A good romance is about people who fall in love against the odds.

There have to be forces pushing against the relationship. They can be internal forces, I have shockingly low self-esteem and cant believe you really love me. Or external forces, if you marry that girl I will cut you off without a penny. The climax must take those barriers to the relationship and make them a reality. The controlling father finds out about the wedding plans and throws the ne’er-do-well son out. Or the heroine must have an incident that gives her a crisis in confidence so she tries to preemptively end the relationship.

And as I have said before. The MC in a romance still needs to have an arc. Hell, both the characters in the relationship need to have arcs (even in a single POV version). In the testing of the relationship, we must see the characters be tested as people. The son must rise up to find a way to support himself and his future spouse. The heroine must learn to see beyond insecurity or past hurts, must own up to her mistakes, and take action to move beyond those reactions.

Fixing your character’s problems

I was most of the way through the book, on the home stretch, when I found myself thinking, as I got ready for bed, that the story had lost its energy, its thrill. I was now just reading it to get it finished. I found myself wondering, where are we going with this? Because all the main conflicts have been resolved.

Raphael had finally ended his relationship with his fiancé (even if he still hasn’t told her why). And we had just had the scene where Jae told his people about the relationship. We know from the prologue that they are going to be outed. But, I’m looking at the stakes of this story and wondering, so what? Jae’s people have already prepared whatever it is they need to for an eventuality like this. Raphael has ended his relationship. In his internal monologue he is very certain in his feelings for Jae, and in his belief he can handle shit. So, how bad could this really be?

Basically the only interesting direction I could see the story going at that point was if Jae’s record label ordered them to end the relationship and he complied. And if we compounded that by the band axing Raphael. Can you imagine that? It would mean Raphael loses everything for the relationship, including the relationship. Then we would have a real test of his feelings and his integrity as a person. Does he stand firm in his new sexuality? Does he fight for the relationship? That would give body to those promises about waiting for Jae. Does Jae take the initiative to choose what he wants rather than what he owes? To take a stand for himself and maybe LGBT rights/representation in his country? Then their continued relationship has real weight.

And yes, this kind of analysis, playing what would I do with other people’s stories has often ruined the experience for me. But if I’m starting to wonder off script then your story probably wasn’t that strong to begin with.

Unfortunately, what happens is rather dull. Raphael insists on going to America to support Camille with her pregnancy. He is very clear to her and to Jae that as far as he is concerned the romantic relationship is over. And Jae ends the relationship anyway, for reasons?

It is really very tedious when character A is saying I love you, but this life-altering thing has come up and I need to go deal with it. And character B’s response is if that is the way you feel then fuck-off and leave me alone. Like, guys. Please. Can we just stop this nonsense? Characters are allowed to believe in love and to fight for it. If you had enough conflict to write 200 pages then you don’t need to manufacture stupid fights.

Then the pictures come out. And like why are we making these two seismic events separate?

And Jae’s label are entirely chill: No, we think you should now publicly come out as gay. You have always push boundaries, lets push this one. Um what? Can literally anyone imagine this happening? Like, I would have bought it if they had analysed public response and said actually we think we can swing this to improve sales, or something. This response has no setup and delivers no punch.

Meanwhile, by the time Raphael gets to California, Camille has had a complete perspective change – from sitting in a plane for God’s sake. She is supportive and understanding and not angry about anything. And it’s just not that interesting, at least give me a new days of moping on his part and guilting on hers.

I’m not going to drag through another list of loose ends again, also I don’t feel like this level of work deserves the axe I took to more famous authors. I find her work really readable, but my biggest critique/disappointment in this (beyond the one already discussed) was that the setting was vastly underutilised. It needed more music industry, the various bandmates get far too little time – hell we don’t even meet all Jae’s bandmates (I don’t think, hard to keep track of who was who).

I do find Drake’s writing voice to be really engaging, you feel the uncertainty and ‘boyishness’ of her characters come through. And she’s pretty good at maintaining separate voices for her characters. And she does excellent sexual tension. She just needs to pull all the threads together properly.

I think maybe, the take away structure-wise from this story is that you need to know what your driving conflicts are. Basically, look out for any major conflicts not resolved before the couple are happily in love. If its still hanging out in the background it either needs cutting from the story, or it is the story and you should absolutely blow those bombs up for your climax.

PS: I have now read a couple other books by this author and Oleander was definitely the odd one out. So imagine how hard I laughed reading the acknowledgements where the author apologises to her fans for what she put them through in that book. Like what? No. Do not apologise for making good drama. Do not take to heart the bad faith complaints of people who read and finished the book. If they didn’t like it that much they wouldn’t have finished it (says the person complaining on the internet about a book she finished). Write more drama and stop chasing past successes.