Why are writers so reluctant for their lead character and love interest to get together?

Question

...and can anyone think of an example where this HAS happened and the story has been just as good / better for it ???

I understand the whole string-out-the-sexual-tension "thing" but why should the 2 characters getting together cause the reader to lose interest. In other words, why is that always the end of the story? Is anyone else seriously bored with "they all lived happily ever after" endings? Where are the storylines that continue AFTER 2 people get together....

Answer 1

hmmm, i sense irony.......

Answer 2

It doesn't always happen that way.... at least, not as long as there's another story to accompany the love story. If the two characters get together and the rest of the book or movie is about nothing more than the two of them living together happily, then few people are going to hang around to read and or watch this. If there's another goal to be achieved by the two lovers, then the readers or viewers will hang on to find out what's going to happen.

Example: the movie The African Queen, startting Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. The romance between the two main characters is hinted at, built up to, and finally acknowledged... all before the first hour of the movie is over. But, now that the viewers accept the main characters' romance, there are still other problems for the lovers to solve. They have to navigate their small steamboat down an African river... and they have the even loftier goal of torpedoing a German ship that's stationed on a lake. Because you want to know if they make it out alive and blast the German boat, you continue watching.

Answer 3

Two points:
Point 1: It all depends on the characters, not the author. Not only that, but it's realistic. Relationships take time, and unless both characters are lust-hounds then it'll be a little while. Be patient.

Point 2: I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to, but I still think it's important to mention. In our minds we always hope for specific things to happen in a story. But that's just an opinion of what we think should happen. There are a lot of people out there who instantly think:
GIRL + BOY = ROMANCE
But that's far from the truth. Just because they're travelling together doesn't mean that they'll have a starry-eyed moment under the moon. Just because he rescued her from God knows what evil doesn't mean that they'll immediately share all of their intimate thoughts. Just because they attend the same school and are in the same class doesn't mean that they're going to have sex in the janitor's closet.
Sometimes fantasies can get too real, which make the fact that it's not going to happen hard to take. But remember: if you ever feel this way, there are thousands of dreamers just like you on the Internet. Go to www.FanFiction.net and I'm sure all of your wants will be fulfilled.

Answer 4

I think it's a question of would-they-or-wouldn't-they, right?
If the lead character hooks up with the love interest too soon, what is left of the story to anticipate in the end??
If you trace the history of writers these days, you'll most probably find that the epilogue of the story always feature happily-ever-after scenes where the lead character ends up in the arms of his/her love interest...

Answer 5

It keeps tension in the story, people will read on until they see the characters hook up. It strings the reader along so that they can sell more books if they leave a book with the main character on the verge of a hook up then people will go out and buy the next just to see who she hooks up with. Its like TV and comercials they always go to comercials right when it get to the good part so that they know you will watch the comercials just to wait for the program comes back on to see what happens next. I have ready many books where thy hooked up in the begining but it always has something to catcht he readers even if it isnt a hook up, maybe a pending pregnancy a mairrage maybe a visit from dr doom.

Answer 6

I would say that is more of a trend in modern story-telling. The reason modern writers do this is because they are trying to tell more realistic stories. In real life the guy doesn't always get the girl. That movement has been dead a while now, since the romantics, where writers didn't look at their work in realistic terms. I would say stories like Romeo and Juliet exhibit the guy-gets-girl theme that you talk about. Also, most romantic tales as well, even modern romantic stories, have the lead getting his/her love interest.

Answer 7

Because then you write "the end". I mean all drama is conflict. And if the lovers get together on page five then you have to think of something else to keep the reader interested. "And they lived happly ever after is the end of the story.

Answer 8

Partly because of tension and partly because they are afraid they will get it wrong.

How many stories have you read where the plot was amazing but then the guy and girl get together and it's so cliche' it's sickening? It's actually complex to make it work without becoming a cheesefest of epic proportions.

Answer 9

Tom was a real he-man. One evening he saw Annika across the bar in his local. He chatted her up. She went back to his place.... And they lived happily ever after. End of story. That's 32 words. Hardly a novel!

Answer 10

Once they get together, the sexual tension is gone and the couple gets boring to read / watch.

Answer 11

I've read stories where two people get together at the onset and trouble arises because of their union or trouble just finds them.