Hi and welcome!
I’m currently writing the second book in my contemporary series that takes place in the world of football. These stories are full-length novels with many twists and turns to the plots — obstacles upon obstacles, both internal and external. I was having a conversation recently with a friend who doesn’t read romance. In fact, he doesn’t really read fiction. I was explaining the complexity of the plot of the new book and I found myself telling him how very complex good romance is. I listened to myself saying it and thought, son of a gun it’s true. Now I will be the first to admit that most people don’t think of our genre this way. They think of romance as the simplest of fiction. Boy meets girl, boys loses girl, boys finds girl again and they live happily ever after. Of course, in my case it’s boy meets boy but the principal is the same. They call it a formula.
But think about it. Virtually all fiction has some formula. Certainly mystery has a lot of rules and suspense is riddled with them. I guess you could argue that Joyce’s Ulysses had no formula, but maybe breaking the rules was a formula of its own. Now, think about romance. We not only have to create an interesting plot with three-dimensional characters who have problems of their own — we also have to make them fall in love! They have to fall in love somewhat believably, have obstacles that keep them apart and make it appear at least for a time that they won’t get together, and then, in spite of it all, they end up together. I thought about my MMM romantic suspense novel, Golden Dancer. Holy cow, 
I had a theft of an art treasure, a nasty, villain, a ballet dancer, an investigative journalist , and a billionaire technologist I somehow had to get together while never losing touch with the mystery. In my novella, Beach Balls, the central conflict is over a land development deal that could be threatening homeowners with severe toxicity. But into this story come my two heroes who have to meet and fall in at least lust without knowing they are on opposite sides of a big battle.
Even my recent paranormal romances, The Pack or the Panther and Wolf in Gucci Loafers, have villains who try to thwart my heroes and seemingly insurmountable issues that keep the lovers apart.
It’s been many a century since “romance” was a tight formula plot with two-dimensional characters that always ended in a wedding. In fact, we might argue, that today ours is one of the most complex genres to write. But maybe we better just keep it between us! LOL. Thank you so much for stopping by. : )