Romantic tension

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. - Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. ... Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating ... I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither ... a word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never." - Capt Frederick Wentworth writes to Anne Elliott in Persuasion by Jane Austen

 

Jane Austen is a genius. She builds a romance from the bottom up. At first, the romance is improbable. She thwarts the lovers with obstacles and complications and resentments and interferences. Then the ice starts to melt. Then the passion is ignited. Then the lovers, torn apart tear themselves together. The relief is palpable.

 

Romance fiction has a simple formula: Get two magnets. Face the same poles off. Produce a repulsion when we all know there is an attraction. Swing the characters about to reorientate them. Then position the magnets to the point of optimal attraction. Then step back and watch them surge toward each other.

 

The moral can be extended more broadly: The greatest stories are always those where the protagonist overcomes great odds to ultimately triumph.