On Writing and Reading Despicable Rich Guys
By Melinda Copp
Nothing has challenged me as a reader and writer like the prevalence of rich guys in romance novels.
Wealth is common in genre romance because that’s part of the fantasy of being taken care of. If he’s rich, then you don’t have to worry about paying rent or putting food on the table, which are real concerns for many people. In the fantasy of a romance novel, you can have whatever you want. Fiction billed as fun and escapist can be easily brought down by money troubles. This is why we see so many heroines with amazing apartments and high salaries in dream jobs in contemporary romance. And it’s why dukes and aristocrats and guys with inherited wealth are so common in historical romance. Being broke in a contemporary setting is hard enough. Can you imagine being broke back in the day? No one wants to escape into that fictional world.
But, as a proud member of the working class, I think billionaires shouldn’t exist. When people get this rich, they’re hoarding wealth likely gained through exploiting someone or something, and if they’re in the United States, they probably aren’t paying taxes. This is why, as a romance reader, I usually steer clear of billionaires, secret and otherwise. And it’s probably also why for many years historical romance didn’t appeal to me as a reader. I just didn’t care about the dukes. As a writer, I never imagined I’d write one. Then—because never say never—I got a persistent idea for a historical romance novel with an aristocrat as the love interest.
The main characters of my novel are a broke writer and a wealthy son of a vicomte who will inherit the title when his father dies. He’s a total rich guy, born and raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, and his parents believe his marrying a poor girl will be the end of the world. The inspiration came from reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. This was a reading project I embarked upon a few years ago that turned out to be one of my favorite things to read ever.
It’s basically my personality now. I became enamored with the setting and the storyline of Charles and Odette. Odette was a courtesan (which is just another word for poor woman), and Charles was wealthy and moved in aristocratic circles. Their marriage tanked his high-society social life, but in the end, their daughter inherited a fortune from Charles’s family and married a man with a title. Theirs is a story about class ascension.
As a modern reader, the idea of a rich person’s life being ruined because they marry a poor person that their rich friends don’t like seems silly. Marriage is so different today, thank goodness. As a writer, I found something so compelling about those stakes, especially in the Belle Époque setting, that I couldn’t help myself.
Characters are pawns for making meaning in a story, for saying the thing you want to say about the world. And the best way to write a despicable rich guy—the way I liked doing it—was by making him atone. As a romance reader, nothing is more thrilling than seeing a rich guy humbled by love for a working-class woman.
Leaning into the comedy and making fun of the whole institution helped. My rich guy character’s story is about his parents clinging to old-fashioned, kind of dumb ideas about how life should be lived. And so at every opportunity, I tried to emphasize the ridiculousness of distinctions like class. The Belle Époque was defined by class lines blurring. Art was moving out of the upperclass dining rooms and into the cafés of Montmartre. The tension for my character was about how long he could hold onto those outdated ideas while the world around him was moving on to more interesting ways of living.
Despite my misgivings about rich guys, I came to like mine very much. And by the time I was done writing his story, I felt like he’d atoned for his despicable luck. By the time I was ready to publish, I was no longer thinking about what a despicable rich guy I’d written. Then my early reviews started coming in.
For modern readers—especially romance readers—likability is of utmost importance. This is the basis for how books are sold; more product reviews mean more attention from the algorithms. And likability is also how readers interact with books; ranking them with a scale of stars. In general, being read and criticized can be hard for authors. Perhaps because I studied writing in college and graduate school, and I’ve more or less made my living as a freelance writer for almost twenty years, I’m used to being read and critiqued.
I know how not to take it personally. And my reviews have been largely positive. But honestly, the best part has been the mixed reviews about the likability of my despicable rich guy. I’m not the only one who doesn’t like them! In a genre where rich guys are so prevalent, in a world where billionaires exist, there is dissent! When I read reviews about how despicable he is, a part of me can’t help but agree. Even after spending almost three hundred pages trying to redeem him.
In the romance genre, I’m fairly certain the rich guys aren’t going anywhere. (Still holding out hope for real life, though.) Sometimes, rich guy characters are just about playing out the fantasy of wealth. But they can be more. And so my relationship with despicable rich characters continues to be love-hate.
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Love and the Downfall of Society
Melinda Copp’s work has been published in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals, including HuffPost, The Rumpus, and The Petigru Review. Her debut historical romance, Love and the Downfall of Society, is available now in paperback and in Kindle Unlimited. Follow her on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/
After turning society upside down with her debut story, provincial Charlotte Deveraux arrives in Paris poised for literary stardom. She’s not sure where her next rent payment will come from, but she’s determined to make a name for herself as a respected writer in the cultural capital of the world.
Antoine de Larminet is the last surviving son of an aristocratic family. In line to inherit a title, he has promised his parents that he’ll marry a peer and carry on the centuries-old tradition. He was raised in an antiquated world where love was often found outside of arranged society marriages. Even as the French aristocracy is losing relevance to modernity, Antoine never questioned this commitment to this family legacy–until his chance meeting with clever and beautiful Charlotte.
Their attraction is immediate, and the more they bump into each other at the clubs and salons of Paris, the stronger their attachment grows. But Antoine can’t marry Charlotte because she’s as proletarian as they come. And Charlotte will lose all credibility as a writer and social critic if she becomes the mistress of an aristocrat.
The world around them is changing, but if love is to win, one of them will have to give up everything they stand for.
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Category: On Writing
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