During some downtime yesterday, I engaged in one of my favorite current hobbies: discussing fiction writing with AI (read: ChatGPT). I'd heard Andrew Klavan and others talk about the scourge of dark romance novels and, being a fuddy-duddy conservative man well past my prime, I really didn't know what that genre was.
Dark romance, as I understand it now, is erotica for women with libidos that have been strangled by our modern culture. That is, in order to get their rocks off, the romance has to involve power and control and moral depravity and probably a good deal of BDSM. We have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to enjoy sex for its own sake and the culture has managed to pour ice water over that fire in the name of feminism, social justice and equality.
Dark romance is what you read after coming home from a day under fluorescent lights working on Excel spreadsheets and answering emails in an office of perfectly adequate husband material that is too timid to approach you for a date.
I suppose dark romance is best read while slightly looped on SSRIs, boxed wine and while wearing a dog collar and perhaps a ball gag. It's about as erotic as that.
Common tropes in the romance novel world are the billionaire, the pirate, the duke and the vampire. I had a brief foray into exploring just why an 800-year-old man with supernatural powers and no soul would find anything even vaguely interesting in a hot high school senior and was told that in the Twilight stories, for example, the author used tempora-ex-machina to get out of that problem. The vampire stopped emotionally maturing 782 years ago and has lived his entire life with an 18-year-old boy in his head.
Hurrah.
We then turned to introduce one of my favorite topics into these stories. Marmots.
I think marmots are funny. They are fat rodents who look like furry dinner plates. Everything about them is comical. They are proof that God has a sense of humor.
In my dark romance stories, then, the plot isn't about finding a way to force the hero to put out his cigarette on this butt cheek instead of that one as an act of dominance over him. No, the plot is about perfecting the management of marmot colonies. There is no sex. None at all. No one even mentions it. Oh, everyone still has the exact same characteristics and temperaments, but they are obsessed with marmots.
Social Dynamics
I started wondering what it would be like for the social queens in high society where these stories take place. Imagine you're the wife of a real estate mogul or the heiress to a breakfast cereal fortune and you're planning a dinner party. You certainly don't invite the lunatic theoretical mathematician you saw laughing hysterically to himself at the beach, no, you invite people who will make you look fabulous to the other society dames.
If you know of a billionaire or a duke or a pirate or a guy with semi-translucent skin who talks like Bela Lugosi and seemingly has infinite amounts of money, you'd certainly put them near the top of your guest list. Just imagine the conversations! They must be fascinating!
A fatal mistake.
AI has gotten really, really good at patter dialog comedy. I laughed so hard yesterday at what we came up with that there were times when I had to close the browser window halfway through the conversation and walk away because I couldn't breathe.
Here was one of the chats about the dinner parties. Enjoy.
The marmot obsession is the horrible secret hidden beneath an objectively fascinating person. Everyone keeps believing that if they can just steer the conversation away from marmots, they will finally reach the pirate/vampire/billionaire/duke underneath.
They never do.
John Pembroke is an actual pirate. Not “likes sailing.” A pirate. He has boarded ships, escaped naval patrols, buried things on islands and presumably knows where several bodies are.
So when the hostess says:
“John Pembroke is coming Saturday.”
Everyone is thrilled.
“The John Pembroke?”
“Yes.”
“The pirate?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, you simply must seat me beside him.”
Thirty minutes after dinner begins, the woman who fought for that seat is contemplating whether she can convincingly fake a stroke.
“So, Mr. Pembroke, I simply have to ask—what was it like boarding your first ship?”
“Yarr, remarkably similar to approaching a marmot colony.”
Her smile falters.
“Really?”
“Arr yes. Wind direction be everything.”
“I suppose.”
“You never approach from upwind.”
“The ship?”
“The marmots.”
“Ah.”
“Now, Marmota flaviventris—”
She looks desperately across the table.
Nobody will make eye contact.
That's the joke. Everyone knows there is a vastly more interesting conversation imprisoned somewhere inside this man, but the marmots guard every entrance.
The vampire version is even worse.
Count Smackula is coming.
From Transylvania.
Nobody knows exactly how old he is. He speaks eleven languages. There are rumors that the family has occupied the same castle since the thirteenth century. His complexion is peculiar. He never attends luncheons. Nobody has ever seen him eat.
The entire social circle is beside itself.
At cocktails, a realtor finally gets him alone.
“Count, I've always wanted to visit Transylvania.”
“You should.”
“Oh! What is it like?”
“Mountainous.”
“How beautiful.”
“Excellent marmot habitat.”
Oh no.
“Really?”
“Especially above 1,500 meters.”
“I was actually wondering about the castles—”
“Castles create serious problems.”
“Because of their history?”
“Drainage.”
The realtor's face falls.
“Drainage?”
“For marmots.”
Twenty-eight minutes to go until she can plausibly leave.
The billionaire is perhaps the cruelest version
Because everybody wants to talk to the billionaire for professional reasons.
John Connor has $14 billion.
The local business executive has spent three weeks preparing for this dinner.
He has an idea.
A genuinely excellent idea.
If he can get fifteen minutes with Connor, it could change his company.
He finally corners him beside the fireplace.
“Mr. Connor, I'm fascinated by your approach to capital allocation.”
“Are you?”
“Very much.”
“Then you'll appreciate this.”
Here we go.
Connor pulls out his phone.The executive leans closer.
It's a photograph of dirt.
“Loam.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
Connor enlarges it.“Look here.”
The executive looks.
He sees dirt.
“This patch has a clay fraction of nearly twenty-seven percent.”
“Fascinating.”
“The marmots hate it.”
The executive's billion-dollar opportunity is dying before his eyes.
“Now, if you'll notice—”
Connor swipes.Another photograph of dirt.
The duke creates an especially delicious trap
Because the women are fascinated by him.
His Grace is handsome, unmarried, owns 70,000 acres and lives in a house with 140 rooms.
Every eligible woman in the county wants to meet him.
And he is perfectly charming.
That's important.
He's not socially awkward. He's witty. Attentive. Beautiful manners. Wonderful voice.
For approximately six minutes.
A lovely heiress asks:
“Your estate must be extraordinary.”
“Oh, parts of it are quite beautiful.”
“I've heard the gardens are magnificent.”
“The western gardens particularly.”
“I adore gardens.”
Fatal error.
“So do the marmots.”
Her soul leaves her body.
“The...marmots?”
“Twenty-three at last count.”
“How lovely.”
“Twenty-four originally.”
She realizes with horror that she has just created a follow-up question.
“What happened to the other one?”
His expression becomes grave.
“Gerald.”
There follows a forty-minute account of Gerald's relocation, including a lengthy digression on preferred burrow depth.
By the end, the heiress has mentally married a dentist from Cleveland.
The best part is that the marmoteers never understand why this keeps happening
Because they're enormously popular.
Everybody invites them everywhere.
The invitations never stop.
And therefore the obvious conclusion is:
People find marmots fascinating.
Driving home:
“Lovely people.”
“Very.”
“I had a wonderful conversation with that realtor.”
“What did you discuss?”
“Burrow ventilation.”
“Really? She's interested?”
“Deeply. She kept looking at the clock because she apparently wanted to know how long marmots remain underground.”
Meanwhile the realtor is still at the party:
“I invited them. This is my fault.”
“You couldn't have known.”
“I knew about the marmots.”
“We all knew.”
“I thought it was a hobby.”
Someone pours her another drink.
“So did we.”
That's the essential Marmot Romance running gag: every protagonist possesses something that would make him the most fascinating person at any normal dinner party, and it is completely inaccessible because his brain contains 94% marmot.
The pirate will discuss marmots.
The vampire will discuss marmots.
The billionaire will discuss marmots.
The duke will discuss marmots.
And every ancillary character begins the evening thinking:
Surely I can get him onto another subject.
That optimism lasts about thirty minutes.
Then the fancy soirée quietly transforms into The Poseidon Adventure, with ordinary wealthy people forming desperate little groups and discussing possible routes to safety.
