The longer I move in romance circles - reading, writing, studying, editing, coaching - the more apparent the phenomenon of every man vs. no man. I suppose this could apply to other genres, as well, but it seems prevalent in our romance heroes.
I finished ghostwriting a romantic novella last week. In it, the hero falls nicely into the brooding/tortured/loner archetype, but every single aspect of this guy is something fresh, something I haven't read before. Every cliché I thought of, I twisted. I had some freedom with this. It's a NA take on a modern Gothic. He's eccentric and complex, as layered as Dante's Inferno. He hangs the clothes in his cottage on antlers and keeps a yellow matchbox car on his mantle and leaves his house in both a Santa suit and a birthday suit. When a plot twist gives him exactly what he professes to want, he does the exact opposite. The number of actual men who might fit his mold in real life could probably only fit in my backyard. And maybe not even then. He is a "no man," like no other man.
Simultaneously, I edited a contemporary romantic suspense from a long-standing client. Her hero is everything a romance reader wants: weak-knees kind of handsome, smart, protective, altruistic, rich, great in the love department...did I mention handsome? He rakes his hand though his dreamy hair when he's upset. He pins the heroine up against walls (in a good way), listens when she has a problem and gets all up in his alpha when she's in danger. Yet, we don't witness idiosyncrasies like putting socks on that don't match or how he walks one block out of his way to avoid a certain storefront or is obsessed with JFK history or that when he picks up a magazine, he leafs through it back to front. At some point in the story, the reader seamlessly superimposes her ideal man on him. He is "every man."
The thing that baffles me?
They both work. Absolutely and unequivocally, work.
As writers, we've always heard that the golden ticket of characterization is uniqueness. But the power of a writer to gift-wrap a hero that will appeal to the greatest number of readers is not only brilliant, but savvy marketing.
Do romance readers want to fall in love with one particular guy or the particular guy they want?
Romance tends to involve some sort of male character of one sort or another. Its just a matter of developing one the reader can idtentify with. As to whether the male is man or something else as fantasy allows a blend of ideals to suit the scenery.