Not gonna lie. I read all these character archetypes and headdesked. Then again, I'm not so much a romance genre writer as I am a writer of (hyper) realistic love stories that cross heavily into other genres. My characters tend to skewer many archetypes. My protagonists tend to be either lady lone wolves (not something seen a whole lot) or haves a lot of competing passions that make romantic love at best a secondary concern (think a career or volunteer role in public service). Rivals are next to nonexistent. Love interests aren't even revealed to be love interests until halfway through (and often have direct conversations with the protagonist's spouse before this revelation occurs). The sidekicks tend to be a bit more serious. And let's not even get started on how the romantic love is often a subplot or secondary theme in regards to the plot. Oftentimes there's a bigger social danger that looms large and has to be dealt with first by all the characters.

Clearly my interest has been to write stories about love with unconventional groupings (note I said groupings and not pairings) and a frame of mind more akin to someone who is middle aged. That last one is pretty strange since I'm not yet 40. I'm getting there, though. Maybe my brain has been 40+ this whole time.