My girlfriend and I try to hook up for lunch once a month to solve the biggest issues facing romance today. It’s a blast, because each of us loves to argue the unpopular side of a debate. In fact, we play advocate for Old Scratch so often, we’re thinking of quitting our writing jobs to become defense attorneys.
Our favorite deliberation, followed closely by the “when does erotica become porn†conundrum, is this:
If the hero and heroine aren’t engaged or married by the epilogue, is it really a romance?
I say nope. No way. For me, a romance follows this simple form:
1. Boy meets girl.
2. Girl kicks boy to curb.
3. Boy — figuratively and/or literally on his knees — learns he can love without losing his intrinsic masculinity.
4. Boy and girl get engaged, get married, or at very least make it clear they’ll probably wed after they’ve lived together a couple years.
I don’t wanna know for nothin’ else.
Oh. Except the love story has to be the stuff — front and center throughout the novel, with nothing diluting it, not plot considerations, not secondary themes, nothing.
I’m preety certain I’m not alone in my belief, because this is the form most readers I know tell me they expect when they pick up a novel published as romance.
Which isn’t to say “present day romance†doesn’t owe props to not-necessarily-Happy-Ever-After styles and influences such Medieval works like the Carmina Burana and other poetry and songs tripped from the minstrel’s tongue to the scribe’s quill, later to become romantic legend.
Also, it’s impossible to read romance and not sketch a bow to Hardy, the Brontës, dear Auntie Jane, et al. We might even force a grudging nod to Stevenson and Dickens.
And, even though currently some romance fiction novelists toy with the “soft†or “open†happy endings of chick-lit and women’s fiction, if the HEA doesn’t include the hero and heroine pledging troth or making it legal – and the love story isn’t central — it ain’t a romance in my book.
Are you with me or agin me? What makes today’s romance a romance? And what’s Happily Ever After got to do with it?
No related posts.
There are quite a lot of couples who co-habit for life, so I don’t think marriage is necessary at the end of a romance, because people can be in love and living together for ever and ever without saying the vows/doing the legal bit. Also, given that in many places you can’t legally get married if you’re gay, saying that there has to be marriage or the promise of marriage in a romance would mean that there cannot be gay romances. Then again, you’ve specified ‘boy meets girl’, so maybe you’re excluding gay romance already?
I’d agree that there has to be some sort of obstacle in the way of the happy ending, but I don’t think it has to be ‘Girl kicks boy to curb’. I’ve read some lovely romances where it’s the girl who’s chasing the boy, or where they’re in love but the villain or secret is keeping them apart.
It seems to me that your point 3, ‘Boy — figuratively and/or literally on his knees — learns he can love without losing his intrinsic masculinity.’ tends to happen if the ‘boy’ is an alpha. But it doesn’t describe some of them either. For example, the Stephanie Laurens hero who goes after the heroine and knows she’s The One, or the hero who knows that he’s found his Soul Mate, isn’t worried about ‘losing his intrinsic masculinity’.
While I agree that a happy ending is intrinsic to the genre, I’m not sure that a “forever” pledge–legal or otherwise–is necessary for me. I just need to know the couple is together, in love, and ready to give it a shot.
Points 1, 2 and 3 don’t work for me either, frankly, for many of the reasons Laura mentioned and because yikes! how many ways can you write that story and still make it fresh?
How about:
1. Protagonists meet (although I’ve read plenty of romances in which the couple already know each other)
2. Protagonists acknowledge attraction and the potential for love
3. Protagonists encounter and overcome obstacles to their relationship
4. Protagonists agree to explore/continue their relationship in the future
Sounds a lot more dry when I use the big words (and who doesn’t like to see a man on his knees?
) but I think it gives a lot more room for creativity, no?
I think an HEA ends with a committment, a promise of togetherness. I don’t need the marriage, the engagement or anything like that. I also, of course, don’t want to see the same couple broken up and dating others in another book as the promise will then have been ruined for me.
I wonder sometimes though if this HEA debate is a generational thing. I’m just speculating here but are younger readers (who are probably more familiar with committed unmarried couples) the ones satisfied with a non-marriage HEA?
Personally, I don’t need a marriage or engagement HEA, as long as there is a promise of commitment.
To be honest, that seems a bit too rigid to me. Selah’s description is probably much closer to what my concept or a romance novel is. And count me in as another one who doesn’t need to see marriage or engagement to consider it a HEA.
Like Jane and Racyli, I need some sort commitment at the end of the book.
As to engagement, marriage, 2.5 kids it really depends on the sub-genre. If it’s an historical I expect engagement or marriage and maybe an epilogue with children, because of the time period. But if it’s contemporary romance or a romantic suspense and the couple knows each other for a few days or a week, then I’m happy seeing the couple committed to one another, more than that might seem like too much in such a short period of time.
All of that to basically say, the degree of HEA needs to fit the plot and story line.
HEA ≠marriage for me.
It also does not require babies.
This is especially true for contemps.
Good morning! I’m so glad you have something to say about this!
If I’d written:
I don’t think romances have to be about one man and one woman, I promote gay romance, lesbian romance, bi-sexual romance, slash, erotica, et cetera, on my blog, and excepting those, all sub-genres of romance on my nationally-syndicated columns,
would this discussion be as much fun?
Let’s face some facts, though. I don’t promote those alt romances in my column because they aren’t mainstream and aren’t what the majority of romance readers are buying.
And if I didn’t have that national forum in which to talk mainstream romance, I wouldn’t have a chance to promote and encourage discourse about the alts.
What I feel really fortunate about is having two venues where romance readers exchange ideas in a hyper-positive, encouraging way.
And I agree, Selah. But wouldn’t two men on their knees be even better?
For me, I want it to end with a serious commitment of some kind – so I don’t get that two ships passing in the night feeling.
It doesn’t have to be a marriage or engagement but if it isn’t obvious that the couple intend to stay together (& that they really belong together) then I just feel cheated.
An exceedingly narrow definition in my view, and one that excludes a romantic series involving a central character as well.
I’m wondering, Michelle, since you do have such a huge readership to your column (unlike anything any online reviewers/bloggers/readers have) if perhaps you have a more accurate feeling for what readers want. Readers online seem to embrace the niches, but that doesn’t seem to be what sells in NY. On one hand, online readers say NY is behind the times compared to epubs, while the larger percentage of readers who aren’t active on the net obviously drive trends and sales.
I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t want a commitment at the end of a romance. I do. When I read a romance I want to KNOW that these two are in LOVE and plan on being together FOREVER. I just don’t need to see the white dress and have an epilogue filled with babies (that said, as I write historicals my own books DO end with marriages, and marriages in the 18th century were pretty likely to result in babies).
I wonder if I could sell an historical romance where the heroine was a courtesan and she didn’t marry the hero at the end? Where the couple was clearly in love and deeply devoted but he didn’t through aside all considerations and marry her. Would people buy it? I don’t think they would. I think for the reader to get that tingly HEA feeling the hero has to move mountains so he can marry her . . . as in Ross’ Games of Pleasure or Balogh’s “No Man’s Mistressâ€.
Something to think about . . .
Michelle, I *have* to have my HEA. I don’t necessarily need to see the ceremony but it couldn’t hurt.
Interesting topic. I also don’t necessarily need a wedding or ceremony. I do need the commitment. While I love m/f/m stories (Holly’s MENAGE comes to mind), I always get a little wonky on how that’s going to work in the long run.
But in my more traditional romances, I tend to assume, that the commitment is for life — thus the HEA.
I’m thinking Michelle was not trying to be narrow–after all kicking boy to curb can mean many different things, such as, gee I really like you but I’m betrothed, or not a vampire like you , or I don’t think you’ll commit.
I like the HEA and I would think Michelle would agree and in fact said doesn’t mean a wedding has to take place.
I don’t even need them to be together at the end of the book.
I think a romance novel should be a book in which a relationship between a couple is the main focus. HEAs are not necessarily required.
That’s my POV as a reader.
On the other hand, if you ask me what my definition of a HEA is, it’s that the couple (or triad/whatever) makes a commitment to each other at the end of the book. Doesn’t have to be marriage, engagement, or even cohabitation. I just need to know that they plan to try and make a life together.
Great points all. Isn’t this fun?
But I think if there’s no sort of satisfying, conclusive HEA (as in even Ann Herendeen’s “Phyllida”) it ain’t a modern day romance novel, it’s something else entirely.
Anny does have the right of it. The sheer beauty of the Inet (especially for women cause we’re mostly seekers, not surfers) is that we can search out the people we feel comfortable with to talk about the things that turn us on.
But the majority of the romance novel-buying public understands the romance novel form to be concluded w/ a strong HEA. And, unfortunately, only wants to know for one man and one woman at a time.
(And I don’t even think that represents a massive moral value judgement, but that’s another blog entirely.)
Now, one might, for example, enjoy a mystery with a couple who share heat but don’t end up together in the end. It’s great. But it ain’t a romance novel.
I love the idea of the courtesan and Duke who share a love but no legal bond — have seen it in many romances as secondary relationship. But if they’re primary and they don’t marry or move into a position of equal power (the kind Stephanie Laurens talks about), then it ain’t a romance novel.
I can tell you that the majority of readers I hear from know the romance to have a conclusive ending that is “happy” because it ends in “forever” commitment in the 3 forms listed above.
They don’t care whether you or I think that’s realistic; they ain’t reading for anything other than entertainment and good feelings, emotional and/or sexual.
And the majority of readers who are buying the 2.4 billion dollars worth of romance novels sold yearly are buying them for the happy, conclusive endings in some form of the three I mentioned above.
I never like to see the same couple broken up and dating others in another book as the promise will then have been ruined for me.
I like to have some kind of committment and I’m happy for the protagonists to be m/f f/f or m/m or a combination of the above. Frankly I think a romance can do just about anything if it has a HEA and it’s done well. HEAs are like beauty though, in the eyes of the beholder. In some ways marriage and babies is not a HEA for me so I like seeing alternatives to this one.
I’m still thinking about the man figuratively and/or literally on his knees.
Those are usually my favorite scenes in a romance.
Well, maybe not my *favorite*
racyli wrote: I wonder sometimes though if this HEA debate is a generational thing. I’m just speculating here but are younger readers (who are probably more familiar with committed unmarried couples) the ones satisfied with a non-marriage HEA?
I think about this a lot. We know that the audience for erotica skews young and is very popular with women in their early 20’s to mid 30s. I often wonder — but haven’t researched it — if individuals born into the era of AIDS are looking for a fantastic outlet for sexual energy, rather than heading out to have sex as indiscriminately as folks from older gens did when they were in their late teens, twenties.
I wondered similarly if children of the AIDS era were fascinated by vampire romance for similar reasons, and found anecdotal evidence in interviews re blood rites and similar bonding ceremonies practiced among lovers and close friends. The women I interviewed told me they also enjoyed vamp romance, as well as vamp themes in other novels.
Oops. Queen of non seq here.
So, I’m thinking like you, racyli, in terms of comfort w/ lack of commitment not bothering younger folks, especially as it relates to HEAs w/ no commitment.
But, we also know young people, from around the age of 15, are reading “up into an older market,” as one editor recently described to me.
As they enjoy the traditional HEA form (please don’t flay me and think I mean family values by that, folks), they come to expect it in the same way we expect a sonnet, or haiku, or sonata to take a certain structure.
Getting here late, but then that’s when the best part of they party is happening.
I want my happy endings. I don’t necessarily have to see a marriage, but when the end is open-ended as it was in a book I read a few years ago, I got totally pissed. I don’t want the h/h messing around with the committment issue. If they’re in love, they commit to that love. It doesn’t have to be marriage, babies, etc. but it damn well better be a love forever.
As for erotica and ages, are you talking straight erotica or erotic romance Michelle? There’s a difference that even NY doesn’t seem to understand. It’s being discussed on a lot of reader’s loops, and I think there’s some real confusion on the issue.
As for young people, Michelle, you need to read my post on the Gabwagon today. I did a somewhat off the cuff interview with my 15 (almost 16) year old about romance, and erotic romance. She surprised me with her answers.
As always an excellent topic from a terrific Bella! Hugs, Monica
Hey, Mon. When I use the term erotica, I mean erotica and not erotic romance. I am a huge fan of erotica, but, as you know, they’re two diff beasts and “ne’r the twain shall meet.”
I totally don’t need a HEA for erotica to work for me. Hell, I rarely expect love to be part of it, and definitely not the primary emotion.
I have very specific definitions of genres and subs because I have to in order to do what I do.
I think lots of folks, some writers included, don’t understand the difference. When I say “writers,” I mean some authors who don’t write “hot,” and tend to guage any romance that’s “sexy” or “hot” or “erotic” as nigh on porn.
I understand the experience many writers of e.r. and erotica have w/in the trad romance community, which is one of the reasons I work to support it.
When we say “NY,” I’m guessing you mean publishing houses, and I would say the seeming confusion comes more from what’s being marketed, rather than a misunderstanding.
If women are being more vocal about liking thier romance hot, then the publishers are going to try to move the market and take advantage of it.
Not a bad thing, a good thing for authors and readers and everybody.
(Repeat this with me people: this is a business, and when it’s healthy, we all benefit.)
It just gets tricky for the consumer — as I wrote at RBtheBook last week — trying to figure out what’s true erotica and what’s erotic romance, and what’s erotic romance dressed as erotica, and what’s barely steamy romance dressed as e.r, and what’s romance dressed as chick-lit…
As the BDBs would say, ya feel me?
I not only want the HEA in my romances, I depend on it. And they definitely have to say “I love you” for me to be completely happy about the story coming to an end. I’m sorry, but I feel cheated if it’s just assumed or implied. It’s a romance, it’s fiction, it’s my escape – give me the words!
I think a lot of readers believe that the marriage/commitment at the end is just too old-fashioned, like they can’t be together unless they get married, and I don’t believe that to be true at all. I’m not a prude about it, if fact I think the characters should have sex before marriage LOL. But to me, nothing’s more romantic than meeting the love of your life and having him propose after a week. Or having the heroine ask the hero to move in with her after she saves him and they declare their love for one another. I want to know it’s leading to a lifetime commitment, and hopefully marriage.
While I don’t necessarily believe it’s a requirement in real life – I truly believe in “live and let live”, marriage or not – in my stories I want it all. Give me the whole nine yards; give me the fairy tale.
Bernita, you wrote:
An exceedingly narrow definition in my view, and one that excludes a romantic series involving a central character as well.
Ah, but a romantic novel does not a romance novel make!
Earlier, I pointed out that a mystery (or mystery series for that matter) which has a central character who may have some romantic relationship throughout each novel, but for which the romantic tension is never resolved to HEA, is… [drumroll]…
a mystery novel with romantic elements! But not a romance novel.
Now if a love story is central to a novel and a mystery is going on as well, and there’s a strong HEA…:grin:
I thank you all so much for laying out for me your tremendously well-considered opinions.
And I’m so glad to have had a chance to write about mine today. Now I’ve got to rest up. Looks like I’m gonna need all my energy to come up with a good blog and a great topic for us to hash out when I come back again.
We romance lovers are so lucky to have Romancing the Blog as a forum and tool. I can’t thank the Kates enough for inviting me to join them and you here today.
Buonanotte!
In romance, I need the developing relationship to always be prevalent in the story arc. At book’s end, I need the hero and heroine to be in love and committing that love to each other. This doesn’t mean that I need them to have set a date, bought rings, etc., but I want to know that they’re committed to the relationship for the long haul.
To be honest, that seems a bit too rigid to me. Selah’s description is probably much closer to what my concept or a romance novel is. And count me in as another one who doesn’t need to see marriage or engagement to consider it a HEA.
It’s really cool folks are still thinking about this at RtB in the same way they’re doing on and off the Inet.
But I’m wondering: Has no one ever heard the old hack line from pop culture: Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back again?
It’s one that refers to the form of love story plot in which the reader or viewer understands before it’s begun that the story’s gonna end with a couple together for the long haul.
It also makes clear the device without which a romance can’t be successful or even very interesting:
The [boy/girl, boy/boy, boy/boy/girl, gir./girl, boy/boy/boy/boy, etc.; fill in the damn blank] must overcome a major obstacle or obstacles to end up to get to the HEA.
Come on. Lighten up. We’re talkin romance here.
[...] In a recent Romancing the Blog article, Michelle Buonfiglio (she of the NATIONALLY syndicated romance review column), wrote If the hero and heroine aren’t engaged or married by the epilogue, is it really a romance? [...]