After reading two works of historical fiction in a row, I suddenly realized that the HEA promised by a romance novel cuts down a lot of the anxiety I worked myself into when I began to fear the books would not end happily. Ultimately, one book ended great, but the other had such a terrible ending I rushed immediately into the arms of a romance novel.
So many discussions regarding the romance genre center around the happily-ever-after codicil. Arguments have flared where a demarcation between the pro-HEA and anti-HEA has been drawn. But the HEA is much more complicated than being for or against it. I admit to finding the emphasis on the HEA confining–I don’t care about things like long separations or the h/h forming relationships with others before or after (!!) meeting one another, etc, as long as I know the h/h will end up together and ride off into the sunset. However, after this experience with not knowing how the book would end (I’m not a peeker), I came to appreciate the reassurance the word “romance” on the spine represents. Anyways, I think the so-called anti-HEA’s have come to associate “HEA” with gooey, mushy endings filled with miraculous pregnancies and tamed rakes making mud pies with their offspring (Blech, that’s enough to give me a sugar rush), and desire a greater flexibility for the endings of romance novels to mitigate this trend.
The presence of the ironclad HEA in romance has long drawn derisive criticism from outsiders. Because of the happily-ever-after, romances are inherently formulaic and lacking in any kind of literary quality. We can argue all day, until the cows come home, that mysteries always end with the crime solved or sf/f always centers around the Hero’s Journey, but my rebuttal is simpler than that: the HEA allows me to read in peace. All reading is a form of escapism, all of it, but when I read a romance, I want to close the covers of a book with a smile on my face. Not just the smile of triumph over adversity–which is what I feel when I read say, Freedom Writers–but the smile of knowing that I read a really great book with wonderful characters whose journey of falling in love was exciting, emotional and just plain fun (even the angsty books). When I read a romance, that HEA promises that no matter what, the h/h will over come their personal demons and society to make a lifelong connection that everyone craves in their life.
The HEA also assures me of fairness. The HF with the terrible ending was so terrible because it was completely unfair. The narrator had created a life based on a lie, but on no account did he deserve the ending he received. Yes, real life is imperfect and messy, but shouldn’t fiction exist to give a bit of hope in the midst of that messiness? I can’t help but think that the assumption that unhappy endings equal “true literature” is born from some pretty miserable people. And on that note, much of what we consider “classic” literature have happy, or at least hopeful, endings! Fiction can be used to teach, but why begrudge readers who want their lesson to be that love and a lasting relationship can exist no matter what?
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“I can’t help but think that the assumption that unhappy endings equal “true literature†is born from some pretty miserable people.”
It was Tolstoy who wrote “All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” If you believe that to be true, which I don’t, you might think that books about happy families would all be the same.
Yet different people find that different things make them happy, and there are many different paths by which characters can reach their particular form of happiness.
Reaching the destination may be a given, but it’s the journey that keeps the reader in the book.
LOL! I completely agree with the observation that people seeking misery in their literature to feel enlightened are miserable. I’ve met several. They don’t know how to “be” happy. that’s probably why they don’t like to read about it. It’s a fake condition for them.
I’d rather be happy and like romance, and no, that does not make me stupid. In fact, the opposite is probably true. Sounds like a pretty smart way to live life to me.
This is one of those areas where I’m on the fence. I definitely want a happy ending. I really don’t like those “life is unfair, and then everyone dies” endings, and I especially get annoyed with books where you feel like the writer’s thought process was “Oops, if I let them be happy and together at the end, people will think this is a (gasp!) romance. I’d better kill someone, quick.”
However, I don’t think that HEA necessarily means strictly that the couple who met in chapter one will be settling down together. To me, there’s a broader range of “happy,” and I don’t mind some surprises in the outcome as long as the result is satisfying — like maybe the guy the heroine meets in chapter one isn’t the one she ends up with because she meets someone better along the way.
Many characters have a journey to go through. They start the book in one place, emotionally, and they might have a particular goal – feel they can only settle for a partner with a certain bank balance, status, or appearance, for instance. So the kind of person they are attracted to – maybe even engaged/married to – will depend on that.
During the course of the book, as the character becomes more enlightened, they might realise that money (fame, beauty, whatever) isn’t everything. And split up with that person. And start to form tentative attachments to people who are genuine and decent, but who do not fit their former (shallow) picture of ‘the ideal partner.’
And quite honestly, I find those books a lot more fun to read than books where the pair meet on page ten and you never get the feeling that the characters are making a positive comittment – because they could have had other partners – but that the author has thrown them together, and by golly, they *will* fall in love.
I can see why that’s attractive to you.
That said, this kind of setup doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t want to read about X character for half the book and then about Y for the rest and then I’m supposed to believe that Y is it for hero/heroine A… as short as even novels are today, for me, that’s just not fulfilling my expectations of what a good romance read is.
As to the ‘they fall in love because the author said so’, it’s a mark of a badly written book to my mind, if the pairing is not convincing.
I’m with GrowlyCub. I don’t want to emotionally invest in a hero AND heroine and then find out one of them will be unhappy (or both of them end up happily with someone else which would seem a bit hokey).
I want a HEA for BOTH characters. If a romance is written well (and there are some great new ones out there), I let myself fall in love with the hero and I AM the heroine (in my fantasy world of course – in real life, I’m more like the baddie).
I’m with Shanna and Green Knight on this one. I do like a happy ending, but for me “happy” means all of the likable characters are still alive or that if someone died there is the possibility of resurrection. That’s probably because I was an SFF reader before I read romance.
For romance, I like seeing couples get together, but I don’t need the “married, babies, white picket fence” ending to believe in their happy ending. In fact, there are cases where the “married, babies, picket fences” ending seems tacked on to satisfy perceived reader demand rather than because it suited the characters.
Nor do I think that the heroine necessarily needs to end up with the guy she met in chapter one, if there is a better guy waiting for her down the line. Shanna’s series is a good example of a romantic relationship that takes time to develop. Another good example is Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series where the hero doesn’t even show up until halfway through the first book. But both examples are series. Within the wordcount limitations of a category romance, the author has to get the couple together early to have any chance for character development.
In short, happy endings are great and I love them. But there is more than one possibility of a happy ending and more than one path to get there.
Although I read across all genres (except horror and erotica) there are certain times in my life when the promised HEA is much appreciated. Like right now, I’m very emotional because of all those awesome pg hormones.
Consequently, most of the novels I’ve read lately have been Romance.
I agree with Laura about the happy families all being the same. Not true. Happy families go through a lot too. It’s just that they’ve learned to cope. Ah-ha! Happily ever after. It can be real, Baby.
Hi Angela!
I’d be very curious which two historical fiction books you read that brought on this article.
I, too, read romance for the journey and for the assurance that however large the obstacles, there will be a happy resolution for the couple (or triple).
I disagree with Shanna in that I would not consider what she describes an appropriate ending for a romance novel. If it’s not labeled ‘romance’ an alternate coupling might be okay, but most likely I still wouldn’t want to read the book because I get invested in the characters and I don’t want to find out halfway through that the guy I thought was the hero isn’t (I had a real issue with ‘Sugar Daddy’ for that reason).
As I’ve gotten older, my tolerance for ‘pushing the envelope’ has gotten increasingly less and if I pick up a book labeled ‘romance’ I really don’t want it to be devoid of a happy resolution for the characters who were introduced early on as the main players.
I’m with Shanna on this one. I can accept a slightly broader definition of HEA, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it at all!
I’m a HEA reader. That’s why I buy romance. The happy, the hope, the safety of the read.
And quite frankly, as romance is the number one selling genre, it shows that is the RIGHT formula. When I see people trying to manipulate the definition of romance, I get irritated. It works, leave it alone. You think something else will work? Great. Give it a new name, test it and see. Simple as that.
Don’t do a New Coke. Don’t break a working product simply because you want to launch something new. Readers won’t be happy (pun intended).
BTW… anyone who thinks sticking to the formula (romance = HEA) is easy, has never tried to write a romance novel. It isn’t. Not by a long shot.
It IS a wonderful challenge though.
I don’t mind that books don’t happen ‘happily ever after’ because life doesn’t always happen that way. When it doesn’t, we need to grieve and learn to hang on to God in the process.
There are lots of stories like that. They’re just not labeled romances. Looked under Fiction or Women’s Fiction.
I refuse to read books or watch movies that don’t have HEA. As some of you have stated, life isn’t always HEA. Real life can be real tough, so why would I want to entertain myself reading about more strife, grief or conflict? I don’t read fiction to gain new insights on dealing with problems or to cry over someone else’s grief and hardship. I believe good will always triumph over evil and love will transcend hate. I write it that way and I will only read it. If I want to hear about endings that aren’t HEA, I can always turn on the news.
The happily ever after is EXACTLY why I write the books I write. So many of our soldiers coming back from war don’t get a HEA, in my mind, this is one way I can take someone who’s marched through hell and give a little something back, even if it’s only through fiction.
I think ultimately, we want the world to be right and just and even though we know it isn’t, we often need to be reassured that it is through our fiction. Storytelling has always included elements of justice and fairness. The moral of the story from the old fables could be reshaped as today’s HEA and we are still learning from both!
Thanks for a great post!