Insisting on happy endings isn’t about denying innovation. The genre innovates and grows constantly.
But the happy ending is a tenant of the genre and has been since the beginning. It’s not some tired trope that can be inverted or subverted. It’s a fundamental facet of the genre. Like the magic in fantasy, or advanced technology in sci-fi. There are just somethings that are the hallmarks of a genre. For the romance one of those hallmarks is the happy ending.
If I doesn’t end happily it just isn’t a romance novel.
What’s more, calling the addition of sad endings to the genre “innovation” smacks of the criticism romance too often recieves for being “unrealistic” or “too optimistic”. Our novels are considered to be less valuable, and are disdained as useless fluff or trash because we don’t embrace the way “things really are”. They’re dismissed as silly love stories that supposedly distort our perceptions of reality. Don’t we know that things just don’t work out like that in really life?
Yeah. We do. But what they don’t understand is that forcing unhappy or tragic endings into a genre that is devoted to optimism and hope is anathema to romance readers and writers. There’s enough of that kind of “reality” in other genres. That’s not why we read romances.
So this isn’t about stalling out the genre’s growth. It evolves every year.
This is about what makes a romance. Which is not defined by some arbitrary set of rules we just make up exexclude people from our sandbox. What makes a romance has been defined by the desires and expectations of generations of readers and writers.
Getting writers to understand that is for their own good as well. Because if you market a tragedy as a romance because you want to “innovate” the genre? All its going to get you is bad reviews, angry readers, and poor sales.
One of the problems with this perception of how happy endings are somehow limiting for romance novels is that it so often comes from people who don’t read them. So there’s this failure to see that innovation within romance is about how you get your characters to their unique happy endings. The rules provide the innovation. “How do you innovate within this structure” is a much harder challenge than “do whatever you want,” especially when the “do whatever you want” side of things is the culturally approved one that is “good” and “literary.”
And of course, it’s not like love stories that end sadly or without that emotional satisfaction cannot be published. Me Before You was a runaway bestseller and a successful movie. So was The Fault in Our Stars. Love stories that end sadly are published frequently. They just aren’t romance novels.
Not to mention the inherent misogyny in thinking that women’s happiness is somehow less mature or enlightened than women’s suffering.
Happy ending for women —> tragic ending for women isn’t progress.
Women’s suffering isn’t innovative. It’s the status quo.
Why does it have to be a tragedy for it to be “innovation”? There’s lots of other ways you can innovate that don’t have to be that. I’ve read enough bad romance novels to know what could be fixed (first on my list is “less rape culture,” followed by “more dominant women” and “more POC and LGBTQ folks”). Having a happy ending isn’t a flaw.
Does the “happy ending” HAVE to involve the couple in the book getting together? Or can they just all be… happy? A depressing ending to a “romance” novel would make it into more of a drama/horror story to me.
It has to end with the characters together. They don’t have to be married, you can have an HFN - Happy For Now - where the idea is that they’re happy together at the end but hey life is a mystery, it may not be forever.
But yes, they do have to be together at the end of the book.
You solve the crime at the end of a crime book. You solve the mystery at the end of a mystery. You have a romance at the end of a romance. Honestly? That’s all that needs to be said about genre conventions.
Exactly! No one asks James Patterson why he has the detective solve the murder by the end of the book. So why is it OK for a thriller writer to write within the confines of a thriller but it’s not OK for a romance writer to write within the confines of a romance?
Although James Patterson is a man and most of his fanbase is men, where as romance writers are usually women writing for women readers so…. maybe that’s the answer to my question. :\
I love romance novels, especially historical ones. But my biggest problem is that a whole lot of authors think rape is sexy or appealing to readers. How is it sexy to read about a character being held down and forced to give up her virginity? How is it sexy to read about a character going through a horrifying experience? And then the author turns it around to say that she basically enjoyed it.
NO ONE ENJOYS RAPE. RAPE IS DISGUSTING.
Also, what’s up with authors being obsessed with virgins and middle aged guys together? It’s so gross to read about a character forced into a marriage with a guy that’s basically her father. Where’s the good romances at where two people of the same age love each other? Where’s the normal stuff at???
The book you’re showing here was originally published in 1978 - in other words, forty years ago, well before many of the current crop of authors and readers were even born. Lindsey is considered heavily old-school now, and best approached with a thorough understanding of the history of the genre (why things were written a certain way back then, and how attitudes and concerns and themes gradually changed).
Like every other genre out there, not to mention society itself, the romance genre has grown and evolved tremendously since the seventies. None of the issues you bring up are found in mainstream romances of this day and age. In many areas, such as the current discourse about consent, the genre is frequently ahead of other media.
My suggestion would be to focus your search on romances released within the last five years or so. Just a few popular names for up-to-date historicals written within that time frame would be Sarah MacLean, Tessa Dare, Eloisa James, Courtney Milan, Loretta Chase, Alyssa Cole, Mary Balogh, and Elizabeth Hoyt. You should be in safe hands with them :-)
I would just add to this that the rape-esque sex scene of the old school romance wasn’t about titillation, or violence against women (or atleast not simply about either of those things). It had a narrative purpose, grounded in society’s unwillingness to allow women to BE sexual beings. I suggest reading Angela Toscano’s excellent paper “A Parody of Love: the Narrative Uses of Rape in Popular Romance” from the Journal of Popular Romance Studies - it’s one of the bettr examinations of this subject that I’ve read.
Theatre has changed my life in so many ways, including making me an author. My Hearts of Broadway series is all about the thrill of performing and, of course, romance, on and off stage.
Enter a glittering world where everyone has a song in their heart. Each book in the Hearts of Broadway series follows a Broadway star on the journey of falling in love. And when these artists fall, they fall hard.
A national tour, a brand-new musical, and a co-star who makes life miserable: navigating a challenging career is already a complicated dance. So when they meet the people who tug on their heartstrings, managing the choreography of their lives gets more difficult… and exciting.
Showtune references abound and each book comes with it’s own playlist, which you can find on your favorite streaming app. Read together or stand-alone, the characters in the Hearts of Broadway series will sweep you off your feet.
On Canvas debuts April 27, but you can preorder it right now! And if you haven’t started the series, now is a great time to pick up Picture It on sale for just 99 cents too!
As I read along a romance book I noticed: all romance books I’ve read have supported the woman being small and curvy while the men are huge and practically dwarf them. Where are the books with short guys and tall girls? Need to see me some of that.
I can’t think of a single one. I’ve read some where the heights match, I’ve definitely read romance novels with tall women, but I can’t think of a single one where the hero is shorter than the heroine.
Anyone else?
As a short woman myself, I have always had a really hard time picturing a relationship with a shorter man… probably because I’ve almost never met any. But obviously that’s not the case for tall women. There is, of course, a strong cultural bias toward pairing women with men taller than themselves, but there are real-life exceptions, so you would think there would be exceptions in fiction, too.
There absolutely is a cultural bias of the men being taller - both in romance as a genre and society as a whole - and I can attest to that first hand, being 6,1". (My partner is 6,0″ and I call him “Shawty” sometimes in a T-Pain voice) And I do feel super bummed that this idea that the man has to be bigger is so pervasive. Coming from a family of amazon women (all my closest female relatives are my height or slightly shorter) I know how deeply rooted this idea is and how intertwined it is with the idea of women not taking up much space. I can relate to plus sized heroines in that way as they often deal with the expectaion of “smallness” too.
But there is something special in seeing yourself in media and I do have a Goodreads bookshelf with tall heroines (the hero being shorter isn’t a guarantee, so I just list the heroines that are tall) and SBTB did a rec league recently on the subject, check that out too! There are some recs on this old post too!
As a fairly new member of the romance community (I’ve only been reading romance novels for about three years) that fact that people complain about romance novels being formulaic - which is a correct statement - they are, is a bit baffling to me. There’s a sorts of “paint by numbers”-dismissal of romance novels (other formulaic genres are ignored for some reason. Wonder why thatis…) But they don’t seem to consider just how difficult it must be to work within that rigid framework? Like, romance is LITTERED with unspoken rules.
As a reader without much talent for writing, I’m surprised constantly of the skill it takes to take a bunch of well worn tropes and make them feel brand new. And consuming a lot of romance novels, I also know how many that can’t do that. And what makes a great romance novel stand out from a so-so romance novel - what sets them apart - it almost seems like witchcraft to me, in the sense that I don’t know how it’s done, that I don’t understand how a small change can affect the outsome so much OR how intent plays into it. I’m only there to admire (or be underwhelmed) by the results.
I mean, I know that 90% of the dismissal and belittling of romance novels are done by people who haven’t actually taken the time to get a grasp of them. I just wish that they would.
It’s INSANE to me how controversial romance novels are. Romance novels. Like, being openly a fan of them immediately opens you up to people constantly coming at you like “but don’t you think it’s ~limiting- and ~juvenile~ to have a genre of books with happy endings for women?”
Like.
No?
Why is it such a big deal to want to read stories where women have sex and then don’t die at the end? Jesus Christ.
Why is the concept of female characters being happy seen as less creative than female characters suffering? (Trust me, creating a world where women win in the end takes a lot more creativity and artistic vision lmfao)
Anyway, literary bros will pry my romance novels with their happy endings from my cold dead fingers.
Or die in the very beginning of the book. But no one calls out James Patterson for writing another formulaic thriller in which a woman is horrifically killed after getting laid and then some man solves her murder. Every. Damn. Time.
But hey, those romance novels where women get happy endings are so limiting, eh?
Real talk: realizing how common it is for female characters to be punished for on-the-page sex with death was a big part of my embracing the romance genre. Once I noticed it I couldn’t unnotice it. It’s everywhere. A woman having sex in literature or non-romance genre fiction is the literary equivalent of a red shirt on Star Trek.
It’s not just the sex thing, though that’s a key element. It’s that, in romance novels, the heroine gets to be cared for the way she normally would care for everyone else. It’s wish fulfillment in that her romantic partner will do emotional labor, spend a great deal of time thinking about her, or sacrifice his desires or fortune or reputation to be with her, or spend days nursing her back to health, or risking his life to save hers. In romance novels, you’ll find men taking care of children, talking about their feelings, putting effort into their appearance—even if they are adorably bad at it. Watch how many romance novel protagonists fall in love with a man who happens to be rich or handsome, but she didn’t give in until his behavior changed and he starts mentoring her, or providing for her, or being gentle toward her, nourishing her, listening to her, appreciating her… I suspect romance novels are looked down upon not for being juvenile formulaic “beach reads” but because they paint a fantasy world that leaves men feeling uncomfortable or even emasculated. But whether you’re a Midwest housewife or a big city CEO, women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty. Great sex they don’t have to die for is also a huge bonus, but the *romance* part of the novel is genuinely more about the woman being appreciated (for her beauty or spunk or intelligence at first, and then for all of her by the end).
“women who read romance novels just want to read about men loving women the way women are expected to love everyone else—with a nurturing and protective form of unswerving loyalty.”
THANK YOU.
According to the website smartbitchestrashybooks, which analyzes romance novels to a great degree, one common element of the average romance novel is what they call the grovel. That is, there’s a turning point near the climax of the book where the leading man says, in effect, “I hurt you. I had my reasons, but they don’t make it right. I am devastated that I hurt you, and I will do whatever it takes to make it okay again. Leaving you is completely on the table even though I find the prospect horrific.”
And that’s a very important fantasy. To have your feelings, your pain, be made so absolutely central to the narrative, to someone else’s world. You could call it a power fantasy, but I don’t think that’s exactly right. It’s a significance fantasy. A romance story is a story in which the woman is the most significant damn thing in the book.
And when you think of it like that, you realize why some people are really, really threatened by it.
