Romances you like to read about (in and out of genre)?

After an extensive discussion on here a couple of weeks ago, where I learned that a "romance" has to have a HEA, I no longer consider myself a romance writer. I write love stories, sometimes tragic, sometimes not. And this is the same type of thing I'd like to read. I like a lot of romance books, but the guaranteed HEA bothers me. I'd rather not know the ending in advance.

A good love story for me would have a lot of laughter and fun between the characters, some steamy scenes, legitimate character flaws, a lot of stuff at stake, and not necessarily a happy ending.

Jamesaritchie said:

We don't all fall for unsuitable people in real life. Real live has true love, soulmates forever, together through thick and thin , never stop loving each other, til death do us part, happy endings, just like category romance.

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We must be living in two different dimensions.

I've been tempted to write the unlikely story of how my husband and I met and fell in love, but I stick to fantasy, because people are more likely to believe it.

Yes, I'm curious now too. You can't dangle a carrot like that and expect people not to take the bait!

I LOVE ROMANCES! I feel like there aren't alot of romance readers/writers on this forum, but I almost exclusively read romances. There are a couple SF/F authors who are old favorites, but as soon as I discovered paranormal romance I was hooked.

I like kick butt, independent heroines who end up falling for kick butt alpha men and strong, flawed men who fall for women who need them but don't want to admit it. Because of that I'm drawn primarily to paranormal romances and romantic suspense. It's a rare contemporary or historical that will draw me in.

And I'm in it for the happy ending. They should crawl over hot coals to get their happy ending, but it had better be a happily ever after.

Relevant topic to me since I just dropped a romantic fantasy story halfway through because the romance was about as exciting as stale bread.

I loathe almost any story that starts with the love at first sight trope, where they walk into a room, see each other, and the heavens open and the angels sing and weep at the beauty of their perfect love. I prefer that the two meet and not instantly know they're going to end up together, and enjoy watching things build up over time. I feel that the love at first sight trope is used to dodge a lot of relationship development as the pair figures out their compatibility with each other. The easy out.

I also admit I kinda like the bickering couple trope, when it's done right. When it's done wrong it's like a cheese grater on the brain. Oh, and anything that's a unique twist on love. People fall in love every day, what makes this particular love worth reading about?

Jamesaritchie said:

I read romance because, for me, it is real life.

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You must have a pretty idyllic life. Romance seems to be pretty far removed from life usually. That's one of the draws of it.

andiwrite said:

I'd rather not know the ending in advance.

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I think it's interesting to see so many people saying this.

I mean, don't you usually know the ending in advance with most books? You know that James Bond is going to shoot the villain. You know that the naive farm boy is going to triumph over the evil overlord. You know the superhero is going to save the world from destruction.

It's rare for stories to end any other way, and when they do, often readers complain about feeling cheated. We don't watch James Bond because we're genuinely concerned he might lose this time. We watch because we want to see what happens and how.

I like happy endings. I know that stories with happy endings, and romantic arcs in stories in general, seem to be under fire lately, because they're unrealistic, or because they imply that everyone "has" to have a partner to be complete and so on, or because they're too predictable. I guess I don't see this because love does work out sometimes. It doesn't mean it's easy or that it fixes everything, or that people aren't sometimes happier or better off single. But that's all in how it's portrayed. And stories that end badly can become just as predictable and boring as anything else.

DocMac said:

I LOVE ROMANCES! I feel like there aren't alot of romance readers/writers on this forum, but I almost exclusively read romances.

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Add me to the romance readers (and writers) list!

I'll read pretty much anything, and my favorite novel is Gone with the Wind. But I love romance because I know there'll be a happy ending. It's this comforting reassurance that no matter how dark or frustrating things seem right now, they will work out for the best. If the characters belong together, have great sex, laugh and talk, struggle for their happy ending and get it, that leaves me very satisfied.

Is that predictable? Of course. Just like mysteries where you know you'll find out who the murderer is, and thrillers where you know the serial killer will be stopped eventually.

That said, I'm not a fan of love at first sight, or any kind of coercion, e.g. "You have to love me, or I'll die/go insane/become evil/be stuck as a ghost forever". I prefer it when the other person is the best choice, rather than the only choice.

... honestly, I'm beginning to dislike bittersweet romantic subplots. You know, like when the characters drift apart. Or they get permanently separated. Or one never returns the other's feelings, even though that was half the plot. Or (and this I loathe the most) they get married and the woman grudgingly pops out some kids, and they live under house arrest together for the rest of their lives, unhappy and dealing with PTSD together. (Yeah, you know what book I'm talking about.)

I'd rather have a romance novel. Or a "love story." I want to know things are going to end with a bang. I want to be giggling like an idiot, or I want to be in tears. I don't want to feel confused and mildly depressed.

Jamesaritchie said:

We don't all fall for unsuitable people in real life. Real live has true love, soulmates forever, together through thick and thin , never stop loving each other, til death do us part, happy endings, just like category romance.

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I met my future husband when I was fifteen. From our first conversation, I had a funny feeling about him -- not love, just a hunch this person was into me. He was my first boyfriend and my first kiss. We got married when I was nineteen and I'd like to be with him until we die.

And I still think you're wrong. Ain't no such thing as soulmates, just people with good communication skills.

Marian Perera said:

I'll read pretty much anything, and my favorite novel is Gone with the Wind. But I love romance because I know there'll be a happy ending. It's this comforting reassurance that no matter how dark or frustrating things seem right now, they will work out for the best. If the characters belong together, have great sex, laugh and talk, struggle for their happy ending and get it, that leaves me very satisfied.

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And sometimes that's exactly what I'm in the mood for. I don't think there's anything wrong with reading being a refuge from real-world uncertainty and disappointment, any more than it's wrong for it to allow us to escape into worlds where people like us can be important and make a difference (even if we've been underrepresented from real history).

I think the whole thing becomes problematic when people insist that their own taste or their own sense of what's realistic is overarching, and they create elaborate mythologies about what's wrong with readers (and writers) who have different tastes.

That's really the only complaint I have about grittier or more pessimistic flavors of fiction (which I can also read and enjoy sometimes). It's when people who write it (and love it) to the exclusion of all else pretend that they're somehow wiser, better, or more mature than everyone else, because what they like is realistic. First of all, no it isn't. Second of all, even if it is, who cares?

Roxxsmom said:

And sometimes that's exactly what I'm in the mood for. I don't think there's anything wrong with reading being a refuge from real-world uncertainty and disappointment

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Heck, sometimes reading romance is a refuge from fictional uncertainty and disappointment too.

If I get tired of saying, "How could you do that, Wang Lung?" or "Rochester, you bastard!" or "Dammit, Ralph, do the math and figure out Meggie had your child" or "*sob* Tomorrow is another day"... well, there's always a happy, feelgood alternative in romance.

I do personally think there's some genres where the romance gets played up much more than it should be, like in YA Horror. A lot of the stories I read blurbs and samples for seem to be Romantic Suspense and not Horror but are given the Horror label anyway. And I will admit, much as I love romance whether the point or subplot I do not however like when my Hero/Heroine in a Horror novel gets so starry eyed they don't seem to give a rats ass their friends are dying around them. In such cases I would just rather never see one of those again, because such things feel forced and are actually hugely unrealistic.

I've written Horror stories that involve lust and romantic love, one of my shorts even sees a young woman kill her mother when she threatens her relationship with her demonic lover. Romantic love and other forms of love are great motivators in horror shorts, novellas, and novels. But the characters actively make the choice to go back into the haunted appartment in order to retrieve the other person, or do whatever they're doing. They aren't getting dragged around by the nose by their supposed love. Heck I don't even tolerate that in the mushiests romances reserved for when I'm feeling low and need a real pick me up.

I find it odd that I like love stories and romantic couples. Even in games I cheer on for the love! The odd part is I can't seem to read romance. I know I have trouble reading anything without some fantasy or supernatural element.

Sometimes I feel like my stories focus too much on the main character's romance, that that's what it should become. I'd BE happy writing/reading such things if I had more knowledge. D:

We all have our odd quirks. My mom hates and book written in first person and I don't care for books written my men (and somehow I can tell even when they go by initials or write under an androgynous name). You don't have to love the genre to write a with strong romantic elements, so long as you like your writing .

I think Christine Feehen's Game series was my first foray from being a Sci Fi and Fantasy reader to a romance reader because I noticed I was enjoying the romantic sub plots more than anything

I'm fine with any romance that isn't shoe-horned into the story because the writer thinks it's obligatory.

For me, the whole Harry-Cho thing in HP was an obligatory romance -- oh my, Harry's getting older, so he HAS to fall for someone.

CheesecakeMe said:

I loathe almost any story that starts with the love at first sight trope, where they walk into a room, see each other, and the heavens open and the angels sing and weep at the beauty of their perfect love.

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Damn it! My book has that. I talk about the angels and everything lol (kinda sarcastically though). I knew a lot of people hated it, but it worked for the story. I think it annoys people who haven't experienced it. Just like I find the HEA unrealistic because I've yet to experience that.

I like romances that "just happen" over the course of the story, between characters sharing an adventure, or working together, or anything. It has to be in a way that feel natural.

sharing an adventure

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Ooh, yes. That's usually the most engaging for me.

I can deal with any romance that feels natural and hasn't been stapled onto the story, but the only type I get emotionally invested in are romances between rivals. It ups the stakes, it can put the MC and LI into some tight spots where they may have to choose between their goal and each other, and it gives the tension an element of danger without falling back on negging or other creepy abuses or imbalances of power.

Downside? Unless the genre is contemporary realism and the characters are competing at sports or an office job, rivalmance LIs seem to be more likely than other types of LI to meet gruesome ends. Talk about hating to know how the story ends... I hate knowing the dashing book collector racing Justina Steele to the De Vermis Mysteriis is gonna wind up eaten by that monster he's distracting to give her time to escape.

However, for a good example of what I mean, there's Ada and Leon from Resident Evil. They're both still alive, but Ada had an awfully close call in her first appearance.