ROMANCE

What is Romance?

A romance novel is a work of fiction in which the main plot and conflict of the story is two or more people falling in love. There might be side plots, but the central plot is about the relationship.

Romance is an uniquely recognizable genre by not only its lustful cover art but also because of how the action in a romance is moved along via emotion, rather than plot, etc. A romance novel generally follows the same composition of events: the protagonists meet and realizes their attraction, but are kept apart by an obstacle that seems insurmountable. The obstacle that separates them is taken on and eventually overcome in some way. Emotions run high and the reader vicariously accompanies the characters as they process them.

Readers often find comfort in this type of story as they know that things will turn out alright no matter how desperate the story seems, a happy ending is requisite.

Above is the trailer for the documentary Love Between the Covers an entertaining and inspiring look into the billion-dollar romance fiction industry.

Statistics show that 84% of romance readers are women.

Women like Romance as a genre because of its aspects of female empowerment. Romance novels focus on strong powerful women who make the decisions about their own lives. They drive the action, they make the choices, they decide who to love, when to love, and how to love. They're empowering women who radiate power, strength, and even feminism.

A women is the lead character and everything revolves around her. Modern romance novels tend to show her as a strong character that is independent and often confronts the obstacle herself, she is someone who has the power to change her own life. In the end the man surrenders to the woman, often depicted as the embodiment of emotion the woman often gets the better of the man who is represented by his rationality. Emotion or love triumphs.

Romance also offers its readers a validation of their beliefs and provides immense psychological reassurance through its formulaic nature. Virtue is rewarded, there will always be a happy ending if you persevere and stay true to your beliefs. Here it is important to note that readers maintain that they do not confuse the reading habits with reality, they simply like how it makes them feel.

Romance novels are usually fast paced and a quick read. They often use a lot of adjectives and are very descriptive to help invoke emotion. Main characters’ personal traits follow a pattern as well. Men are handsome, strong, distant, and often dangerous; women are strong, bright, independent and often beautiful.

To the left is an example the heat levels in Harlequin series publications.

EMOTION

Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Emotion is a key aspect of romance. Romances carry the reader through the story by their feelings as the characters pine away, yearn for one another and feel conflicted so does the reader. In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love. It is these feels that the reader gleans from Romance that brings them back again and again.

SEX

Romance allows the reader to feel validated and secure in their sexual desires and further develop their identities as sexual beings. Reading romance allows women to set their everyday lives aside temporarily and escape into the story. While some readers want hot and steamy romances others want them to be simple and sweet love stories full of innocence. For example, publishers like Harlequin have many different series lines with varying levels of sensuality. Some, such as Heartwarming and Love Inspired have no sex scenes at all, while others, such as Blaze and Desire can have several, and these scenes can be fairly descriptive and sensual.

COVER

Picture a romance novel cover… a couple entwined, his muscles bulging, her flowing hair and dress and a peek of a bit too much skin. This is the classic ‘clinch’ cover, so called because the hero and heroine are pictured clinched together. This cover was the mainstay of Romance novels up until the late twentieth century and were responsible for the romance genre being identified as pornography for women causing many readers to create slip covers for their romance novels as to no being seen reading ‘trash’. Covers have now begun to depict just the man or a setting, like a castle. Even cartoon covers are being toyed with.

ENDING

A common aspect of Romance is the predictably happy ending. Some may think that always having happy ending would diminish the readers enjoyment of the story but knowing the resolution is not the same thing as knowing the process by which the characters obtain that resolution. A Romance typically has one of two endings: Happily Ever After and Happy (For Now). In a happily ever after ending the couple traditionally gets married, has children, etc. (Wedding bells and babies!) In the happy for now ending the couple simply begins to grow and move forward.

DIVERSITY

Romance novels can feature diverse relationships. including LGBTQ+ love stories and love across cultures. While it is helpful for cataloguing and the purpose of searching these types of romances are separated into subgenres it is important to note that the definition of a romance novel is a work of fiction in which the main plot and conflict of the story is two or more people falling in love. Love is love irrespective of gender or orientation and nobody should be relegated to a sidebar or a subgenre.

Who is the Romance Reader?

The romance industry is big — it’s the second largest category of fiction, outselling science fiction, fantasy and the classics — which means there are a lot of readers. Yet romance readers often get a bad rap.

Romance readers have been described as:

  • single women who own lots of cats but need a man
  • nice people with bad taste in books
  • uneducated
  • bored
  • lacking romance in their lives

Take our Romance Readers quiz below and learn more about the people who read this genre.


Here is an example of some of the Romance sub-genres. Romance can also be broken down into levels of spiciness within the subgenres which indicate how graphic depictions of sex are: from sweet (little to none) to spicy to hot (it may be explicit). Knowing the overlying genre is key to pinning down the exact sub-genre that interests your reader, this will be helpful when you perform your Reader’s Advisory Interview.

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

FAMILY SAGA

Series/Spans several generations

HISTORICAL ROMANCE

Set it Past/Unique Setting

REGENCY ROMANCE

1811-1821/Set in England

WESTERN ROMANCE

Historical/Set in the West/Cowboy

WARRIOR ROMANCE

Adventure/Untamed Love Interest

GOTHIC ROMANCE

Dark/Atmospheric/Evil Doings

TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE

Changing Setting/Historical/SciFi

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

Happily Ever After/Present Time

PARANORMAL ROMANCE

SciFi/Mystery

BODICE RIPPER

Historical/Sexually Explicit

ETC.

Examples of Romance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Published between 1811 and 1818 is a classic of the Romance genre. Austen showed her characters with human flaws and weakness and introduced the comedy of manners.

The Three Sisters Island Trilogy by Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts, like many romance writers, write for several romance sub-genres. The Three Sisters Island Trilogy is an example of Paranormal Romance.

In Death Series by J.D. Robb

J.D. Robb is a pseudonym of Nora Roberts, and Robb’s books are futuristic romantic detective tales, which can cross genres between science fiction as well as romance.

Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones’ is a mix of romance, chick lit and humour which had a surprising appeal to young, urban women who want a happy for now ending and may not chose marriage. The heroine defines success on her own terms.

Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon

Mostly set in the 18th century after the main character travels through time from the future. It is the continuing saga of Jamie and Claire.

For Love of a Dog by Janice Carter

Varying sub-genre’s can be defined by the line it is published in. Harlequin is one of romances best known publishers, its Blaze line defines books that fall into the Erotic sub-genre and its Steeple Hill line is its Christian-oriented romance.

Quiz

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