Is my story a Drama or a Romance?

[SquishBeanie]

Hi All,

I just recently started posting to Tapas after being more heavily involved in Wattpad. I was a little stuck with the genre choices as on Wattpad my novel sits under Teen Fiction/Young Adult. I keep moving between Drama and Romance, because my story follows them both separately, switching between the two characters to learn their story.

Alice's side feels like Drama, whereas Cat's is Romance. I've currently got my book 'Where Two Collide' under Drama but I'm wondering if anyone else has a better idea? My Hook and Synopsis for the book is as below and I'm wondering if this helps or hinders.

Alice and Cat are twins, but where they once looked alike, now they couldn't be more different.

Alice is in an increasingly abusive relationship with the "last good guy" at her school. Things begin to snowball as she makes poor choices which damage her mental well-being and her plans in life.

Cat has never been interested in dating, with her eyes on her future and her fervent skirting of anyone who tries to get close, she is thrown into an internal struggle when she starts to fall for her new female friend, Addie.

Alice and Cat try to plan their futures, but love, abuse, bad decisions and high school sometimes get in the way.

[Skaarfy]

I'm not exactly an expert with these two genres so take my response with a grain of salt

To me since since it states "but love, abuse, bad decisions and high school sometimes get in the way." this does give me some drama vibes.

When I think pure romance, I usually think about the sweet, wholesome and cheezy romance stuff, that makes you go "aww they're so meant to be together!"

But with drama, it's basically the conflict, the obstacle that keeps protagonists from obtaining their goal.

I say yours is both, but if you only want to pick one, I guess I see it more as a drama.

[SquishBeanie]

I agree with your thoughts, there is some sweet stuff in there but it's more like 15% of what's going on.

[KRWright]

I think this comes under drama, as romance would imply it follows the romantic beats as it’s main drive but this summary doesn’t seem that way.