Is Romance still in the Genre of Romance if it all ends in Tragedy?

[KRWright]

Romanitic Tragedies are a sub-genre of Tragedy, not a sub-genre of Romance.

If you sell your work as a Romance, and have a tragic ending, you will definitely not have happy romance readers. If you sell your work as a tragedy, and have a focus on romance and a tragic ending, you will have a happy tragedy reader. That's the difference and why any publisher looking at Romance genre fiction or comics will have the requirement that it has a happy ending.

[saintc]

The whole point of Romance is HEA. It’s in the definition that it has a happily ever after. So no, it’s not a romance. File it under literary fiction or Tragedy if it has too much of a Genre fiction feel.

Here’s an article for people not familiar enough with the romance genre to know what counts as romance.

If It Doesn’t Have an HEA (or HFN), It’s Not Romance

[saintc]

I also want to mention that there is a difference between playing around with a trope and breaking genre foundations.

If someone wrote Star Wars and dressed it up in Victorian aesthetic and called it historical fiction instead of sci-fi steam punk we’ll have a problem.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

Why would there be problem?

To be honest me only read one romance novel in my life. Can still remember the back-cover blurb: "With the sheer strength of his muscular BOD-DEH . . ."

[saintc]

To be honest me only read one romance novel in my life.

There’s your problem.

You don’t read the genre, and hence don’t know what makes the genre the genre. My point is—writing something that is clearly not romance and calling it romance is not in any body’s favour. A marketing disaster for the writer, and a waste of time for readers that bump into it.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

Me not planning to write romance. Romance parody, mebbe.

So me did some googling and me found the book. It "Captive Rose" by Miriam Minger, part of Captive Brides series:

With the sheer strength of his muscular body, Crusader Guy de Warenne overpowered his captors and fled the hell-hole of the Syrian prison. Yet he couldn’t leave Damascus without rescuing the lovely violet-eyed “slave girl” who had saved his life by tenderly caring for his battle wounds. Never did he imagine that his damsel in distress would become a hot-blooded temptress who would torment his days and nights with every move of her innocent young form.

She is Leila, a raven-haired English beauty kidnapped in infancy, schooled in medicine by the wealthy physician who adopted her…and trained in the sensual delights of the harem. To Leila, the Crusader is a savage barbarian who ravaged her adopted homeland and ruthlessly carried her away to serve his own purposes. Yet, even in her fury, she is drawn to this man of unexpected tenderness and awakened to a raw, sensual power that will carry them both on a tumultuous journey into adventure, danger, and love.

It actually not a bad read. Me hardly connoisseur of genre but the prose was competent and not purple, the plot and characterization were good, and the research was able to recreate that historical period with some verisimilitude.

[rajillustration]

Ah these are really great insightful responses--so follow up question, if you were writing a romance that sort of...veers very close to and may just be overall a tragedy--how many people would put it in the "Drama" category vs "Romance"? Especially knowing that while romance is popular, you may be making some readers quite unhappy if you don't deliver that happy package ending?

[joannekwan]

Yeah, I would put it under drama

[KRWright]

Especially knowing that while romance is popular, you may be making some readers quite unhappy if you don't deliver that happy package ending?

Who are you writing for? Keep that in mind. If you don't market at your actual audience, you're only going to get poor reception and bad feedback. Just because romance is popular, and your book has romance, doesn't mean it's romance genre. Romance readers, who consume vast amounts of it, are very familiar with the expectations of the genre and the tropes, endings etc. If you sell it to them, and then you don't deliver, then they have wasted time and/or money. So yeah, label it drama and get the drama fans who want to read all about the drama and avoid that disappointment in your audience entirely.

[JeanGuillet]

I've put a story in the Drama category vs. the Romance category....even though I'm not ruling out a happily ever after...because the progression of the relationship does not follow Category Romance norms. For my story, I'm much more interested in exploring character dynamics of power, deception, exploitation, and manipulation. Category Romance characters (if they have a focus on character at all - most are external plot driven) do stuff like work on overcoming their (insecurity, feelings about their social status, bad hairdo, previous breakups) to get confidence most of all, and then the love interest is naturally attracted to that confidence. In this way I see a big overlap between Category Romance and non-fiction Inspirational Self Help. It needs to be uplifting, focus on achievable goals for the audience to mimic, and yeah, it needs to end happily ever after.

So I put my story in 'drama' because I know the romance reading audience isn't interested in watching a slow motion trainwreck. Petition to start a 'Bad Romance' category?

[rajillustration]

yeah, this is what I've been feeling lately where it started out one way, and although I'm writing a story where the lovers do end up together, there's just so many dramatic dark beats as I'm going through it again, that perhaps I've now strayed far enough off the line and into a different genre, despite the romance being the central focal point.

[LordVincent]

Romance with horror/dark dramatic elements: Dark things happen along the way but the romance is still the focal point. Example: Two lovers getting by in a dystopic world. Somewhere along the line, one of them sustains a grave injury, but survives. At the end of the day, they may not have a perfect world to live in, but things are looking up and they still have each other and that is the greatest gift, and more than enough to motivate the injured person as they learn to live with their scars (or lost limbs. Whatever the injury may be lol).
If the case in a story is like the above but the romance isn't the primary focal point, but one of a few focal points, then you can still add romance as one of the story's genres.

Example of tragedy with romantic elements: Two lovers try to get by in a dystopic world, and just as they're about to save the day, one of them dies for the cause. They may have reached their goals, but their happily ever after is not achieved.
Tragedy with romantic elements can also end in one of them dying and their goals not being achieved.

Both a romance with dark elements and a tragedy with romantic elements can end bittersweet, but the primary divider is whether or not they get their ever after.

Hell, the divider isn't even if one dies lol. If ghosts exist in your story and your lovers can keep their ever after that way, it can still classify as a romance.

Romances don't have to be happy go lucky. There's a lot you are allowed to do within a genre, but if you break the main genre definitions it's kinda not that genre anymore??? Which is fine. Just call it what it is instead lol