What qualifies as a romance?

[lwflouisa]

This was inspired by another thread that asked if romance was mandatory. If interested that is also worth checking out, and has awesome insights.

I'm curious, what qualifies as being a romance. Do comic readers expect a different dynamic from people who read prose and poetry?

The script I'm working on now, it's more of a Gothic Horror and Science Fiction, but has a smattering of content that comes close to being romance.

But it's more about the criminal justice system, in a neo-colonial landscape.

[keii4ii]

Having romance in the story is different from the story being a romance genre. I recently learned that even if your story completely revolves around the romantic relationship between the MCs, in the US it doesn't belong to the romance genre if the MCs don't get a happy ending as a couple.

That doesn't mean there is no demand for sad/ tragic/ bittersweet/ etc romance stories. But yeah, "this is a romance story" =/= "this story's genre is romance." You gotta find a different label.

[sakebento]

I think if a story is labeled romance, the readers will generally expect there to be a fairly obvious set of characters who they can cheer for. Whether it be a canon couple, or triangle (or more), the focus of the story should be their interactions with each other. Any story beats should be framed in the light of how it affects their relationship. I think most folks also expect a "happy" ending, but a tragic ending Romeo and Juliet-style is probably appropriate if you drop enough hints that it's gonna get sad.

[lwflouisa]

I can definitely try my best with that. At the moment the entire atmosphere is more sad, rather than the ending itself being especially sad in itself.

In fact: An odd that about this one specifically, I joked about it elsewhere, it's actually a happy ending for my own writing style.

But I'm thinking of making story compromises anyway and the script is already evolving in a ... different direction.