Writer's Block Daily

Ah. You phrased the question very oddly the first time. Try reading it out loud. (No comment regarding the actual question at the moment.)

Well, they're utterly and completely wrong. There are many, many romance stories that does not have a happy ending(or, sometimes, it's a bittersweet ending).

Yeah. Seriously, who on earth thinks that way?

Bite my shiny metal ass.

Dude, Romeo and Juliet is a comedy.

That definition is beyond stupid, it's worse than the old "It's not sci-fi unless it's in space" definition.

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Thing is, the RWA seems to be a large organization, but still...

What are some example of modern romance novels that otherwise follows the usual conventions, except they don't end Happily Ever After?

Here's where it all starts by the way. Note my comment and the response to it.

edited 20th May '13 10:28:13 AM by chihuahua0

Heck if I know, I don't read the genre.

You know, I've just run into a major problem with writing urban fantasy. How the hell do you treat a mermaid with modern medical technology? To many issues, to many questions, still want to get things right.....sigh.

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/3007268/4/The_Legion_of_Justice Superheroes! What could go wrong?

Demanding examples illustrates a painfully out-of-touch attitude about how genre actually works.

Romance is about romance(s).

Any other strictures added to it are purely artificial.

Nous restons ici.

@Chih: Oh, you're talking about the RWA?

Romance is a pretty institutionalized genre with pretty strict standards. Possibly if you want to be categorized as romance, as in picked up by a romance publisher and placed in the romance section of the bookstore, you need a happily ever after.

Remember, people picking up a romance book are doing so for a particular reason. There's a certain amount of wish-fulfillment involved, and in the case of romance, for that wish to be fulfilled there kind of needs to be a happily ever after.

What is out-of-touch for asking for examples? *

I'm just trying to gather up counter-examples to RWA's definition.

Hmm...Titanic? Centered around Rose and Jack and whatever they get together—and then an iceburg comes into the picture and they ultimately lose their Happily Ever After.

Except that's not a romantic novel, as RWA's definition states. There's Gone With The Wind, but I'm not sure how central the romance is to it.

And then I guess with RWA, it's just the industry definition, but it still reads like a general, sweeping statement with it saying "every romance novel".

edited 20th May '13 10:49:21 AM by chihuahua0

Note: romance is a genre. Romantic is a description. They do not necessarily mean the same thing when it comes to literary content.

"..."

Well the thing is though that romance is something of a genre ghetto so people will write stories where the main plot is a romance but has a bad ending because they want it to be art, publish as literature, and not call it romance.

It doesn't really read like a sweeping statement to me, especially considering the above and that it's on the RWA website. I really think you're getting all bent out of shape over nothing.

edited 20th May '13 10:55:50 AM by ohsointocats

I know. It's just seems wrong for the romance genre in literature to be defined by this narrow parameter.

edited 20th May '13 10:56:17 AM by chihuahua0

What part of genre ghetto do you not understand?

Simple answer: Anyone attempting to narrowly define genre does not know what genre is.

Therefore any definition so narrow as an actual work (i.e. it must be like this to be genre) is not one in touch with how genre works.

Nous restons ici.

Someone whose favorites list consists almost exclusively otherwise of male-male slash fiction has added Life After Hayate to their favorites. (I mean I count two stories that don't have a homosexual male pairing and two others that might not be purely slashfic in the first 100 entries on their favorites page.)

...I'm not sure how I should be reacting here.

Nous restons ici.

Pretty much all my favorite romance stories I've read were marketed as romance but didn't have happy endings, not that they had sad or depressing ones either.

edited 20th May '13 1:25:21 PM by Vyctorian

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Personally, I prefer my SF in space.

But that is an overly restrictive definition.

Hmmm...anyone out there have any medical knowledge?

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/3007268/4/The_Legion_of_Justice Superheroes! What could go wrong?

So all of a sudden, I just realized that, if referred to by his first name, my protagonist is a being with supernatural powers called Professor Xavier.

This totally wasn't intentional.

As Similiar Sounding Stories goes (or whatever that page is actually called), that's kind of a stretch.

How do you know when you're done editing?

When you stop editing. Because otherwise, you will never stop finding flaws to fix or alterations to make. At some point, you are supposed to go "I'm done!" and throw what you have to the next person.

"..."

But I don't wanna submit...

At some point, self-editing stops being constructive and starts being destructive. That's why most writers have their books edited by people whose job is to edit and not write.

"..."