How much romance is in your book? I've heard that's a requirement.

IReidandWrite · Mar 26, 2008

The only romance in mine is a lesbian couple...But one of them dies in the end so it's like.....Who knows.

How's bout you guys?

And is it just a wivestale that romance is needed in a book?

Claudia Gray · Mar 26, 2008

Yes, it's absolutely true. Every book must contain a love interest, or the offending author is taken out and shot. International law.

IReidandWrite · Mar 26, 2008

I'm so short they'd miss every time.

I think I was thinking of 'prerequisite' and put 'requirement'.

Bah.

Mr Flibble · Mar 26, 2008

Well my main WIP is a fantasy romance, so quite a bit....

Very little in my others though.

Phaeal · Mar 26, 2008

Romances require romance. Many other types of novels contain romances as subplots. A mandatory for all? Not that I've ever heard. And there's not much I hate worse than a romance shoehorned into a story that doesn't require it.

Jersey Chick · Mar 26, 2008

Hmmm.... since I write romance - I'd have to say it is definitely law.

Toothpaste · Mar 26, 2008

None.

Khazarkhum · Mar 26, 2008

Hmmm...well, let's see. A popular writer & romances. I know! Tolkien!

Remember that incendiary scene with Galadriel, Celeborn and Gimli? HoT!!

Bilbo doing that hobbit chick...what was her name...Rosie something? Wow that made the toes curl.

Oh, and Eowyn! Yeah! Killing her lover right there on the battlefield because she found him in bed with Arwen! Wowza!

Wait...what? You mean those are only in fanfic, not the text? Oh...OK.

So I guess you can leave romance out of a book & it will still sell. Who knew? :Shrug:

katiemac · Mar 26, 2008

It's not a requirement. But something I find interesting is that even if you don't intend a romance, a lot of readers put emphasis on the relationship between male and female characters, especially if they happen to be the leads.

dreamsofnever · Mar 26, 2008

It's not a requirement at all. There are definitely some books out there that don't have romances, or have romance but it's a very small subplot. I can't think of any off-hand, but anyways it's not a requirement

dreamsofnever · Mar 26, 2008

Oh, and be careful with killing off half of your lesbian couple. There's a cliche in entertainment with lesbian couples where one is killed off and the other goes psychotically violent. If you have something like that, it may be found as pretty offensive. But as long as you don't go that route and have the one left alive deal with her grief in a less violent way, you're good to go.

CACTUSWENDY · Mar 26, 2008

Define romance?....

I have a serial killer....he might think there is a type of 'romance' involved but that would be a real hard thing to see. I don't think it is required, but I have been feeling sorry for my cop lead. He leads such a nun-like life. Maybe I need to spice up his role a bit. Will give that some thought.

IReidandWrite · Mar 26, 2008

dreamsofnever said:
Oh, and be careful with killing off half of your lesbian couple. There's a cliche in entertainment with lesbian couples where one is killed off and the other goes psychotically violent. If you have something like that, it may be found as pretty offensive. But as long as you don't go that route and have the one left alive deal with her grief in a less violent way, you're good to go.

Uh, what if one of the character's already an assassin?

thethinker42 · Mar 26, 2008

ClaudiaGray said:
Yes, it's absolutely true. Every book must contain a love interest, or the offending author is taken out and shot. International law.

Wait, I thought forgetting to include a love interest was punishable by the iron maiden, not firing squad. I think the firing squad is only used for excessive info dumps and overuse of adverbs these days.

Maybe I'm not as up to speed on punishment for writers as I thought I was...

Sonneillon · Mar 26, 2008

Yeah, ever since Willow and Tara...

Here's my experience, take it as you will: Romantic Subplots are not required, but the entertainment industry seems to THINK they are. Books and movies tend to get farther if there is a romantic subplot. I suppose this is because it engages the emotions, particularly of female readers, and some genres which are principally aimed at men may attract more readership this way.

In "romance" genre books that aren't specifically erotica, there will be two and a half sex scenes. By this I mean that two scenes will be fully (if ambiguously) described, and another will be alone the lines of "then they fell passionately into bed", the end. Note: if there is more than one pairing in the book, this formula changes.

In books that are not of the romance genre but contain a romantic subplot, there will usually be one sex scene and possibly another 'half' sex scene.

In books that are not of the romance genre but contain an UNIMPORTANT romantic subplot, the pair may share a kiss and possibly some groping, but may or may not have sex within the confines of the book.

Those obviously aren't absolute rules, just patterns I've observed. You may or may not agree with my interpretation of them, but if you're trying to decide how important romance is to your book, it might be helpful to have a relative measurement?

Jenan Mac · Mar 26, 2008

My MC and her partner have been together for awhile, so I don't know if it's so much actual romance as...comfortable. And neither of them dies, or goes psychotic-- though one of them does make someone else's head explode. But she doesn't do it on purpose.

HeronW · Mar 26, 2008

Anything that creates drama and tension that moves the characters &/or plot can work--inc. love interests whether fulfilled or not.

Mumut · Mar 26, 2008

I write YA historical adventure and there's no romance. The person who wanted to help me write the screenplay pulled out when I said there wouldn't be romance. I also don't want to write about something I know nothing about.

AZ_Dawn · Mar 26, 2008

Most of the books I read are either devoid of romance or aren't in your face with it. I don't mind if characters fall in love, get married, etc., but I don't like to be hit over the head with it every third chapter.

Besides, unrequited love is more fun.

The most romantic relationship in my WIP is a joke between 2 of my pirates just to tease the rest of the crew. Almost everyone else gets the comic strip treatment. :e2slap:

dreamsofnever · Mar 26, 2008

Project nachonaco said:
Uh, what if one of the character's already an assassin?

There's my foot in my mouth

I think that would be okay then.

dreamsofnever · Mar 26, 2008

Sonneillon said:
Yeah, ever since Willow and Tara...

Actually, Willow and Tara were the just the latest to fulfill the cliches. That's how I found out about it, because a lot of the fandom community was in an uproar over Buffy fulfilling this. Basically, the issue was that most lesbians represented in entertainment were shown that way, like the writers felt they 'should' be punished, so there's the whole, one dies, and one goes evil because lesbians are inherently evil. (disclaimer-this is absolutely NOT my view. just the assumed view of those perpetuating the cliche)

I'll have to see if I can find some essays online about this because it was a big uproar over it when the Willow and Tara storyline went down.

JacobWorld · Mar 26, 2008

hi mate

AZ_Dawn said:
Most of the books I read are either devoid of romance or aren't in your face with it. I don't mind if characters fall in love, get married, etc., but I don't like to be hit over the head with it every third chapter. Besides, unrequited love is more fun.

The most romantic relationship in my WIP is a joke between 2 of my pirates just to tease the rest of the crew. Almost everyone else gets the comic strip treatment.

I have to say romance is very important it give some depht to the book and gives you a changce to get away from the main story from time to time

Storm Dream · Mar 26, 2008

I think several of my stories have romantic elements from time to time (characters might date, make out, do the nasty, etc) but I don't really make it into a subplot. The story I just recently finished has what I think is an attraction between the two leads, but they're too busy trying to prevent a supernatural disaster to act on it. No time, y'know?

I mean, a lot of it is just simple human interaction. We are attracted to people, we fall in love or lust, things happen. Unless your character lives in a total vacuum (interesting story there), he/she will encounter things like that.

maestrowork · Mar 26, 2008

Project nachonaco said:
The only romance in mine is a lesbian couple...But one of them dies in the end so it's like.....Who knows.

How's bout you guys?

And is it just a wivestale that romance is needed in a book?

I am not sure that's true... I've read books without a single romance in them.

Sex, however, is always on characters' minds. Stephen King said so.

OK, I write romantic drama, so obviously there's a lot of lovey dovey stuff going on in my book, but there are other stuff, too. I'd say, in my current WIP, the romance is about 30% so far.

JimmyB27 · Mar 27, 2008

WiP 1 - MC's girlfriend is killed right at the beginning.
WiP 2 - MC is an atheist who falls in love with a girl who believes he is the Messiah and therefore waaaay out of her league.

I like my characters to be frustrated in love.

How much romance is in your book? I've heard that's a requirement.

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