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What do you consider happily ever after?


Queer Romance and HEAs (happily ever afters)  

29 members have voted

  1. 1. Do romance novels need a happily ever after ending to be a true romance?

    • Yes. At the end of a romance novel, I need to know that the main characters will be together indefinitely.
    • Yes, but I am also fine with a "happy for now". No need for a life-long promise of commitment officially stated in the text.
    • No. I think a novel should still be classified as a romance as long as the primary plot is romantic, even if the MCs have to part ways or if one of them dies.
    • Yes and no. I think novels should be considered "romance" if the primary plot revolves around love/romance even if the MCs part ways at the end. However, I normally prefer to read romances with a HEA.


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Romance novels don't 'require' a HEA in my opinion. Actually, what I look for in a novel is something that physically makes me react. If I laugh or I a smile or I cry, I think it has achieved the point of such a book and that is to convey the characters so they mean something to the reader. I recently read a story ... I forget the title ... about a rentboy who falls in love with his client and has a fairytale story but then his boyfriend dies suddenly and it ends on a sad note. It was a very sad story but I still would count it as romance. 

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Thank you so much for all your awesome responses!

 

You know what I wonder, if we're talking about the genre that publishers use to categorize books, why can't there be an official subgenre like bittersweet (Dreamspinner Press uses that) or Dark Romance or something? Still classified as a romance on Amazon or Goodreads, but readers get a heads up about what to expect.

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Three words to upset the apple cart:

 

 

Romeo and Juliette

I had a love affair with Shakespeare for a while...and I always considered Romeo and Juliet a Tragedy of epic proportions. It was about a love doomed from the start that stands out as pure tragedy..a genre we generally avoid...IMHO

I just want to say that I loved the responses to this topic by Columbus Guy. I think he sums it up perfectly for me....cheers...Gary

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Well goodreads does have such a category; https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/dark-romance

 

And yes, I always find it hilarious how so many people view Romeo and Juliette as a romance. I doubt many of them have even read it.

 

Mmm, I agree that it's certainly not what we modern readers think of as a *genre* romance, but it is a classic (THE classic?) story of young doomed love, a passionate and nurturing relationship destroyed by a senseless adult enmity. It's not aspirational or escapist, and Mills & Boone would probably go out of business if they tried to sell a steady diet of R & J type stories, but that archetype's got a recognized spot in the repertoire. I mean, half of the appeal of Nicholas Sparks seems to be that he writes about similarly bland young couples getting wrenched apart for no good reason.

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Thank you so much for all your awesome responses!

 

You know what I wonder, if we're talking about the genre that publishers use to categorize books, why can't there be an official subgenre like bittersweet (Dreamspinner Press uses that) or Dark Romance or something? Still classified as a romance on Amazon or Goodreads, but readers get a heads up about what to expect.

 

I absolutely love "Dark Romance" as a subgenre. Maybe that's the goth in me, but it has a certain 'aaaaawww'-ring to it. Luckily we're all perfectly free to use whatever label for our subgenre we see fit, maybe it'll catch :) It would take only one good book to spread the word...

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Mmm, I agree that it's certainly not what we modern readers think of as a *genre* romance, but it is a classic (THE classic?) story of young doomed love, a passionate and nurturing relationship destroyed by a senseless adult enmity. It's not aspirational or escapist, and Mills & Boone would probably go out of business if they tried to sell a steady diet of R & J type stories, but that archetype's got a recognized spot in the repertoire. I mean, half of the appeal of Nicholas Sparks seems to be that he writes about similarly bland young couples getting wrenched apart for no good reason.

 

Yea, Romeo & Juliet and even Nicholas Sparks aren't really categorized as GENRE romance since they don't have HEA or even HFN at the end. It's cool that websites like GR have subgenres, but I don't think romance imprints have a subgenre like that under romance... or do they?

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Yea, Romeo & Juliet and even Nicholas Sparks aren't really categorized as GENRE romance since they don't have HEA or even HFN at the end. It's cool that websites like GR have subgenres, but I don't think romance imprints have a subgenre like that under romance... or do they?

 

There's always Paranormal Romance, which is a subgenre used by publishers and certain bookshops. The Twilight series is the most obvious example, and has certainly led to the growth of the genre, but it's been around for quite some time. Usually, it can be defined as urban or contemporary fantasy, or as horror, but with a romantic primary plot.

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Happily ever after is not judged by romance, riches, or selfish thoughts of self worth.  Happily ever after is sitting on your porch or deck with your significant other beside you thinking,"I love him as much as I did 32 years ago.  He's my soulmate, my friend, and my answer to tomorrow.  That's "happily ever after".

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If the main plot is romance, then even if it ends or someone dies, it was still romance in my opinion. I'm a fan of happy for now as well, not sure i truly buy into the whole ever after bit. 

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James, I think our ideas of happily ever afters are ALL molded by the way that we were brought up. I was raised in a house where discipline was strict, hugs were very few and very far between, to the point that when they happened, you began looking for the catch, or the thing that had really, truly gone wrong. Not to mention that what i saw of relationships in my home contained arguments could start up at the dinner table and continue long into the night, and there was never anything quiet about them. 

 

Growing up I learned that choosing to have a family meant you had no life of your own, that you had no dreams, you were a parent, period. Thus, I had absolutely no desire, ever to have kids, because according to my parents, it wasn't a fun experience, there was no enjoyment, having a family meant hard work, sacrifice and no joy. 

 

The same too with Sex, which is a word I still struggle to speak out loud, because sex was about making babies, and you don't talk about that. The body was shameful, sex was for having kids, don't let your boyfriend touch you, to include hugs, kisses, putting an arm around you. I grew up distinctly uncomfortable with affection (now some of you can see where my character, Asher, gets it from) 

 

My relationships, growing up, were thus very disconnected. I did not understand the concept of forming attachments, as everything i'd gotten attached to while young, mainly pets as I was an only child, they either died or were given away, usually while I was at school. Coming home to an empty house and spending hours in tears looking for your lost animal is a great way to teach a kid not to care about anything. Incidently, when my mom and step-dad did decide to split, it was in the same absent manner of no goodbyes, just the only father i'd had no longer being there. 

 

I remember when I got divorced many years later, I sat thinking that I should feel something. The father of my child just left, I just kicked him out, there should be some emotion. 

 

truth is, I still struggle with emotion, how to feel it, how to express it rather than repress and internalize it,  and at times I struggle to put emotion into some of my characters when i write because I do not know how to express what i want that character to feel.

 

Hope I didn't go too long either and prolly should have blogged all this too, but I wanted you to know you are not alone in your reality. Its the culture and environment of our childhoods that makes us think and act the way we do. i could never write a happily ever after, I could never even describe one, I just know I've been blessed enough to have two people in my life who have stuck around (A decade for one, two decades for the other, wow) and taught me what a relationship can be, even a strange, crazy, wonderful, totally off the way relationship like ours lol. So happy for now I understand. But with it is always the understanding that now is fragile. 

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James, my friend... :hug:

 

I believe the reason why romance stories are so popular is because of escapism and being able to fantasise about a life where everything works out. I used to read lots of science fiction and fantasy when I was growing up for exactly that reason -- escaping from the life I had. Mine was completely different from yours. Mine was just being lonely. I didn't really have friends -- I just couldn't relate to other people. So I read to find a world in which I did fit in.

 

Romance is the same. My view is that people read them to allow them to immerse themselves in a world where things are better than they currently are, or to find a place where things are happy. Real life is rarely that happy, but by reading those types of stories, we can escape for awhile, pretend that things will be Happily Ever After.

 

I'm lucky. I have a good life and will be celebrating my 24th wedding anniversary later this month. My wife has now known I'm gay for the last ten years of that relationship, and we're still together. But I understand James, too. Sometimes our past closes off options for us... In his case, it's long term relationships. In my case, it's being able to have a boyfriend.

 

Take care, my friend :hug:

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I don't know. I'm from dysfunction myself, and I've seen a lot of changes, in someone who wasn't gay, but was abused and damaged, after 60 and 70. To me, fifty seems young to decide that happiness with a long-term partner is not out there for you. I'm not trying to diminish what you've gone through, or argue that the chances of success are great or anything. But I've seen enough pairs of damaged people wobble along well enough by now, that I wouldn't necessarily rule it out. Age brings self-knowledge and compassion that younger people haven't necessarily had time to practice.

 

 

Figuring Out the Happily Ever After

 

Making another plug for podga's stories... there's one on literotica, about a man meeting someone after the death of his first partner that might fit your title a little bit. Just One Life to Live, I think.

 

As far as HEAs in general... you could argue that the standard ending is limiting, that it sets readers up to expect a certain way of being in a relationship. Perfect connection, near-perfect sex, telepathy, etc.... that romance writing in general is often kind of bad for the reader's relationship skills because it tends to minimize the work that's required.  I don't know if I believe that myself.

Edited by Irritable1
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James:

 

Everything you said was so spot on about how I've grown up that I got kind of emo reading it. I'm old enough to be a little jaded because of it. In my teens and twenties I had the belief that 1) marriage wasn't allowed and it was never going to happen if I wound up with a man 2) well f*** that sh** anyway, who needs it? that's for heteros, so let them be boring and unhappy (defensive contrary anger) 3) enjoy what you can get when you can get it because eventually it's going to be taken away or something will happen to ruin it.

 

Nothing felt final or solid or guaranteed, and that's why I can never make those guaranteed HEA forever things happen when I'm writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I find that unrealistic these days. But my mind still can't wrap around the reality of these days even if things have begun changing in some places for the better. But even then, that's still a very Western mindset. In a lot of places, being gay is still something that happens in private.

 

It's sad that I still see some things as being idealistic when it's not just an ideal for me anymore but, as you said so poignantly, it comes from being psychologically damaged by an unforgiving society, constant shaming for being who I am by friends and family, and a violent father.

Edited by Santino
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I like realistic stories. Happy endings don't necessarily equal happily ever after, because in reality there is no such thing as happily ever after- everyone dies, everyone loses people they love, sometimes in horrible ways, and life is inherently tragic. Doesn't mean there can't be happiness along the way, of course. When I finish a story that ends happily, and am still in that mindset of mulling over the characters' lives, I can't help but fast forward to their eventual deaths. Is that odd?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't get people who concentrate their reading and focus it all into genre fiction. My grandfather used to read Louis L'Amour for his fiction fixes and nothing else. He was a university biology professor. He wasn't stupid. He just wanted the same dog food in his bowl, meal after meal after meal after meal.

 

There's nothing wrong with it, I guess. I just can't relate.

 

I don't need a story to end in any particular whichway. What I need for a story to do is to take me into it and enchant me and enable me to bring something from it back into my "real" world.

 

As such, I don't care whether the ending is happy or sad.

 

I liked Graeme's first post that suggested it's all a matter of how you define things.

 

If you want to write for a niche market, then I suppose it's an important question...but I can't help but be aware of the fact that often the genre is improved and expanded by those whose work within it violates the conventions in various ways. So if you wanna write for the romance market, do you strive to operate within the constraints of what's expected, or usual, or best-selling in that market? I guess that's one way to write a book.

 

Personally I see that as an act of bad faith. I want an author who has a story to tell. And stories that want/need to be told don't heed convention or expectation. They have a life of their own, and they go the way that the story demands they go.

 

Two of the best books books I've ever read are books that are as romantic as any "romance" novel I've ever read, and they're actually quite different from one another on the matter of HEA. One is Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys. I heartily commend that book to anyone who has the fortitude to get through the first fifty pages. If you can, you'll be rewarded with a love story that will haunt you for the rest of your days. And they ain't no happy ending to be found.

 

The other is Joe Hayes' A Map of the Harbor Islands. And it's definitely HEA. But it's a hard-won HEA.

 

Now that I think about it, for a romance novel to be satisfying to me, if it's going to be HEA, the HEA has to be hard-won. Otherwise the excess sweetness threatens to dissolve my teeth.

 

If you're gonna write genre fiction and you have an eye toward its being well and widely received, then I suppose the question of what the genre demands in terms of endings is germane. But just be aware that readers in the genre aren't totally brain-dead. They're open to, and receptive of, departures from the norm, even if they're not always looking for them.

 

But personally, I like writers who don't adhere to genres and who prefer to let the question "What story have I been given to tell?" guide their beginnings, their middles, and their endings. Historically, those guys have produced plenty of fine romantic fiction, whether it's Romance Fiction or not. And some of it is HEA, and some of it isn't.

Edited by Adam Phillips
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

While I agree that a 'happily ever after' ending is not a necessity of romance novels (though it could be a major marketing necessity in a few subcategories of the 'romance' genre), I disagree with the implication that happy endings in novels are unrealistic.

 

In our lives we have moments of great happiness and sadness. Life is a journey and you face both the polarities and all that is in between as you go. A novel with a happy ending just 'ends' at a happy time in the characters' lives, and doesn't go on to show the remaining span of the characters' lives which may have very well been tragic...  I can understand the issue with 'forcing' a happy ending in an otherwise serious-and-tragic-moody novel, but if the happy ending fits the overall tone of the novel, then I don't see the problem. In fact, I'd say, a lot of the so-called tear-jerker-and-misery-porn novels and movies are equally unrealistic.

 

Haven't gone through the whole thread, sorry if I am repetitive.

Edited by Warrior1
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  • 5 months later...

According to this Wikipedia article, and I agree with this part: A romance must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending."

 

I think that's generally true. But that doesn't mean that the major characters can't suffer all kinds of tragedy, embarrassment, disasters, even breaking up for a time. I think there's a way to even take a tragedy and lean it into an optimistic direction -- maybe kind of wistful and poignant, as opposed to "happily ever after." But I don't think leaving the reader in agony and killing off the main characters and leaving everything upended and destroyed is very satisfying, either.

 

Heck, I can think of some major romantic novels where the main characters broke up (or one died), then the lead meets somebody else and starts a new romance. Still technically an emotionally satisfying ending, still optimistic, but perhaps not the one you were expecting.

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