When I wrote the condom piece a few weeks ago I intended it to be one of my funny posts, but many of you saw red and didn’t actually read the post because I dared to suggest that we imagine a world without condoms. Of course I wasn’t being serious, but that post was like waving a red scarf in front of a bull, and everything after “imagine a world without condoms” was a blur. 🙂 How do I know you didn’t read the post? Because of your comments. So today I’m messing with another controversial topic – the HEA in M/M romances
Most, if not all, M/M romance readers have said time and again on this site and elsewhere that they won’t read a romance unless there’s a happy ending. They go on to say that it’s not a romance unless it has a HEA. It doesn’t matter if the HEA in a book is artificial and manufactured, and is not consistent with the plot and characters, readers refuse to buy M/M romances unless they are guaranteed a happy ending.
We are intelligent enough to recognize when the ending of a book is playing to our desire for a specific outcome but we still want that outcome. Many of you write me to find out whether a specific book reviewed here has a HEA when the reviewer doesn’t explicitly say so in the review. I can’t count the number of emails I received from readers about The Dark Tide by Josh Lanyon when I reviewed the book a few days before it was released, enquiring whether Jake and Adrien had their HEA. I suppose these readers weren’t going to buy the last book in the series if our heroes didn’t stay together in the end, even though they had loved it so far. Is the journey no longer good enough? Must we insist on a happy ever after? Whatever happens to books that buck this trend – do they end up in a scrap heap with other unwanted books? There is pressure on authors from the publishers as well. Publishers don’t want to release a romance book unless the heroes live happily EVAH after because they know that it won’t sell.
Romance is the only genre where readers can dictate what they want in terms of how a book ends. In general fiction an author can pretty well write what he or she wants to write and the books live or die by how well the writer’s prose, dialogue and characters can engage the readers. In M/M romance or any romance for that matter, it doesn’t matter how well written the story is, or how wonderful the journey, readers refuse to buy the books unless they have this most important ingredient, the HEA. Poorly written books get a pass because they give readers the ending they want. We keep asking for fresh ideas in M/M and and not the rehashed tried and true, but how can authors be expected to take risks if they are constrained by readers in this most important area? Almost all “romance” readers demand that the heroes in their books be together at the end. Some books that end with a HFN have readers requesting a sequel. Forget another book with the same protagonists if they end up with someone else – that would never see the light of day. 🙂
There are many M/M love stories that did not provide the outcome that romance readers demand today, yet they continue to be popular and we can’t forget them. These books were written years ago, before there were “romance” readers and therefore they didn’t have to pass the litmus test of a HEA. Some of you have said that if there’s no happy ending it’s not a romance. Well, what about well known and well loved M/M romances such as The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren and Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx? They would never have been written if they had to meet our requirement of a HEA. Those of us who have read these standard bearers know that these books are wonderfully crafted stories that are romances. However, they were written at a time when they had to meet another criterion which was set both by the industry and readers: that gay romances were not consistent with the lifestyles and mores of the day and therefore the books had to meet the litmus test of the “dead ghey.” Do you see where I’m going with this post? Here are a few other classics that might never have been released if they were written in the 21st century, because readers would have insisted on a HEA:
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
A Single Man – Isherwood – protag dies
As Meat Love Salt – Maria McCann
At Swim Two Boys – Jamie McNeill
The Bitterweed Path – Hal Phillips
Vintner’s Luck – Ellizabeth Knox
Regeneration Trilogy – Pat Barker
While England Sleeps – David Leavitt
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
and my personal favourite Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
This also happened with gay characters in non gay books. For example The Fox by DH Lawrence and the gay angels in His Dark Materials. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is another book that would never have been written if today’s M/M readers had their say!
We have evolved from demanding that gays in romances should be killed off or live unhappily ever after, because to have done otherwise would have been to advocate or promote an alternative lifestyle, and God forbid we should do that, since being gay was thought to be synonymous with an abomination. Consequently gay lovers had to end up dead or at least not be together in the end, because that would send the wrong message and we certainly don’t want that. Now we insist that gay romances must have a HEA or we won’t read them. We seem to have changed direction 180 degrees.
I’m not advocating that we abandon the desire that the protagonists in romances should live happily ever after because I, too, love HEA’s, but I think that books, including romances, should be given a chance to fall or rise on their own merits and not be judged by hard and fast rules that we have set up. Could we not leave it up to the authors to decide occasionally whether it makes sense to tie a big bow at the end of a book and have our heroes go off into the sunset forever? What do you think? Should there not be some flexibility to allow authors to write the stories they want? Are we not stifling their creativity by demanding that every M/M romance or love story have a HEA?
Have your say. Must every.single.M/M romance. have. a. HEA?
I think m/m romance should have a HEA ending because by definition it’s the one thing readers expect out of a romance. However, just because a story depicts a relationship doesn’t mean it needs to be a romance, and there’s no reason why review sites shouldn’t promote m/m fiction beyond the romance genre…m/m literary fiction, m/m historical fiction, m/m SFF, m/m mystery/thrillers, or just plain m/m fiction.
I would love it if m/m evolved into non-romance m/m genres. I totally agree that just because there’s a relationship in a book, it doesn’t make it a romance. I don’t think the market’s big enough to support multiple m/m factions at this point, but maybe someday. Right now it’s like writing in the niche of a niche.
Jordan
>>I would love it if m/m evolved into non-romance m/m genres<< I would like to see M/M evolve some day in the future and become its own brand without being forced into the same protocols as het romance. It really drives me crazy so see how it's gradually becoming less different from het except for the fact that the guys are screwing each other.
Hi Deborah
>>I think m/m romance should have a HEA ending because by definition it’s the one thing readers expect out of a romance.<< I think that by definition a romance is a story where two people meet and fall in love. They MAY end up together but if they don't, does this not mean that it's not a romance? I gave several examples of romances where the protagonists did not end up together. Dictionaries define romance as "a love affair: a relationship between two lovers" but they do not specify that the lovers will end up together forever. The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren was one of the most emotional love stories I have read for a long time yet it did not end happily but readers continue to buy this book in large numbers and it recently celebrated its 26th anniversary. >>there’s no reason why review sites shouldn’t promote m/m fiction beyond the romance genre…m/m literary fiction, m/m historical fiction, m/m SFF, m/m mystery/thrillers, or just plain m/m fiction<< This site promotes all M/M fiction. However, this post is specifically about romances and the demands of the readers of the genre that all romances must have a happy ending. I know it's nice to have everything tied up neatly, but sometimes it's better to have an open ending that has integrity.
Wave:
I think that by definition a romance is a story where two people meet and fall in love. They MAY end up together but if they don’t, does this not mean that it’s not a romance?
Sirius11214:
I think one of the literary requirements for romance these days is happy ending though. Somebody elsewhere mentioned six elements of Romance for the purpose of literary composition and happy ending was one of them. I mean yes, Romeo and Juliette I am sure was considered a romance too. But would it be considered a Romance today? I dare publishers to put a “tragic” tag on the books that end badly (not HFN but at least with death of the protagonist), not my suggestion either, but I loved it. Only see the thing is something tells me they won’t sell Romance book which is tagged as tragic, thus such marketing feels to me as taking advantage of the Romance readers who want to know that yes, at least protagonist does not die.
I will be the first one to say that writer should tell the story and end it as his or her imagination wants them to end it, but again please market it accordingly, otherwise it feels to me as one would want to have his cake and eat it too.
I love when relationships and characters in Romance are depicted realistically or at least closely to realism, I do not require that much of escape in my Romance books, BUT I certainly want to escape in a sense that I know that no much how characters suffer they will be more or less happy at the end. There are plenty of other genres I can get my dose of realism in that aspect and of course there is a real life too lol. Just my opinion of course.
Hi Sirius
>>I love when relationships and characters in Romance are depicted realistically or at least closely to realism, I do not require that much of escape in my Romance books, BUT I certainly want to escape in a sense that I know that no much how characters suffer they will be more or less happy at the end.<< I consider that as having your cake and eating it too. You can't have realism and have everyone with a HEA, because that's not real. In the world of "romance" having the characters happy at the end seems to be a prerequisite for enjoying a book, but aren't there readers who could read AND enjoy a romance even if it ends with the protagonists' fate together up in the air. I'm one of those readers and I think there are others who would give up the HEA for a well written romance. But hell I could be wrong - I'm often wrong. 🙂
Sorry for being unclear Wave, when I said I want realistic depiction of the relationships in the romance, but at the same time expect HEA or HFN, I should have said that of course I know expecting HEA all the time is not realistic. But I thought I was clear when I said that I expect that for escapism, so yes, sure it is not realistic. I want it anyway and again as Ally said, I read all books, I have the books on my shelves which have no relationships to romances whatsoever, none. I do not expect them to end happily, but Romances (what I consider Romances, yes I seem to differ from you in what Romance book is and not just book about two people falling in love) yes, I do. Even if it is unrealistic, as long as I consider it believable ( no to me believable does not have to equal realistic), I am fine with it.
One of the books you mentioned in your post was Call me by your name, right? I think it is amazing book, but IMO it is not a Romance. IMO of course. I would never demand anything from the author and publisher except correct label, but yes the label I want to see.
The genre “romance” was co-opted by Mills & Boone, and their formula is now so pervasive that many people have a very rigid idea of what is or is not romance… even to the point of saying that if one of the protagonists gets involved with anyone else after the main characters have fallen in love it’s not “really” a romance.
I think that a happy or hopeful ending is preferable, since the genre label is so widely accepted now. But keeping too strictly to the formula means that a lot of very good books are discarded, and with m/m …. I’m sorry, fidelity is not always an expectation, especially with younger men, until a commitment to monogamy is made by both parties.
Excellent topic! it would be nice if some stories slipped through with non HEA endings. I read a halloween short once (I believe it was The MAsk by Claire London) that did not have a HEA, quite the opposite. And I enjoyed it. And I was surprised it got published because of the demand for HEA or at least HFN endings.
You mentioned The Dark Tide. I wasn’t worried about a HEA ending, I knew who the publisher was. I was worried about other issues that come with a ‘last in the series’ novel. But it made me think of The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon and how that was not, imo, a HEA or HFN ending. You can not convince me that Adrien was happy at the ending, or that Jake was for that matter. But I knew the Josh would fix that in the next book – and he did. Again not the perfect ending for Death of a Pirate King but better than THYS.
I think sometimes the endings need to be sad. Characters die – it happens and sometimes needs to happen to get another range of emotion. I’d rather read a good, strong sad ending before a crappy contrived happy one.
It’s too early in the morning and I’ve rambled but I do hope you get the gist of what I’m trying to say.
I just wanted to clarify something as it may not have come across right. Granted, I’m still half asleep.
I absolutely loved Josh Lanyon’s Adrien English series. Even without the HEA or HFN endings in all the books. I love the fact that he didn’t give us the endings that are demanded by a lot of publishers.
You can have romance with a sad ending. Josh proves that.
Andy
I agree wholeheartedly about the AE series. Series books are a different kettle of fish because no one really should expect the heroes to live happily ever after until the series ends, although there was a great deal of pressure on Josh Lanyon after THYS to make Jake a teddy bear because readers demanded his head. Thankfully teh author resistedreaders’ demands and wrote the story he wanted to.
I admit it – I loved Jake from book one and I think Josh handled Jake very well considering most hated him.
And to prove that I had faith in Josh for writing a great story even without the endings I’d prefer…
I got into the series late. I had just started THYS (it wasn’t available in ebook format and I had to order the old version from Amazon.). DOAPK was in the works and Josh posted an excerpt and I lacking common sense read it and found out that THYS would not end well. I read it anyway and loved it.
Josh was one of the first m/m writers I found and I didn’t know Adrien English would be a series. I read the first two and then hunted Josh down on the internet.
I feel romance is a story about two people falling in love or what they think is love. It doesn’t always end well, people drift apart and people die. It still makes for great stories and shouldn’t be cast aside.
Andy
>>I feel romance is a story about two people falling in love or what they think is love. It doesn’t always end well, people drift apart and people die. It still makes for great stories and shouldn’t be cast aside<< I'm with you there 100 %. Why is it essential that the loving couple should remain together unhappily forever? That doesn't happen in RL and many authors tell me that even though these stories are fantasies they should be as realistic as possible. So here's a bit of realism - people love each other but no one is guaranteed forever. We fall out of love, we die, we grow apart especially if a couple meet when they are quite young and their emotional growth takes different paths, and none of this has to involve someone else. However while it lasts it is a romance for however long they are together. I love Jake but many readers and fans of the series hate him. Without him, even though these fans won't admit it, the series would not have been as popular with all the elements that we like in a romance including two people who love each other even though they had to take different paths before they got together in the end.
Hi Andy
>>it would be nice if some stories slipped through with non HEA endings.<< Like you, I prefer it when a romance has a HFN ending that is more appropriate and has more integrity according to the plot than a contrived HEA. >>I think sometimes the endings need to be sad. Characters die – it happens and sometimes needs to happen to get another range of emotion. I’d rather read a good, strong sad ending before a crappy contrived happy one. << I totally agree. I don't know how many books I've read where the endings are telegraphed and they are inconsistent with the plot or the stories. authors say that their stories are realistic yet their romances don't have realism because the endings of their stories are fairy tales. 🙂
Funny that you should post this today.
I just finished a short story that does not have a HEA, although I tried to make the end hopeful, and not just a sob-fest. As a reader, I prefer happy endings. I’m one of ‘those’ readers who won’t read the book if it’s going to be sad (I’m scared to death to read the last Raised by Wolves book when it comes out – somebody PLEASE tell me it ends well!). But as a writer, I ended up breaking my own rule. I saw no other way to finish this particular story without it feeling trite. I did an informal poll on my FB page, and everybody who answered said exactly what Andy said, that they would rather have a sad ending that felt true than a happy ending that felt contrived. And yet, as you said, the sales don’t seem to reflect that. I actually had a hard time finding a place to submit my story, because most of the publishers specify that a happy ending is required.
So, SHOULD a happy ending required? I guess I’m on the fence.
Hi Marie
I have no objection to reading romances that don’t have happy endings because I have been reading them for years and love them just as much, as long as they are well written. This is the same standard I use for romances with a HEA.
>>I’m one of ‘those’ readers who won’t read the book if it’s going to be sad (I’m scared to death to read the last Raised by Wolves book when it comes out – somebody PLEASE tell me it ends well!). << What happens if it doesn't? Will you NOT read the final book? Think of what you will miss. I love the surprise element of a series where anything can happen and even if I knew going in that a story ended unhappily I would still want to experience the journey. 🙂
>>What happens if it doesn’t? Will you NOT read the final book?<<
I'm going to have to think about that one, actually. 🙂 To invest so much,emotionally,into a series, and have it NOT end well? I guess as a reader, I would feel cheated.
As for my own story, it's about two people whose lives are changed by the time they spend together, and yet they don't live happily ever after. Is that romance? It seems that would depend on who you ask. I myself probably wouldn't call it a romance, but it's still about love. I'm just babbling now. But thanks for the great post!
Hell no! It’s frustrating sometimes. Especially when the characters are pretty young. Sure, of course, there are people who meet, fall in love and stay together until death (my grandparents being among those)
However. IT IS NOT THE NORM! *is relieved for shouting that* How many people meet. Love eachother but change and drift apart? It’s hard to see those romances sometimes. People go through phases and people change.
This is why I like Josh Aterovis’ books so much. His is different!
Of course, I can understand why we would want HEA in romance. If we can’t have it in real life we must have it for our favorite characters.
It doesn’t mean that it should now become a trend to have bad breakups, death or change at the end of romances, because that would very quickly becomes boring. However, it would be nice to have an ending that fits a story. It’s very easy to leave an ending open and have readers decide for themselves.
I didn’t know readers actually demanded happy endings. This is new! I mean the story is the author’s and he or she is the creator and they know best what ending fits best!
Hi Larissa
>>Hell no! It’s frustrating sometimes. Especially when the characters are pretty young. Sure, of course, there are people who meet, fall in love and stay together until death (my grandparents being among those)
However. IT IS NOT THE NORM! *is relieved for shouting that* How many people meet. Love eachother but change and drift apart? It’s hard to see those romances sometimes. People go through phases and people change.<< I did respond to your conmment earlier but it seems to have been lost. I agree 100% with you. Readers' expectations of the romance genre are not consistent with the way people live today yet they say they expect the books to be 'real'. How real is it to expect a couple of 20 year olds to spend their entire lives together? Things change, people grow apart or grow up, people get sick, there are hate crimes directed at minorities, but we expect M/M romances to always end with a HEA or at least a HFN. How realistic is that? Yet writers tell me that their books are realistic. Maybe I'm just a cynic and should be reviewing horrors rather than romances. 🙂 I love it when there's a HEA or HFN I can believe, and that's the key - the author must write a convincing love story that makes me believe in the ending. However, I don't often get that when I read the HEA in a M/M romance.
I don’t personally think a happy ending has to mean HEA. For me, “happy ending” can certainly mean “happy for now”. In my head, the two can be together forever, right? No reason why not.
However, I do think a ROMANCE should have a happy ending. It is an expectation of the genre, in the same way that the involvement of science of some sort in the plot is expected in sci-fi. If you don’t have a happy ending, it’s not romance. That does NOT mean it isn’t worthy fiction and shouldn’t be published or read. It’s a matter of correct labeling and marketing.
If the happy ending is contrived and false, then the book is poorly written. Blame the author, not the readers. There are millions of ways to craft a wonderful, unique story while adhering to the single expectation of having the couple end up together in the end. As far as a series like Josh’s goes, I think it’s reasonable to not expect the happy ending until the end of the series. But I do think it’s reasonable to expect it.
BTW, I can’t speak to many of the books you’ve listed, Wave, because I haven’t read them all. But I would NOT consider Brokeback Mountain a romance. It’s one of the most incredible, beautifully written, gut-wrenching stories I’ve ever read, and I love it more than I can say. But it’s not a romance, in the modern usage and understanding of the word. It’s more of a tragedy.
My 2 cents on the subject 🙂
Hi Ally
>>I don’t personally think a happy ending has to mean HEA. For me, “happy ending” can certainly mean “happy for now”. In my head, the two can be together forever, right? No reason why not. << This, I think is my point, but many romance readers don't regard a HFN ending as desirable. They want to see the protags married or on their way to a wedding. >> If you don’t have a happy ending, it’s not romance. That does NOT mean it isn’t worthy fiction and shouldn’t be published or read. It’s a matter of correct labeling and marketing. << I think that there are many romances that do not have a happy ending that in my view qualifiy as "romance" because they have the ingredients of the genre. They have two protagonists who are in love with each other and are committed to each other but one may die. Does this not mean that the story is not a romance? In The Front Runner a young runner falls for his Coach, an ex marine, and in the process of training for the Montreal Olympics they fall in love. However the book was written in the days of the "dead gheys" so one of them had to die. Does this make the story less of a romance? I don't think so because the love between the characters was evident throughout the story and was the plot of the story - the sports theme was the sub plot. If this book were written today Billy and Harlan would have had an HEA, but the fact that the story ends unhappily does not detract from the romance IMO. Many romances that were written 10, 20, 30 years ago had to comply with the mores of the day and I'm sure that if Brokeback Mountain were written in the last 5 years there would be a different ending, but to me the way the story ended doesn't make it less of a romance because one of the protagonists had a horrible ending. I DO find interersting topics for my posts don't I? LOL. I try to find subjects that let you kick my ass (or arse as the Brits say) but I still make you think .:)
You have awesome topics that people can feel free to discuss honestly without being flamed, it’s the main reason I love your blog! >I think that there are many romances that do not have a happy ending that in my view qualifiy as “romance” because they have the ingredients of the genre. They have two protagonists who are in love with each other and are committed to each other but one may die. Does this not mean that the story is not a romance?<<
I think that's exactly what it means, yes. I would call that story gay fiction with a romantic storyline, but I would NOT call it a "romance" using the word as we understand it in fiction today. Also, I don't think any of the stories you mentioned (especially Brokeback, though maybe I'm biased because I love it so, heh) would be written any differently today as I seriously doubt that that one especially was written for money. It was clearly written from the heart. I don't think she would change the essence of it if she wrote it today. It is what it is, it's what it needs to be.
As a reader, yeah, if I pick up something called "romance" I expect the couple in it to end up together in the end. If they don't, please don't put a romance label on it. I'll still read it. Am probably more likely to read it, actually, since I read WAY more not-romance than romance. But if it's called romance, I have the "happy ending" expectation. So do most other romance readers. That's a fact of life.
An author can — and should — write the book as it needs to be written, but after that it HAS to be marketed correctly. Readers who pick up a book labeled "romance" are, 99 times out of 100, going to expect a happy ending. This is a fact of the business. If you don't deliver that, they will be peeved, no matter how brilliant the book. So if there's no happy ending, just call it something other than romance. Label and market it right, and you'll find your audience.
Ally, I agree a 100% with everything you wrote 🙂 And yes, I am still likely to read your book, if it is not marketed as romance and I find everything else appealing. I mean I love historical fiction and if there are gay characters there, who may not ever have relationship for example, that’s fine too. One of my favorite books ever has gay character who dies horribly in prison and the only happiness I had about his fate is that he had a closure with his father. But if I buy a book to be read after extremely stressful day at work and I want to be happy and content after I am done with it and it has been marked as romance and leaves me in tears, you bet I will be peeved and unhappy about it. I will say that the book was well done, but still express my unhappiness.
Sirius, yes! Exactly 😀
The modern unspoken definition of romance (by modern I’d say starting with The Flame and the Flower on) is that it will have a HEA, so I think that’s the real culprit. Actually, I’ve seen more leeway in m/m romances with the “happy for now” ending, which I’m still good with.
Personally, I’m one that wants HEAs or HFNs, because the real world is depressing enough. But to counterpoint myself, a few years ago when RWA tried to write the definition of romance as “one man, one woman and a happy ending,” there was as much outcry over the “happy ending” as their was the “one man, one woman.” And not all the latter was objection about homophobia. Like Wave, they cited classics and well known romances that broke both rules. And I think all the resistance was important.
So while I will only write HEAs and will be unsatisfied personally with stories that don’t have them, I don’t ever want that to be set in stone as something that has to happen. There’s a degree to which limitations to a genre keep it between the fences and keep it focused, but that same limitation can also make it stale. And who knows. Somebody might do a non-HEA and I might like it despite myself.
Though I did not like Brokeback Mountain, I’ll say that. I do think it qualifies as a romance, but no, not for me.
I like the blurred lines even between m/m fiction and m/m romance, though. I still say that even with all the challenges of publishing right now that our genre has the freshest, most interesting ideas. So yeah. No limitations. No rules. Let’s keep kicking ass just as we are.
Our genre does kick ass, doesn’t it? 🙂
Me, I like the security of knowing that no matter how much hell Our Heroes go through, they will get their happy ending. It’s why I read romance. If I want to be surprised, if I want to not know, I can pick up something NOT labeled as romance. This is how the huge, vast majority of romance readers feel, and why we love our happy endings. And one reason why the rest of the world points and laughs, and why we’ve learned to grow a thick skin.
I’m still hoping to one day write a book that’s not a romance. I’d like to do pure horror. It will probably still have gay protags, because I still do find that dynamic too fascinating to give up. But I also find the happy relationship ending constricting, and would like to write something where I’m not bound by it. So I’ll write something that will not be a romance. I still think it’s a matter of labels and marketing, not redefining reader expectations. I don’t think that can be done.
Hi Heidi
>>So while I will only write HEAs and will be unsatisfied personally with stories that don’t have them, I don’t ever want that to be set in stone as something that has to happen. There’s a degree to which limitations to a genre keep it between the fences and keep it focused, but that same limitation can also make it stale<< This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Conventions are all well and good because they indicate what one can expect, whether it's books or something else, but when we do not add any flexibility to those conventions it becomes so constraining that there is no room for being edgy or creative because you're bound by RULES. M/M is supposed to be different from het romance and not only because it's about guys having sex with each other, itr's much more than that. I thought M/M was supposed to offer new insights into gay men, how they live and how they love (I'm stressing "love" rather than have sex), and what they want out of life, and bellieve me it's not the white picket fence which is synonymous with the HEA that romance readers want. It's too bad that M/M romance is now stuck under the romance brand because readers have certain expectations and any attempt to make M/M cutting edge will be resisted.
“what (gays) want, and it’s not the white picket fence…”
Well, any time a generalization gets too broad, it tends to be too inclusive. I had a table at our local Pride event, and the gent right next to me was a man in his 50’s, married to his partner of 17 years, and that was exactly what they wanted, and had achieved. 5 adopted kids, too–he runs a travel agency that specializes in places that are friendly to GLBT couples with kids… because we don’t all want the same thing, any more than het couples do.
Younger gay men tend to sow wild(e) oats. Young lesbians tend more toward serial monogamy. But as we get older, an awful lot of people do want a life-partner to settle down with. A friend of mine’s been with his partner for 24 years–and from all appearances, they’ll be one of the couples that stays together for the long haul.
It comes down to what Wave was saying about characterization, I think — a story has to create believable characters and have the ending work for them. Personally, I’d rather see a romance where one of the heroes winds up with a surprise HFN than to have him stay with a partner who’s a stinker and assume ‘love will find a way.’ It often doesn’t.
While I do think an author should end a book the way they feel it should be ended I personally wouldn’t buy a m/m romance knowing it had an unhappy ending. I simply enjoy a HEA or HFN (sometimes I prefer a HFN to HEA in shorter stories) in my romance novels and I like to spend my money on books that I will hopefully enjoy. I know its at times unrealistic but I am okay with that.
Now if its in a different genre like Sci-fi/fantasy that just happens to have romance in it then I am okay with however the author decides to end it because the romance is not the center of the story.
Hi Amanda
I hear what you’re saying. As I explained in my responses to Ally and Heidi I think the problem is that M/M is being forced into the same constraints as het romances because it now is under the “romance” brand. IMO M/M romances are quite different and should be branded and marketed differently, but that ship has sailed which is unfortunate. I was hoping that M/M would be more creative and cutting edge but I’m a lone voice crying in the wilderness. 🙂
If those other books do not have a HEA or HFN, I don’t consider them romances. Sure there may be a romantic storyline within them, but to me they fall into the general fiction category. MANY books out there that are not romances contain romantic subplots, but to me a ROMANCE has the main thrust of the story, two people falling in love and living HEA (in some way). That is the genre to me. Don’t call your book a romance if that’s not what it is.
That’s not saying the book isn’t amazing, shouldn’t be written or that people who enjoy romance won’t love it, but just because two people date, are married, even fall in love in a book doesn’t make it a romance by literary definition for me.
I’m good with HFN, I don’t even care if there’s a sequel most of the time, I prefer to imagine them HEA. Author’s get upset when they (or their publisher) label is a romance and then people are ticked because it ends with weeping by a grave. Sorry, you shouldn’t have called it that. Call it fiction, call it literature, call it whatever you want but like it or not “romance” = something to 99.9% of the readers, that’s not going to change.
I did a post this week about books that are sad in general, not necessarily romance and most people (of course I have a romance following) said they no longer have the patience to read books that are dark and gloomy, unless it’s the right genre I suppose, like horror. But most people want something that entertains, doesn’t leave you wanting to slit your wrists after. 😉 Life can offer that all on it’s own.
Hi Tam
>>If those other books do not have a HEA or HFN, I don’t consider them romances. Sure there may be a romantic storyline within them, but to me they fall into the general fiction category. MANY books out there that are not romances contain romantic subplots, but to me a ROMANCE has the main thrust of the story, two people falling in love and living HEA (in some way). That is the genre to me. Don’t call your book a romance if that’s not what it is. << Here's my dilemma. I read many romances that the main plot is a romance, not a sub plot, and they are not sci fi or paranormal or anything else, just a romance between two people, but in the end one of them died or there was a another logical reason they did not end up together despite the great love. Does this negate the definition of this book as a "romance?" I don't believe so. The important element of the stoy was there - a wonderful love for each other - but they did not have a HEA. So automatically they no longer qualify as a romance? I know that I'm in the minority here and I'm not as vested in the mores of the romance genre as 99% of those who read these books, but I still feel that if the elements of the story are there and the ending shouldn't matter. I knew that this would be a controversial topic (when have I ever taken the safe route)? :) The reason I called HEA a sacred cow is because IT IS. >>just because two people date, are married, even fall in love in a book doesn’t make it a romance by literary definition for me. << I think you're expressing the view of most of the readers of this genre here But as Jason says >>Also, sometimes a story needs to be told even if the ending doesnt tie up in a neat little bow. Love is still love, even when it doesnt end happily<<
Also, sometimes a story needs to be told even if the ending doesnt tie up in a neat little bow. Love is still love, even when it doesnt end happily
But just because it’s love that doesn’t make it a romance. The two are not synonymous. What’s wrong with classifying that as general fiction? Why is the romance tag necessary? Because it sells more books?
According to the Romance Writers of America (not that they are the authority on all things romance but …) their definition is “Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an “emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending”
So that appears to be the accepted definition of a romance. If your book doesn’t fit, it’s not a romance. Still a great book, but not a romance. It’s almost like why are people so desperate to call every book with a relationship as part of it a romance? Because they are so popular? You’ll sell more books if you call it romance than fiction? Umm. Don’t try to trick me, you’ll only get away with it once. LOL
I think we fall into the trap of confusing romance with Romance, with a very definite capital R. The capital R has traditional paths and expectations – whereas the generic ‘romance’ can surely be incoporated into all kinds of genres, stories and endings, and doesn’t insist on any H in its ending at all.
(I think that’s sort of what Tam is saying)
I mutter on ad nauseam about m/m being (hopefully, one day) a “sub”-category, not a genre in itself. We should be able to write in any genre and have glbt characters. It should be categorised (if it has to be at all) as romance / mystery / SF / fantasy / steampunk etc first, and *then* m/m. I think part of the problem at the moment is that anything m/m is bracketted in with romance – particularly erotic romance, but that’s another debate – and also Romance.
And of course, in your fine introduction, it’s not that those non-HEA books wouldn’t have been written, but that they wouldn’t necessarily have been published by romance publishers. Makes me wonder how many other fine, challenging and rewarding books never see the light of commercial day.
And I’ll admit here before I’m outed, for the first time in my reading life, I found I *needed* to know before I started Dark Tide whether to have tissues to hand or not :). It would never have stopped me buying or enjoying the writing, but I did appreciate the heads up :). And that’s the effect of a great story, that I cared enough about the characters to be so affected. But personally, I wouldn’t expect an author to ignore what their Muse wanted just to keep me happy LOL.
And BTW, thanks to Andy for the nod to my Halloween Sip *heh*. It was Perfection, and I’ve felt the need to mark it HORROR on my website. All credit to the publisher for taking it on in the first place, though! 🙂 I have other non-HEAs languishing on my HD, y’all know LOL.
Oh God, I feel like an arse getting the title wrong. Again, too early in the morning and the added pleasure of roofers pounding away – not even cute roofers. I can’t win.
Both stories were excellent and I loved that Perfection didn’t have the HEA ending. It would have ruined the story.
Andy, you’re far from an arse *lol* ( and that spelling’s so refreshing for me *heh*), I’m flattered anyone remembers my stories at all.
I also took back an antho of stories recently, maybe to find them new homes, but now I find only 2 of the 4 have H endings, and they really only stretch to HFN. Yet they all have a romance in them somewhere :). Methinks some of them might be homeless for a while ^_~.
It’s good to offer a wide range of fiction, for the wide range of readers. We all have times we want to know the beast we’re reading, other times we might want to be caught deliciously unawares. Different strokes, and all that.
(I think that’s sort of what Tam is saying)
Exactly Clare. Whether we agree, Romance does have a formula that readers have come to expect. Doesn’t make it better or worse than books that don’t follow the formula, it just is a fact right now and perhaps this will change with time as all things do. I’ve read mysteries with a romance in them but I wouldn’t consider them Romance books, they are Mysteries.
Okay, I admit it. I haven’t read much m/m lately. The truth is I just got sick and tired of HEA. I like angst. I like characters who have to work to stay together, who may or may not separate to work out their issues. Granted, this usually happens in series books rather than single title romances.
Do romances need HEA? Yes. HFN works, too. Should all or most m/m novels be written to romance criteria, i.e. include HEA. God, no. How boring would that be … I hope this HEA trend is one we’ll get over pretty soon.
Nadja
Hello Nadja
How have you been? I haven’t heard from you lately and boys miss you on Fridays.
>>Do romances need HEA? Yes. HFN works, too. Should all or most m/m novels be written to romance criteria, i.e. include HEA. God, no. How boring would that be … I hope this HEA trend is one we’ll get over pretty soon. << I don't think that the HEA trend will be going anywhere soon based on the comments. I'm definitely in the minority but then I probably don't fit the profile of a romance reader so I have different expectations
You remember the review of “Shades of Gray” here on this site? A 100% perfect book got a slightly lesser rating than the deserved 5 stars (4,75)because the ending was more a HFN instead of the anticipated “absolutely perfect” HEA.
The HFN was believable and satisfying – more than a “now-we-stay-together-forever with fanfare”.
…nice chance to get that out …but still grumpy…*g*
Hi Simsala
>>You remember the review of “Shades of Gray” here on this site? A 100% perfect book got a slightly lesser rating than the deserved 5 stars (4,75)because the ending was more a HFN instead of the anticipated “absolutely perfect” HEA.<< In defense of Kassa who reviewed this book, 4.75 is the highest rating I have ever seen from her. I don't recall where she has ever given a book 5 stars - she might have, but not here. So you should be pleased that she rated Shades of Gray as 4.75 stars. No more pouting. 🙂 I hope you have forgiven her now.
I’m always disappointed when I read an HEA that shouldn’t have been. I’d much prefer an HFN or an ending without the H if it’s more appropriate for the plot and story.
On a (really rather know-it-all, for which I apologize in advance) side note, I don’t think you can really characterize some of the classic gay novels you mention, such as, for example The Sound and the Fury and The Picture of Dorian Gray as M/M Romance. They fall more into the genre of queer fiction, since romance isn’t the primary, or even secondary, focus of the books, nor do they really engage with any sort of romantic convention. Also, were you thinking of Absalom, Absalom! rather than TS&TF? Quentin is written as gay in AA, while in TS&TF he has an incestuous desire for his sister Caddy.
It’s been awhile since I’ve read some of the other books, but just because a book has gay protagonists, that doesn’t mean it’s a gay romance. I do think it’s important to distinguish between the two, since m/m romance is more like a sub-genre of queer fiction (at least in my mind), while queer fiction encompasses a whole gamut of possible storylines that don’t always have anything to do with romance. People are definitely still writing queer fiction, even if it doesn’t get as much attention from m/m romance readers.
I completely agree that just because book has gay protagonists does not mean that it is gay romance and by the same token I want publisher to let me know about it. When I read Sarah Monette Melusine and sequels to it, I certainly thought that either Felix or Mildmay may die at the end, I was entertaining any possibility and I certainly did not expect the books to end with both of them to be in happy relationships. I thought I would be happy if they are alive at the end. Okay must stop before I spoil the ending, but I am just trying to say that those books were not marketed as romances and that is all I am asking for 🙂
Must every.single.M/M romance. have. a. HEA?
For me personally, the answer to your question is no. I enjoy a HEA only if it fits the story and the characters. A HEA that doesn’t fit spoils the story for me — sometimes an otherwise excellent story. In those cases, I prefer a HFN and to use my imagination as to a future than to have an unrealistic HEA thrown in at the last minute.
I personally loved the risks that Lanyon took with Jake as a character throughout that series.
No, I dont think that HEA should be guaranteed in m/m romances. Even if its the norm, knowing there is a chance that the story will not end in HEA pulls the reader into the struggles within the plot. It makes the books that end in HEA more cherished when the reader knows that it could have ended differently.
Also, sometimes a story needs to be told even if the ending doesnt tie up in a neat little bow. Love is still love, even when it doesnt end happily.
~smooches~
Jase
Jason
>> sometimes a story needs to be told even if the ending doesnt tie up in a neat little bow. Love is still love, even when it doesnt end happily. << I agree 100% with you but romance readers won't because the traditional view is that a romance should have a HEA and tradition is very important in the romance genre, as I'm finding out.
Sorry if I end up repeating something which was already said in the comments. Do I expect HEA in Romance? Yes, it can be HEA or it can be HFN and yes, it better fit the story. If you are a good writer, I am pretty sure you can be creative enough to figure out how to do happy ending which does not feel contrived and does not jerk me out of the story. As somebody said, I think it is an unspoken genre expectation and yes, I want to know that it is in romance book before I bother with it. However, however the ONLY thing that I demand from the book that has “romantic” storyline and does not have happy ending is to TELL me about it, by not marking it as a romance. When I pick up the book for example by Guy Gavriel Kay who is one of my very favorite writers in fantasy or any genres, really, I fully expect the possibility that I will be sobbing by the time the book ends (or smilingm can be anything really).
His books have plenty plenty romantic storylines but they never ever as far as I know had been marketed as Romances. So what I am trying to say? All that I am asking from publisher or author or Amazon is not to deceive me and if the book is not a Romance, I will go in expecting anything at the end and will never ever complain about it. Oh and also if romance ends tragically and I thought the book was wonderfully written, I would never say that book was any less than awesome by the way. My only complaint would be that it was incorrectly marketed and that such marketing deceived me.
Sorry for ranting, it is just quite a pet peeve of mine and it definitely not directed at you Wave :). I recently encountered the book and was so annoyed that it was not just marked as historical fiction. It was an amazing boook, but I am sorry as much as I am willing to have HFN endings in my Romances, one character watching another being executed does not qualify even for remotely happy ending lol.
I love War and Peace (yes I do :)), I reread it at least once every year. It has plenty of romantic storylines and as those of you who read it know, not all of them end happily including one which was really front and central. I love this book, but it is not Romance IMO.
Oh and somebody mentioned Shades of gray, totally agree that the ending while less than perfect HEA was realistic and wonderful.
Thanks for letting me rant hehe.
This is a great post, Wave. I’ll admit that the “sacred cow” part of the title made me laugh, and I like how you went into the history of the older gay-themed fiction, and how the cultural expectation there that shaped publishing was to show how the being gay would doom a character to destruction. Maybe there is an element of trying to correct that in the HEA requirement now (though I agree it mostly comes from m/f traditional romance).
The HEA requirement can be constraining, no question. I got an m/m story rejected awhile back because the ending was maybe too SFF (science-fiction-and-fantasy) with heroes about to be separated (but only temporarily, ha, ha!) by sort of an enchanted sleep, and I got clear feedback that more of an HEA or HFN was needed.
Most or almost all romance e-publishers come right out on their submissions guideline page and specifically require the HEA or HFN, which leads me to believe that the readers demand it with no compromise. Or at least that the publishers believe this is so and understandably want to give the readers what they want until the trend starts to change.
I prefer happy endings, but I’m open to all kinds since I read across the genres and don’t necessarily get those happy endings in other genres. I’m hoping the m/m genre evolves along the lines Jordan describes and opens up to different types of endings.
Hi Val
I’m glad you laughed at the title but I was being serious. As you know “sacred cows” are protocols we’re not supposed to touch because they have been ingrained in our psyche for a long time and the expectation is that they will be that way forever more.
That’s my issue with M/M romance. It has only really been around for a short time but now it’s been shoved under the romance banner for better or for worse, and readers have certain expectations of romance which have now been transferred to M/M romance, even though it should be quite different because the protagonists, being gay men, have different problems and issues. We seem to have lumped gay men into the het romance brand without making any allowances for the fact that these male protagonists should be treated differently apart from the fact that they have sex with other men. Readers treat M/M romance differently when it’s convenient, for example the issue of condoms. In het romance there is not the strict adherence to the “condom rule” as there is in M/M romance. I suppose many readers feel that these books should teach gay men about safe sex but the same rules do not apply to straight men having sex with straight females.
>>The HEA requirement can be constraining, no question. I got an m/m story rejected awhile back because the ending was maybe too SFF (science-fiction-and-fantasy) with heroes about to be separated (but only temporarily, ha, ha!) by sort of an enchanted sleep, and I got clear feedback that more of an HEA or HFN was needed. << Clearly M/M has to operate under het romance rules or it's no sale.:( >> I’m hoping the m/m genre evolves along the lines Jordan describes and opens up to different types of endings<< Same here. 🙂
“I mutter on ad nauseam about m/m being (hopefully, one day) a “sub”-category, not a genre in itself. We should be able to write in any genre and have glbt characters. It should be categorised (if it has to be at all) as romance / mystery / SF / fantasy / steampunk etc first, and *then* m/m. I think part of the problem at the moment is that anything m/m is bracketted in with romance – particularly erotic romance, but that’s another debate – and also Romance.”
Mostly I just need to say “AMEN” to this.
I wonder if this isn’t some of the confusion. It’s all lumped together, with maybe some minor distinction between queer ficiton and m/m fiction, but beyond that it gets muddy.
I started reading romances in college; all week long I’d read depressing DWM literature and analyze it into tiny pieces, and then all weekend long I’d devour historical romances. My favorite part was that I knew it would all end okay. It was like riding a ride. There would a thrill, but I was never in danger. But I remember vividly one I picked up where the heroine died at the end. I never felt so betrayed. If I’d wanted an Oprah book, I’d have chosen one. I wanted an escape.
I agree that branding and marketing is key. I think I feel the same way about HEAs that some m/m readers feel about no het in their m/m novels. Though I don’t want a hard line drawn in either instance.
No, I don’t thing every m/m book should have a HEA or HFN ending. Some of the best and most powerful books I’ve read have not ended HEA/HFN. As far as I am concerned, real life doesn’t guarantee a HEA or HFN ending, so why should the books I read?
When I buy and read a Romance then I expect a HEA or at least a HFN. The reason I’m buying the book in the first place is for entertainment. It’s an escape from my everyday life and I want to feel happy at the end. Put the guys through the wringer all through the book, I don’t have a problem with that, but at the end I at least want to have the feeling that things worked out for them. That they’re in love and happy.
That’s not to say every book written needs to have that kind of ending. But if not then to me it’s not in the Romance genre. Brokeback Mountain is the story of two men who fell in love but is not a Romance at all, imo.
By all means authors are free to write what they want but I’m also free to buy what I want. And ultimately that means a feel good story that ends on a happy note.
Hi Lily
>>When I buy and read a Romance then I expect a HEA or at least a HFN. The reason I’m buying the book in the first place is for entertainment. It’s an escape from my everyday life and I want to feel happy at the end.<< I understand where you're coming from and sometimes I feel like you do when I've had a bad day. At other times I look for something fresh from M/M romances than the same old, same old, and that could be a new topic that I haven't read before or the type of protagonist that I haven't encountered in the past. I don't necessarily expect a HEA or HFN in the romances I read (and yes, I still consider them romances even if this critical element were absent, because I don't necessarily subscribe to the old protocols of the romance genre). However, I do recognize that others have different views of romance and understand why. I suppose I feel that M/M as a sub genre has unique characteristics which should permit some flexibility in the way the stories end. However I'm frequently wrong and this is probably one more area where I'm marching to a different drummer.:)
Wow, tough question. I read pretty widely in lots of genres, and I don’t take it for granted that I’ll get a happy ending in any of them – not even M/M. I read an M/M story recently, the name of which escapes me now, which had a really bittersweet, melancholy ending. But it worked perfectly because that was the world and the characters that the author had set up.
So I think I would say that I expect a *satisfying* ending, one that’s true to the story. Any ending which an author feels pressured to paste onto the end of a book is probably not going to be satisfying, whether it’s happy or sad. I want the themes the author has woven into the story to be consistent, the plot to be completed, the characters to reach the end of their arc. If that’s done, chances are I’ll be happy, even if I’m swiping away a tear.
Hi Alexi
>>Wow, tough question. I read pretty widely in lots of genres, and I don’t take it for granted that I’ll get a happy ending in any of them – not even M/M. I read an M/M story recently, the name of which escapes me now, which had a really bittersweet, melancholy ending. But it worked perfectly because that was the world and the characters that the author had set up<< I promise to have an easy question next time. 🙂 As I said in answer to a couple of other posters, I had hoped that M/M would have different protocols, be more edgy, and would be allowed some flexibility and not be forced into the same rules as het romance but that will probably never happen unless it's taken out from under the "romance" banner.
Ally
>>Readers who pick up a book labeled “romance” are, 99 times out of 100, going to expect a happy ending. This is a fact of the business. If you don’t deliver that, they will be peeved, no matter how brilliant the book. << You're probably right Ally about the expectations of romance readers, because you have waaay more experience of the genre than I do. I started out as a fantasy and sci-fi and general fiction reader, so romance is another genre for me, and I don't have the history and expectations that you and others have of romance books. However I have read many romances, and while the majority of them have a HEA or HFN I don't really expect it because I look first of all for a romance with two protagonists that will move me and make me want to turn the page. If at the end they have a HFN that's good. If the end is left up in the air, again I don't mind. Perhaps if I were a 'real' romance reader I would flip to the end of the book first to make sure that there was a HEA, before I started reading it. I must say that in one book that upset me (I won't name it because that's not fair) the author wrote an epilogue specifically to kill off one of the protagonists AFTER they had their HEA. Now that was cold and cruel and I never trusted her again and if I buy one of her books I usually flip to the end first. 🙁 It's too bad that the publishers demand authors provide at least a HFN in their romance books. That eliminates a few authors who write M/M romances but refuse to "sell out" - their words, not mine. Each genre has its requirements, but none of the others request that the ENDING of stories comply with certain preset conditions. I guess that the genre, which has been around for over 100 years (not M/M - contemporary romance) still has some preconceived notions of what modern romances should be (no divorces, no cheating, etc) which I think is unrealistic. But that's just me.
I didn’t start out reading romances either. I cut my teeth on Heinlein, Clarke, Tolkien, Asimov and the like. I learned the romance business because I fell in love with writing it and wanted to make a go of it. Maybe the happy ending expectation is fair and maybe it’s not, but there it is regardless. Some readers break with that expectation — and yes, you ARE “real romance readers”, why wouldn’t you be? — but the vast majority still have it. Publishers don’t demand a happy ending in their romances to be jackasses, they ask it because they know their market. They know that MOST romance readers, when they pick up a romance, are going to expect that happy ending. They just are.
What do you suppose would happen if publishers suddenly slapped a romance label on every book with a falling-in-love storyline, even if the couple broke up in the end or one protag ended up dead? A few readers would praise them. The vast majority would stop buying romances from that pub as soon as they figured it out because they would feel they couldn’t trust their “romance” label anymore. That’s what I would do. It’s my money and I don’t want to spend it on a romance where I’m not getting my happy ending. Period. Now if you call it a “sweeping contemporary romantic adventure-tragedy”, I’d be intrigued as hell and I’d still buy it!
I’ve said it before, and I guess it bears repeating: I will read just about anything. I have all kinds of books on my shelves. ALL kinds. Just because I want my romance to end happy doesn’t mean I won’t read books of other genres that don’t end happily.
Ally
I knew that I would lose this one because the views of romance readers are entrenched in the Romance protocols. I love a HEA myself or a HFN, but I just wanted to see how open readers and authors were to changing their expectations of this brand. Apparently they are not despite the fact that gay couples are not exactly like het couples.
>>What do you suppose would happen if publishers suddenly slapped a romance label on every book with a falling-in-love storyline, even if the couple broke up in the end or one protag ended up dead? << That's not what I was suggesting. I understand the marketing issues. I provide marketing services as part of my business, and branding (which is what the romance industry is - a brand) can't be changed, especially something that has been around for a hundred years. Unfortunately M/M romance is stuck because it's under the overall "romance genre" umbrella, and readers have certain expectations of the brand which they are not willing to modify. I would have liked to see the M/M brand grow and evolve and become edgy, but because it's part of the overall romance umbrella readers probably will never accept major changes, even though they have now accepted romances between gay men, which I think is a pity. My issue is that love and romance between gay men should not be identical in terms of format to het romances and readers should not always expect the same outcome because the protags are different and the way the guys live is different. For example they don't have babies, they don't dream about the white picket fence, family expectations are different for gay men than they are of straight couples etc.) but readers have made the M/M brand into a carbon copy cookie cutter replica of het romance, the only difference is that the protagonists are two men.
Wave, I cannot speak for anybody else, but I certainly do not expect the happy ending in gay romances to be equivalent of gay romances. All that I require to consider the ending happy is for the guys to be together at the moment, I do not need them to have babies or think about white fense. Athough all couples are different and some do adopt kids, right? But I understand your bigger point about modeling gay romances after het ones. I am just saying that while some happy endings are not realistic (and as I said before as long as it is believable I am fine with it)an some endings are realistic. For example I thought ending in Whistling in the dark could definitely happen in real life and it left me extremely happy too.
Well, I know some gay couples who would argue your point about not wanting a family of their own. Actually I don’t think most gay couples are all that different from most straight couples in what they want from their lives and relationships. Plenty of straight couples don’t want marriage and babies in real life. Many gay couples do. I see no reason why romance shouldn’t reflect those realities. I don’t think a “white picket fence” happy ending for a gay couple is any more unrealistic than a happy ending with the straight couple living together in a cardboard box under a bridge but happy because they are together and alive after their harrowing adventure. In my mind a book only becomes “cookie cutter” when the author fails to tell a compelling story.
BTW, thanks again for putting this conversation forward. As always, it’s been fascinating, enlightening and refreshingly civil 😀
Ally my darling
I don’t mean that gay couples don’t want children. I mean that the guys don’t have a uterus and therefore can’t get pregnant (I should have explained better) Gay couples have different issues around having kids such as hiring a surrogate, having a friend conceive their offspring or adoption, while typically het romances have different issues over pregnancy and kids.
The white picket fence is usually what most women are taught from the time they are children themselves while boys play with cars and trucks (most of them anyway) and typically think of babies much later in life, if at all.
>>BTW, thanks again for putting this conversation forward. As always, it’s been fascinating, enlightening and refreshingly civil << You know that I don't allow anyone to be rude to other posters here. We can all state our views without getting mad and insulting someone else. I love these discussions because I learn just as much as anyone else. This post actually started by a book I was reading yesterday where the guys were so far apart in every way, and they weren't even close to a HFN yet they had a HEA. I was like, WHAT???? How could that be????? My best ideas usually are from books that I read. PS I love the way you keep me on my toes and kick my butt. 🙂 There has to be topic that I can win (whine).
Good lord – regarding the epilogue. That’s very bad – as much as I have views about the HEA, I would never ever do that. *stunned* That’s a guarantee that you are going to lose your reader’s trust. As you know, it’s part of the reason I can’t write sequels, because I know that there would be the temptation to break up the orignal protags for good, and the readers would hate that.
Give me a story that’s realistic any time. I love HEA, but I do not require it in my reading. There are those times when a sad ending makes the story of the love between the protags that much better, in my opinion.
Karin
>>Give me a story that’s realistic any time. I love HEA, but I do not require it in my reading<< You are probably one of 5 readers so far to agree with me. We'll never win. 🙂
I completely agree with those above (Ally Blue’s comment in particular) that there’s a difference between romance, the genre, and romance, the element in fiction, and an HEA (or HFN) is a requirement for romance, the genre. So, I’d say that a book with two characters who fall in love but don’t end up together for whatever reason is not a romance novel. (All of your cited examples are not romance novels, IMHO. Good books, yes (The Sound and the Fury is up there with my favorite books of all time) and definitely worth the read, but not romance novels.)
I’m all for gay characters and their romantic relationships showing up in other genres, though. As a reader, I don’t always need an HEA, and I think there is definitely still an audience for books that have realistic if not necessarily happy endings. I actually kind of prefer HFN endings, because, especially with young protagonists in difficult situations, I think that’s more realistic. But if I’m picking up a romance novel, as a reader, I’d expect an HEA/HFN. In other genres, all bets are off.
Hi Guys
I’m having computer problems so if I’m not online for an extended period you’ll know why.
I’ve always believed that a HEA (or my preferred, HFN) ending to be a pre-requisite for the Romance genre (note the capital letter), but certainly not for all books featuring romantic relationships. I do think that if you want to market something as a Romance and a happy ending is not part of it, then it should be made clear by calling it a tragic romance.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with reading well written, romantic books without a happy ending, but I would rather be prepared for that or it can be an intensely frustrating experience. I remember throwing my copy of Oscar and Lucinda across the room when I finished it, because I was so angry at Peter Carey for making me love those characters and then giving them such a tragic ending. Admittedly this wasn’t marketed as a Romance, but then again, it wasn’t clear that it would be so tragic either. It almost made me want to take up my mum’s habit of reading the last page to check if the happy ending is there!
Perhaps if people are resisting the idea of all Romances having to be HEA/HFN, then there could be a new category of those that are…
I agree with the earlier posters that it’s a question of correct labeling. The word ‘romance’ does refer to a love story or a relationship, but when you use the term in reference to a fiction genre, by definition a romance has a happy ending.
Booksellers actually have codes established for fiction genres (BISAC codes, which stands for Book Industry Standards and Communications). There’s a BISAC code for gay fiction–NOT gay romance. If a book is a gay romance, it needs two codes, one for gay fiction, another for contemporary romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, etc.
I hope m/m authors continue to write both m/m romance and m/m fiction. Many of us love those stories that don’t have happy endings. But when m/m fiction is published, it should be correctly categorized as such.
Hi Clare
>>I think we fall into the trap of confusing romance with Romance, with a very definite capital R. The capital R has traditional paths and expectations – whereas the generic ‘romance’ can surely be incoporated into all kinds of genres, stories and endings, and doesn’t insist on any H in its ending at all.<< At the risk of repeating myself, I still think of M/M as sufficiently different from het romance to deserve its own protocols and not be forced into the cookie cutter that is the romance brand. It should have been marketed and branded differently but then the romance readers would not have wanted to read the stories I suppose. >>And of course, in your fine introduction, it’s not that those non-HEA books wouldn’t have been written, but that they wouldn’t necessarily have been published by romance publishers. Makes me wonder how many other fine, challenging and rewarding books never see the light of commercial day.<< The Adrien English series is an excellent example. When Josh first wrote these books 10 years ago and they were released by Gay Men's Press there was hardly, if any, sex and it wasn't until GMP folded and he moved the books to Loose Id and sexed them up that romance readers embraced the series. The romance readers probably would never have bothered with the series if it remained a mystery series without a romantic sub text. I've explained how I feel about the whole branding issue in my responses to Heidi, and Ally ad nauseum, and I don't think that I should repeat my comments here about the way that M/M is being branded and marketed and bore you to death as well. 🙂 It's too bad that a sub genre that has so much promise is being forced into the traditional romance mold, despite the fact that gay men have different concerns and issues (e.g. gay bashing for one) and certainly a few different expectations of life.
Wave said, “Conventions are all well and good because they indicate what one can expect, whether it’s books or something else, but when we do not add any flexibility to those conventions it becomes so constraining that there is no room for being edgy or creative because you’re bound by RULES. M/M is supposed to be different from het romance and not only because it’s about guys having sex with each other, itr’s much more than that. ”
I think so long as the rules actually aren’t written down and are just sort of assumed, we actually have a lot more wiggle room than we think. I’m thinking in particular of a friend of mine’s book in the early 2000s that had the heroine in a traditional heterosexual romance have a one-night-stand with someone who was not the hero. It was absolutely just about the sex, and she even hedged it a little by saying it was good, but not great. This author is well-established and was even then, which both helped and hurt her; on the one hand, she’s big enough that she could say, “I’m doing it this way” and that was okay. On the other hand, a lot of people got upset and declared they hated the book because of it.
But for a lot of people that was a cool breach in protocol. It was an envelope push. And I kind of like it that there are “rules” that we all “know” and then sometimes we push on them. To me that means an author can’t be clumsy about it. It needs to be a brave, bold move, and it needs to be thoughtfully done. By definition, that sort of thing will always have risk, and some readers will not like it. But it can still happen.
The story that comes to my mind in this not-HEA which is satisfying is the movie Gladiator. I absolutely love that movie and love the ending, even though the hero dies. It’s satisfying because through the whole movie we’ve been wishing for him to have ease and release, and he gets it. It fits in this huge way and manages to leave me feeling upbeat and hopeful even in death. To me, that is a very powerful story. And it’s even a sort of HEA.
Honestly, I think that we can get these sorts of stories in the genre right now. What I love about m/m romances is that we are such a small community, and we’re all in it together in so many ways. We don’t have big marketing departments saying that we can’t have people of color on the cover because that won’t sell or something nonsense like that, or big executive boards nixing controversial subjects. We ARE a controversial subject. We’re “safe” from homogenization so long as we are smaller, more family-like groups of authors and publishers and not parts of a conglomerate. Maybe. I think I probably romanticize us too much, but I’m going to cling to my illusion as long as I can.
Re Gladiator. Definitely. It was a Hea for him, I think.
I was just thinking of “The Ghost and Mrs Muir” too which is a beautiful romance AND big weepie. But is it a “Romance”? Both characters are dead – and you would have to believe in an afterlife for them to be together in…
Wave, can I ask why you think there are these rules? I just realized that I really don’t have a firm grasp on what has prompted your frustration. The reader response I get, but you feel publishers are this way? I can’t really argue for or against that, as I haven’t heard of someone getting rejected because of that, though that just may mean I haven’t HEARD of that. Is this your general sense of some sort of tide, or are there specific instances that make you feel we have rules? Just want to make sure I have a full picture. Because this is a wonderful discussion.
Hi Heidi
>>Wave, can I ask why you think there are these rules? I just realized that I really don’t have a firm grasp on what has prompted your frustration<< This specific instance was a book that I read yesterday where it was obvious that if this were another genre or sub genre there would be no HFN or HEA because the story was far from being conclusive. The HEA was not even close yet there it was, and the publisher was obviously happy with it because it was released. This is only one of many. But this is only one issue I have with this sub genre that I love and I hate to see it being forced into the "romance" protocols because I think the stories will eventually read like het romances with its TSTL heroines and silly plots, but always a HEA. There's nothing wrong with a HEA - I love them but they should not be a "gimme." I think Val mentioned a rejection because the HEA/HFN wasn't strong enough. This happens a lot so the authors do as requested because they want that all important contract. Many authors email me and we chat about different topics including the constraints of the business. I love Ally because I always bounce ideas off her. She's my go-to person when I have a question about something in a book that I'm not sure of, and she always sets me straight. In order words she slaps me around 🙂 (I hope she's not still following the thread). BTW Heidi I love these discussions because they help me as well as other readers, even when we don't always agree. I hope you find them helpful too.
Hey, I don’t smack you any harder than you like it *ggg*
I value this blog and your friendship, Wave, because I know we can be dead honest with each other without losing any of our respect and liking for one another, even when our views are in complete opposition. That is a rare and precious thing!
I, personally want the HEA in m/m “romances”. There are many reasons, but the foremost one is that I am rooting for the underdogs so to speak. Gay men ( and women) have so many obstacles in their lives blocking true love and happiness. I read m/m and I think to myself: ” at least these guys are gonna get their HEA”. I read about people that are not real, but I have so many friends and relatives that deal with societies resistance to them as people, I just want an escape I guess. It hurts me on a personal level for some reason when characters don’t get their HEA. Though many of my friends are indeed happy as part of a couple, many more are not. It makes no sense to me that people are often not allowed to live their lives the way they want to, so I look to books to give me that ideal “happy place”…pretty simplistic, I know, but I can’t explain it any better. This was a great post Wave and I think it has made for some great dialogue too!
Great discussion Wave. I see that I am once again in the minority! Personally, I do not expect or necessarily want a HEA or even a HFN. I want the ending to feel like it flows from the story and how the characters have developed.
I’ve read a few books like your experience where the ending felt forced, and it then ruined what may have been a good book. Frequently these HEA’s feel rushed to me, perhaps due to the relatively short length of many M/M romances.
BTW, regarding Josh Lanyon’s AE series – I loved Jake, flaws and all. His flaws made him very real to me. When I read Death of a Pirate King, I though that Josh could have easily ended the series there. It was not even a HFN ending, but somehow left me feeling… hopeful, I guess the word would be. Just reading Adrien’s last line “Yeah, it means something” gave me chills. Loved it! Now that’s a great ending.
Hi T.J
>>Great discussion Wave. I see that I am once again in the minority! Personally, I do not expect or necessarily want a HEA or even a HFN. I want the ending to feel like it flows from the story and how the characters have developed. << Hey we should file a minority report. I'm with you and a few other hardy types who don't mind the occasional "up in the air" romance ending rather than what seems like forced HEA's and HFN's for different reasons - either the word limit won't allow for further character or plot development, or the author appears to be impatient to wrap up the story regardless if the story so far does not merit a HEA. But what do I know? I'm not an author. I just want a well written story with characters that move me and a plot that's intelligent. If that leads to a HEA, then I welcome it. >>BTW, regarding Josh Lanyon’s AE series – I loved Jake, flaws and all. His flaws made him very real to me. When I read Death of a Pirate King, I though that Josh could have easily ended the series there. It was not even a HFN ending, but somehow left me feeling… hopeful, I guess the word would be. Just reading Adrien’s last line “Yeah, it means something” gave me chills. Loved it! Now that’s a great ending.<< The A.E,. series is one of my favourites and I love Jake, much to the disgust of Tam and Alexi and many others who wanted his head. I think he's real and without him the series would have been just another run of the mill mystery. Luckily for us Josh resisted all the calls from "romance" readers to get rid of him or make him a kinder, gentler person and stuck to his guns. I did love DOAPK but I thought TDT did wrap up everything for the romance readers. Isn't it strange that these Friday posts lots of times end up in discussions about books that we have all read and loved? I love Fridays. 🙂 Thanks for entering the debate TJ and supporting my point of view (don't tell Ally or she'll be pissed at you even though almost everyone else supports her perspective). 🙂
“I must say that in one book that upset me (I won’t name it because that’s not fair) the author wrote an epilogue specifically to kill off one of the protagonists AFTER they had their HEA. Now that was cold and cruel and I never trusted her again and if I buy one of her books I usually flip to the end first.”……wow, Wave, that was just a harsh thing for the author to do! I’d have some trust issues as well.
I don’t have anything new to add; it depends on how it’s presented. I love reading good mysteries and if the main characters happen to be gay, so what. There are many stories where the solver (is that even a word?) of the mystery gets laid but there isn’t a true love interest presented…..and that’s okay. It depends on how much I have invested in the character/s.
As mentioned NUMEROUS times here, the Adrien English series would have worked perfectly for that – the Heaven Sent series not so much. But I absolutely loved them both.
I am pretty consistent in not wanting a surprise sad or “bad” ending. I have difficulty in watching “Old Yeller” – still; bawled my heart out at the end of “BB Mountain” and won’t read the book; HATED the movie “Crash” cuz no one was really likeable or ended up happy…… and the ending of “Gone With The Wind” drove me nuts!
Way to make me think on a Friday, Wave! 🙂 And I don’t mind being called a cow as long as I’m sacred.
I am a voracious reader. I have read anything from classics to contemporaries, romance and no romance. I buy what I feel like reading at the time. If I want a mystery I will buy a mystery and if in the mystery there is some sort of relationship -it is a side story to the mystery. The same with scifi or fantasy- it depends upon the story and the characters. If I should buy a romance then that is what I want to read at that time. Ergo, if it is a romance I want strong characters, personal development and challenges that help the two involved develop a lasting relationship. If it is erotica then no, I don’t expect a hea- but then I don’t normally pick up a book just because of a sex scene. Characters and life development are what I look for in a romance. And yes if the characters are complete polar opposites with no redeeming bits of humanity and no way of developing, then it’s not a romance and I have no problem with not finishing the book.
Sirius
>>Romances (what I consider Romances, yes I seem to differ from you in what Romance book is and not just book about two people falling in love) yes, I do. Even if it is unrealistic, as long as I consider it believable ( no to me believable does not have to equal realistic), I am fine with it.<< I'm sorry. I misunderstood what you meant. We all seek escapism because life is shitty sometimes and a good romance helps to make things better. I, too, love a HEA but I guess what I was suggesting is that there be some flexibility in the Romance rules to allow for an alternative ending whenever warranted, and that readers should perhaps from time to time relax their demands for a HEA or a HFN in romances. But I suppose that comes back to the different definitions of what is a romance. 🙂
No problem Wave, I was not clear. Oh another thing I wanted to clarify in my position. You keep talking about the stories with contrived HEA as opposed to making these stories with more open ending as if it will make story better written, right? I hope I did not misstate your position. Well, for me if the HEA is contrived (and I am more than open to hopeful ending in romance instead of certain as long as it is not tragic), to me it makes it badly written romance. I will never say that as long as book has HEA that it makes it a good book. To me it is a badly written book which *still belongs to romance genre*. As opposed to a great book, which does not have HEA, which is a great book *which does not belong to romance genre*. Trust me, I will still buy a great author, I just buy the book knowing that it is not a romance, seriously no biggie.
Ally
Your fingers probably hurt almost as much as mine today with all that typing and I’m not sorry to be the cause. 🙂
You know that I love and respect you or I wouldn’t always consult you whenever I have a problem. I promise next week I’m going to come up with a topic that’s not controversial and will only involve hearts and flowers. 🙂
Seriously, I always appreciate that you drop by and give your opinions on the topics I post about – some are serious and others, not so much. But like books, it’s all about the journey. Thanks again Ally for always being there for me.
I require proper labeling and marketing. I will expect a HEA or HFN with a romance and ‘anything goes’ with fiction.
I want the author and/or publisher to tell me the truth and if I really like the author I will buy all their books be they romance or not. If I like the way you write I will search all over and try to read all your books, just be accurate with the marketing. Thats it.
Suzi.
Yes, Suzi, that is all I am asking for, correct labeling. I would LOVE for m/m to evolve in different genres, seriously I would. I love police procedural and fantasy even if romance takes second seat in the book, but I will still read them if they have romantic storylines with whatever ending but no Romance.
The romance genre by definition requires at least a HFN or HEA ending. If the story doesn’t fit these requirements, then it’s not a romance genre story. It could be romantic fiction or fiction that’s heavily skewed towards romance.
When I read M/M romance or regular romance novels, I go in expecting a formula, much like when I read high fantasy, low fantasy, epic fantasy, etc; I go in knowing what to expect. The expectations are what makes me (and others) seek genre books. If M/M were to branch off to M/M fiction that’s not defined as romance, that’s a different story.
Finally, I find it odd that realism is brought up here because I read M/M expecting it to be twice-nay-thrice removed from reality. Pure escapism needs a happy for now/ever after ending 😉
The stories you mentioned, Brokeback Mountain and The Frontrunners weren’t marketed as genre romance novels. Those are what I mentioned earlier – fiction stories that skew heavily towards romantic elements. In my mind, they are not the same genre as what’s in the M/M niche at the moment.
*coughs* Also, if I really want realism in M/M novels, I’d be sticking exclusively to the ever lovely Edmund White and a host of other GLBT authors who write very realistic and very romantic/sensual fiction that has immensely uncertain endings.
Different wants, different needs, different expectations – that’s how I see it. And as of now, I want my romance genre stories to remain romance.
Different expectations indeed, as I was telling Wave I have read some romances which I thought had pretty realistic setting, characters and yes, even happy ending.
But I totally understand reading romances for escapism only, my escapism is happy ending, hopefully well done.
Unfortunately, I don’t see the M/M romance novels as realistic fiction at all. I treat it as a separate category from gay fiction completely, which is I guess, what I refer to as ‘realism’, more grounded in our world, characters and motivation-wise.
This is not to say one is better or more superior than the other because it isn’t. I read both genres and love them for different reasons.
Though I do agree with you that my escapism fiction = HEA 🙂
I certainly do not see ALL romances as realistic, but good example will be the one I brought up already upthread – Whistling in the Dark by Tamara Allen. I really do think that it is very realistic story even with HEA. But I agree that a lot of them are not, just to me some of them do overlap with gay fiction. Again, to each their own.
Hi S
>>The stories you mentioned, Brokeback Mountain and The Frontrunners weren’t marketed as genre romance novels<< These books couldn't have been marketed as genre romance novels since one (The Front Runner just celebrated its 25th anniversary and Brokeback Mountain was written 11 years ago.) They were both released in the days when the industry didn't recognise stories about gay men as "romances" so they had to be packaged and marketed differently. Even now M/M is a hard sell as romance to the 'old guard' in the romance industry (see Heidi Cullinan's comments). If by definition romance = HEA, then most of the romance readers agree with you. There is a small percentage of readers of this sub genre whose needs are different but I would suggest that those of us in the minority are not as hard wired to the protocols of the genre. I think there should and could be room for both perspectives, but that's just me.
I was perhaps being unclear in my previous post. The way I use ‘romance’ here has nothing to do with how we perceive romance, the process and actualization of falling in love.
The romance genre I was talking about is industry standards. By genre definition, books in the romance genre is informally (and sometimes very formally) dictated to have a HEA/HFN.
The concept of HEA/HFN started approximately 35 or 40 years ago, give or take. I know BBM and FR were written a whiles back, but my point still stands. Even if M/M novels were accepted as romance genre books back then, they still wouldn’t be taken in because of their endings. These two stories are well written fiction that skew towards romance.
In my opinion, there’s a fundamental difference in coming of age stories and a formulaic love story. Both BBM and Frontrunner are what I consider coming of age stories with a focus on the characters’ sexualities and coming to terms with accepting themselves.
There should always be room for different romance genres within the M/M category, but publishers need to be aware to forewarn their readers. No one likes to have the rug pulled out from under them 😉
Sorry for the constant replies, I’m just really enjoying our discussion.
I absolutely think that the M/M romance genre is in itself a broad step forward. And it’s my turn to be slightly OT here – I sometimes feel that there’s a bit too much sexytimes in the stories, and I find myself skipping forward some of the scenes. I know that when I picked up the book or buy the ebook, some of them are considered erotic stories.
I sometimes think to myself, well, the book could have a lot less sex scenes and I would still adore it. It’s the same idea you’re putting forward – the M/M genre can be split into many different subgenres, not every single M/M book should be considered erotic literature.
Publishing is now so direct that I think fans can want more, and publishers can try different ventures with M/M. Like you said, M/M is very much NOT het romance, and I look forward to reading types of stories from it where the romance takes a backseat and crime-solving, sleuthing, fantasy adventures, etc, take the stage. That’s actually part of what I hope the publishing M/M world will lead to.
S
>>There should always be room for different romance genres within the M/M category<< I think that's part of what I'm trying to say, because M/M is quite different from het romance. >>but publishers need to be aware to forewarn their readers<< One major problem I have which is slightly off topic is about publishers forewarning through blurbs and on their websites about on page sex with women in M/M books. This site only reviews what we call "pure" M/M with no females in sexual situations with the protagonists, and many times the reviewers have been "surprised" by on-page sex with females. One publisher does an excellent job in this area - Amber Allure, but others are hit and miss and so sometimes a few books end up as DNF. Again, a warning system for a different purpose. 🙂 I understand that the Romance genre has many protocols and that's why I think it's a pity at times that M/M is part of the wider 'family' of Romance sub genres, because it is now constrained by the rules of the genre.
Sorry for the constant replies, I’m just really enjoying our discussion.
I absolutely think that the M/M romance genre is in itself a broad step forward. And it’s my turn to be slightly OT here – I sometimes feel that there’s a bit too much sexytimes in the stories, and I find myself skipping forward some of the scenes. I know that when I picked up the book or buy the ebook, some of them are considered erotic stories.
I sometimes think to myself, well, the book could have a lot less sex scenes and I would still adore it. It’s the same idea you’re putting forward – the M/M genre can be split into many different subgenres, not every single M/M book should be considered erotic literature.
Publishing is now so direct that I think fans can want more, and publishers can try different ventures with M/M. Like you said, M/M is very much NOT het romance, and I look forward to reading types of stories from it where the romance takes a backseat and crime-solving, sleuthing, fantasy adventures, etc, take the stage. That’s actually part of what I hope the publishing M/M world will lead to.
I actually prefer a story (with action or mystery or etc ;)) to a pwp smex-fest. I’d rather the erotic scenes be thrown in at appropriate times after buildup and used sparingly as icing on the cake, not as the main plot device.
Hi S
I, too, am enjoying our discussion. Ally will tell you I love it when I’m challenged. How else will I know what people think or how they will react? Most Fridays I end up bloodied. 🙂
I’m hoping this discussion will lead to a relaxing of some of the ties of M/M romance over time, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope becuse it’s the readers who call the tune in the Romance genre and the publishers will do whatever they want in order to guarantee sales.
>> I sometimes feel that there’s a bit too much sexytimes in the stories, and I find myself skipping forward some of the scenes<< Hear! hear! I've said that over and over again that even though some readers buy these books for the sex, the majority of us prefer a story with characters that move us and a plot that is not PWP. I have a poll about M/M romance that was posted last Friday and I'm wondering if you would mind commenting - it would be great if you did. It won't close for a few days. Here's the link http://www.gayromance.org/?p=22514 >>Publishing is now so direct that I think fans can want more, and publishers can try different ventures with M/M. Like you said, M/M is very much NOT het romance<< This is what I'm hoping will happen. M/M is not a clone of het romance. I'm hoping it will evolve into romances that are cutting edge with many themes, and that a HEA is not what drives this sub genre but the story and the characters, and that authors are not constained by artificial conventions imposed by the overarching Romance genre. Thank you so much for commenting.
Some may have already said this, but for me, I prefer a happy ending or at least a hopeful one. Real life is already hard, and often depressing or angst-filled enough. When I read – whether it be romance, action, mystery, sci-fi, psychological thriller, etc – I want to escape into a fantasy, where there is hope in the end or justice for the downtrodden or happiness, especially if I invest a lot of time and emotion into the story.
It’s a reward for me after the investment, so to speak. I just generally don’t want to read something that leaves me feeling saddened or despaired or generally numb for having no positive outcome. I tend to then carry that angst forward as I dwell on the story in some strange effort to try to twist it into a hopeful ending with my own continuation/conclusion.
That’s not to say I won’t read some books that don’t have HEA. I will, if the story is just that great, just like I’ll watch a sad movie with a box of tissues handy.
But generally, even if the ride is a roller coaster of angst, I want to feel good when the ride is over.
Hi JB
>>But generally, even if the ride is a roller coaster of angst, I want to feel good when the ride is over.<< I totally understand where you're coming from and I, too, love a happy ending. What I was objecting to is that the HEA drives M/M romance and the story many times doesn't deserve the ending because there is too much unfinished business between the characters in the rush to achieve the HEA. I read many stories where it's obvious that the author was sprinting to the finish line instead of walking and I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, despite the HEA. A HFN or hopeful ending works for me.
At the risk of expressing an unpopular opinion, I would rather lose sales by not guaranteeing readers a happy ending than force my characters into situations or relationships that did not feel appropriate to them. We’ve all seen the deleterious effects of commercial pressure on things we love – in other fields of endeavour that’s called ‘fanservice’. I’m all for democracy and people expressing their opinions freely, but the needs of the characters and of their story are absolutely paramount with me. If the relationship doesn’t work out for them, I would at least hope that they might carry something away from it that might make their next try more successful. Literature should reflect real life; it should be inconclusive and untidy at times. Anything else, in my view, is somewhat less than honest.
Hi Adam
Fancy meeting you here. 🙂
>>At the risk of expressing an unpopular opinion, I would rather lose sales by not guaranteeing readers a happy ending than force my characters into situations or relationships that did not feel appropriate to them.<< I totally agree with you. One of the reasons that I enjoyed Dear Mister President so much was that it didn't insult my intelligence by an artificial HEA. There was a 'hopeful' ending that maybe in a few years after the President's term of office expired the love would be allowed to come into its own, but in the meantime life goes on. >>the needs of the characters and of their story are absolutely paramount with me. << I would hope that this is what drives most authors but sadly, reading some M/M romances, that would not appear to be the case because it's obvious that the authors are only giving the fans what they want. It's a tough position for many authors to be in - they need the sales and they know that a less than hopeful ending would not get them that result because word gets around pretty quickly, so the integrity of the characters in the story is the first thing to go. You're very lucky that your publisher is just starting up and is not as steeped in the Romance traditions and I hope that Manifold Press will continue to provide quality stories that don't pay lip service to the characters. >> Literature should reflect real life; it should be inconclusive and untidy at times. Anything else, in my view, is somewhat less than honest.<< I couldn't have said it better myself. 🙂
Literature should reflect real life; it should be inconclusive and untidy at times.
Ah, but are Literature and Romance (capital R) the same thing? To me they’re not. You choose a genre because it’s right for the story, just don’t try and convince me it’s another genre because they have a greater chance of high sales. You can’t write a story and just toss in a spaceship and say “Oh great, that’s Sci-Fi, I’ve got a built in audience.” It takes more than that to be Sci-Fi just as in my mind it takes more than two people to kiss, have sex and say I love you to be a Romance.
Tam
I think we have a solution that will satisfy the romance readers and the need for stories that are satisfying without rushing to that all important HEA ending.
If you read down a few comments you’ll see one from Josh and my comment also my response to Treva. This way the “Romance” category remains sacrosanct from those infidels that want to change it for their own nefarious purposes, and writers can have some fun with their stories without being confined by false “romance” labels. In addition readers will not be surprised in future when a M/M story is marketed as just that, M/M with a mystery or paranormal subtext or whatever theme it happens to be.
I LOVE Fridays. 🙂
When is YOUR next fun post?
The only way you are going to loose the sale from this reader if you will market you work as a romance and I will discover at the end of the book that there is no sort of hope of any kind for your protagonists to be together now or in foreseeable future, or worse if they are dead at the end of the story. Yes, literature could and should reflect real life but as Tam says is literature and Romance same things necessarily? I do not expect happy ending when I read Dostoevskiy, but I do not go for Dostoevsky to relax, I pick up Dostoevsky when I want my brain to work. While I have read many romances that tackle serious social issues, I always expect a relaxation element to be there at least at the end, knowing that there will be a payoff for protagonists’ sufferings. If you mark your work a general fiction and if everything else in your work appeals to me, which I apologise, I am not qualified at the moment to say whether it is or it is not, I have never heard of you and your work yet, trust me I WILL buy your work. I am not just a romance reader, very far from it. But yes, if I buy a “romance” from you where you kill off your protagonists, you are likely to loose sales from me. I just do not get it, what is so problematic with marking your work general fiction with romantic elements besides not willingness to be truthful and yes, not to sell as many books as if romance readers will want to buy it.
“Emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.” In my opinion, that in no way requires an HEA. Nor do I. Do I like them? Of course! But some of the books I’ll never forget are the ones that didn’t end with the HEA (The Boy in the Lake by Eric Swanson, for example). Give me an ending that fits the characters and their journey and I’ll be happy–even if the characters aren’t. *g*
Re the Adrien English series, Jake was so infuriatingly human that I couldn’t help but love him, even as I wanted to smack him upside the head. To me, the mark of a great character is when he does something that causes a physical twinge in my chest. The “Kate’s pregnant” scene (among others) did that in spades. Would I have been gutted if Adrien and Jake hadn’t ended up together? Hell yes. But I’d’ve been pot-and-kettle-throwing pissed if Adrien had ended up with Guy, whom I never liked at all. So if that was the only other option…. No HEA, please.
Hi Budajsguy
>>some of the books I’ll never forget are the ones that didn’t end with the HEA (The Boy in the Lake by Eric Swanson, for example). Give me an ending that fits the characters and their journey and I’ll be happy–even if the characters aren’t. *g*<< I have had the pleasure of reading many stories like The Boy In The Lake and they were unforgettable. I still love The Front Runner even though it had the worst possible outcome. The AE series seems to be the one most mentioned here today for the simple reason that Jake, tough and uncompromising as he was, made the most impression - good and bad - on some readers. This to me is the sign of a memorable character, and the most important thing is that Josh didn't compromise and bow to pressure when fans of the series requested that he make Jake into someone warm and cuddly.
I’ve already commented but was just wondering if Josh ever comes to your site? If not, he should as I imagine he’d be thrilled to be mentioned by so many people from all over the world. And the comments are earned; the AE series is truly memorable.
Again, thanks for the thought provoking blog.
Hi Sherry
Right now Josh is under the gun with a number of deadlines but he will be on the site on June 29 and I’ll send him the link to this post. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear how much we love the AE Mysteries. 🙂
HEA has nothing to do with M/M. It has to do with romance as a genre. It’s a requirement. Without a HEA or a HFN (happy for now) conclusion, it is not qualified as a romance. Your example of Brokeback Mountain is not a romance. It’s gay fiction with romantic elements. There is a difference.
A story can have romance but not *be* a romance. To fall under the genre label of romance, there has to be a HEA/HFN. Otherwise it falls under some other label such as fantasy with romantic elements or urban fantasy or just plain gay fiction.
It has nothing to do with m/m readers demanding it or m/m publishers pigeonholing authors. Het romance falls under the same guidelines. Romance as a genre label requires certain elements be present and a HEA/HFN is a main one. Without it it’d be like calling a story with no paranormal activity a paranormal romance. Readers would go in expecting paranormal of some kind and then be pissed when there was none. False advertising, in a way.
Hi Fae
We are all aware that HEA/HFN has to do with the Romance genre stipulations as a whole and not M/M specifically. If you check the other posts you’ll see that we all mention that. The reason for this post is that I’m pissed with the number of M/M stories that have rushed endings with the obligatory HEA or HFN endings because of either the writers’ inability to wrap up the story properly within the word count, or the story really doesn’t warrant a HEA based on the plot and characters, but the authors have to give the readers one in order to get it published.
Since the introduction of M/M it has moved away from the general Romance umbrella in terms of the variety of themes that it offers. As Jordan Castillo Price and others have been saying, maybe having M/M under “Romance” is not the appropriate place to be. Flexibility about story endings is not an option under the Romance genre so perhaps new publishers could allow writers the option of no HEA/HFN in some stories. Obviously these would not be marketed as “romance,” but I really don’t care because I read all kinds of gay literature. I’m sure there will be a market for these books and no “false advertising” will be involved..
Wave wrote:
: The reason for this post is that I’m pissed with the number of M/M stories that have rushed endings with the obligatory HEA or HFN endings because of either the writers’ inability to wrap up the story properly within the word count, or the story really doesn’t warrant a HEA based on the plot and characters, but the authors have to give the readers one in order to get it published.”
By the way, I completely agree with you on this, Wave, but the problem is not one of genre or marketing or labeling, it’s a problem of lousy writing and publishers churning out crap to meet an audience demand.
However that’s difficult to discuss in a public forum without getting specific, and that’s never going to go over well.
Oh, Wave–yeah, this is an awesome discussion. Learning so much.
And I just found out that RWA DOES recognize my publisher now! Which is eight kinds of awesome. Has little to do with this discussion, but is interesting trivia. Oh wait, now I remember. Yeah, I like the RWA definition. Very vague. Key for me is the “optimistic” ending. Gone With the Wind has an optimistic ending. They’re not together, but they might be later.
And Wave, thanks for the clarification on what brought this up. If it helps, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of pushing going on with publishers to do this. They will come up front and say what sells and what doesn’t, and if it’s too strong of a “won’t sell,” they will pass. But that’s not a content change thing. That’s a marketing thing. I agree with what seems to be the consensus here: what we need is more mainstream acceptance of m/m and all LGBT stories, period. They need to not be ghettoized in queer fiction sections of bookstores.
Honestly, what we need are more small presses. Small, smart presses run by people who love books and love reading and love readers. No more of this corporate wrangling about three dollars on ebooks and censoring content so you can get into Walmart. (Yes. That happens.) Back to the good old days where your editor got to make the decision about your story, and if she needed backup she went down the hall, or in the case of modern day, sent an email.
Hi Heidi
>>Key for me is the “optimistic” ending. Gone With the Wind has an optimistic ending. They’re not together, but they might be later.<< I like that. But if you read Josh's comment and my response there are ways around the Romance protocol requirement and everyone is happy, including the "romance" readers as well as the authors. This is why I love these discussions; we can come up with solutions and ways around pretty well everything. 🙂 BTW there are small presses which do not have these stringent "Romance" requirements and if I hear back from one of them that I contacted I'll post what they said.
Hi Everyone
Please keep leaving your comments. I have a couple of books to finish reading so that I can review them and I’m behind because I spent all of yesterday and last evening answering comments. 🙂 It was fun but I have a few other priorities. I’ll be back much later. In the meantime enjoy the weekend.
Hey there, Wave. Thanks for the heads up. And thanks to all of you who mentioned the AE series in passing. I appreciate it.
I have to admit I didn’t have time to read all the comments as carefully as I would have liked — in an ideal world I’d spend a lot more time browsing blogs and chatting.
I think this is a brilliant topic and at a quick glance there have been some fascinating observations and comments already made.
I’d like to add my thoughts since the Adrien books are being cited as m/m romance.
I’m trying to think how to put this so that no one misunderstands or has her feelings hurt. I do write a good deal of m/m romance. But I also write novels that fall more squarely into the realm of gay fiction. Yes, there is a difference between gay fiction and m/m fiction. It’s not the same thing. Or, more precisely, while all m/m fiction is a sub-genre of gay fiction, all gay fiction is not m/m.
Does that make sense?
The terms are being used interchangeably, and that’s incorrect.
It’s part of what’s led to this…Unpleasantness Between the Genres. And it’s part of what upsets and confuses readers and book buyers.
Or…you could look at this way. Mystery novels are a genre within fiction, but all fiction does not fall within the genre of mystery. And then within mystery we have other sub-genres and there are expectations for those sub-genres. A cozy mystery has a different set of expectations than does a hard boiled mystery. A sweet romance has a different set of expectations than does an erotic romance. Yet they share certain elements in common. The expectation of genre romance is that it will have — at the least — a HFN ending.
Most of the titles in your post, Wave, are not technically romance novels. Certainly not m/m romance novels, and really not even gay romance novels. Most of those books are literary fiction and they have completely different thematic and plot requriements than would a gay romance — let alone an m/m romance.
I have said from the day I discovered this genre, and I’ll probably be saying it with my dying breath, in my opinion, M/M fiction is romantic fiction. Regardless of sub-sub-genre, it is romantic fiction. It is genre fiction, and as such, it is subject to the demands and restrictions of genre: in this case a story that primarily revolves around a relationship between two men that will end happily. Or at least hopefully.
Many books are being labeled m/m for marketing purposes and these are not m/m books. Calling them m/m creates a false expectation.
The Dangerous Ground books are m/m fiction. As are the I Spy books. The AE books are gay mystery. The last AE books focus a bit more on the relationship, but primarily these are gay mystery novels. Strange Fortune is a gay fantasy novel. The Darkling Thrush is closer to an m/m fantasy novel, but that’s still a stretch because these stories aren’t really about two guys falling in love (although that does happen in the course of both books).
The difference is in the focus of the story. Does that make sense?
So when I hear m/m authors railing against the idea that their novels need to have happy endings, I feel that they are missing the point — which is one of labeling and marketing. You can write any damn thing you want. But don’t try to sell it as an m/m novel because there are expectations for that genre. You might as well argue that you want to write a mystery novel but you don’t see why you have to have any crime in it.
No one is saying that an m/m author can’t write a gay novel and have everyone die gloriously and tragically at the end. Go for it. But don’t try to sell it to a romance publisher and don’t expect romance readers to buy it and be pleased. You have to know the genre you’re writing in and market your work accordingly.
Railing at a particular romance publisher who makes no bones about the fact that they’re a publisher of erotic romance, becasue they aren’t interested in publishing a gay fantasy where the protags don’t end up together is an exercise in futility. Market the work to one of the gay publishers or one of the ebook publishers that doesn’t define themselves as a publisher of romance.
This is pretty simple stuff. Don’t submit your erotic romance to a publisher who states WE DON’T PUBLISH EROTIC ROMANCE. Right? And don’t submit your tragic gay historical to a publisher who states WE PUBLISH KINKY ROMANCE NOVELS WITH HAPPY ENDINGS.
As an aside, I’m sort of disturbed by what I sense is almost a lack of self-esteem in certain m/m writers. Like…if m/m = romantic fiction, then they are “only romance writers” and therefore can’t be taken seriously. This sort of genre snobbery has been around forever, but you don’t generally find it self-directed within the genre!
If you’re writing novels about gay characters, and they aren’t romantic and they don’t have happy endings, then you’re not writing m/m romance, you’re writing gay fiction. Go you!
Now market yourself accordingly — and stop fretting about the demands of a genre you don’t work in.
Hi Josh
Great comment and yes, I knew that many of the titles were not technically M/M romance but I was trying to make a point. 🙂
Re your comment about marketing, I’m a little bit ahead of the curve because I’ve already contacted a couple of publishers to ask if they were open to receiving submissions from authors who write a mix of gay fiction, gay romance, gay mysteries etc., with a number of themes such as paranormal, sci fi etc. but no guarantee of HEA/HFN. I’m waiting to hear back from them.
I notice that most of your books are published by Loose Id which is primarily a “romance” publisher, yet no one has ever complained about the lack of a HEA or even sometimes a HFN ending. I did some homework (before I saw your comment) and noticed that the classification of your books do not come under the general “Romance” genre – here a few titles
Adrien English Mysteries – Romantic Suspense
Dangerous Ground – Erotic Suspense
Don’t Look Back – LGBT Suspense
I Spy something Bloody – LGBT Erotic Contemporary
The Dark Horse – LGBT Suspense
The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks – LGBT Suspense
I hope that other authors are taking note of how to get around the “romance” protocols and this way readers can’t complain that the books are marketed as romances. As a matter of fact whenever I review a contemporary M/M “romance” on the site now I usually omit the “romance” and leave the genre as “contemporary M/M” 🙂 Obviously if it’s a mystery I add that theme.
>>This is pretty simple stuff. Don’t submit your erotic romance to a publisher who states WE DON’T PUBLISH EROTIC ROMANCE. Right? And don’t submit your tragic gay historical to a publisher who states WE PUBLISH KINKY ROMANCE NOVELS WITH HAPPY ENDINGS.<< Really Josh. "Kinky romance novels with happy endings"? And you call yourself a writer!!!! LOL I really appreciate that you took the time to comment Josh because I know you're working on a number of deadlines. You can send me the bill later. 🙂 I'm looking forward to your post on Tuesday, June 29 in the new series which is now called "Ins and Outs of M/M Romance" - there was a vote and this title won. 🙂 Is there a double entendre there somewhere? Lovely having you here as always Josh and the pleasure is all mine. The readers who brought up the AE series for some reason love it (I don't know why) 🙂 and Jake - how about them apples?
“Re your comment about marketing, I’m a little bit ahead of the curve because I’ve already contacted a couple of publishers to ask if they were open to receiving submissions from authors who write a mix of gay fiction, gay romance, gay mysteries etc., with a number of themes such as paranormal, sci fi etc. but no guarantee of HEA/HFN. I’m waiting to hear back from them.”
One of the most exciting things about the new Carina Press is that they aren’t limiting themselves to romance. They’re looking for everything, and a writer could absolutely submit a gay historical or a gay fantasy or a gay crime novel without a romance or a big fat happy ending. The key would be in submitting it as gay fiction rather than m/m or gay romance.
And I’m quite sure this isn’t unique to Carina, it’s just that I’m newly aware of it with Carina.
“I notice that most of your books are published by Loose Id which is primarily a “romance” publisher, yet no one has ever complained about the lack of a HEA or even sometimes a HFN ending. I did some homework (before I saw your comment) and noticed that the classification of your books do not come under the general “Romance” genre – here a few titles
Adrien English Mysteries – Romantic Suspense
Dangerous Ground – Erotic Suspense
Don’t Look Back – LGBT Suspense
I Spy something Bloody – LGBT Erotic Contemporary
The Dark Horse – LGBT Suspense
The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks – LGBT Suspense”
Does that listing make sense to you? *g* I think LI has refined their process since I started with them. Probably the safest classification for most publishers is simply GLBT…and then whatever the sub-genre is. When I promo my work myself, I try and make it clear as to whether it’s a simple romance or a fantasy or…whatever it is. I think that really saves disappointment on both sides. A reader who buys a book expecting mystery and finds that what she’s got is a romance with mysterious elements is liable to end up upset and blaming the author for not writing the book she expected. And in fact it’s just a small — but crucial — matter of labeling.
“I hope that other authors are taking note of how to get around the “romance” protocols and this way readers can’t complain that the books are marketed as romances. As a matter of fact whenever I review a contemporary M/M “romance” on the site now I usually omit the “romance” and leave the genre as “contemporary M/M” Obviously if it’s a mystery I add that theme. ”
That makes sense to me. Within m/m you can pretty much have any sub-genre you might find anywhere else. The only expectation is going to be that first and foremost it’s a story about two guys…slaying dragons or punching cows or solving a murder or simply trying to work out their differences and build a life together.
“I really appreciate that you took the time to comment Josh because I know you’re working on a number of deadlines. You can send me the bill later.”
I always enjoy visiting at Wave Central. I wish I had more time. Next year really is going to be QUITE different.
I’m serious.
I am!
“I’m looking forward to your post on Tuesday, June 29 in the new series which is now called “Ins and Outs of M/M Romance” – there was a vote and this title won. Is there a double entendre there somewhere?”
I can’t think what it would be.*g*
Yes, I’ve been thinking about that post — since it’s about what to look for in a publisher I guess I ought to start collecting some data from other writers. I know what *I* look for, obviously. But then that’s part of the point of the article, we need different things at different stages of our writing career.
“Lovely having you here as always Josh and the pleasure is all mine.”
Thanks for the heads up, Wave. I miss you guys!
“The readers who brought up the AE series for some reason love it (I don’t know why) and Jake – how about them apples?”
People are the wackiest animals!
Hi Josh
>>One of the most exciting things about the new Carina Press is that they aren’t limiting themselves to romance. They’re looking for everything, and a writer could absolutely submit a gay historical or a gay fantasy or a gay crime novel without a romance or a big fat happy ending. The key would be in submitting it as gay fiction rather than m/m or gay romance. << This is really exciting news. I had no idea although 2 of the 3 books I received from them initially could fit any genre outside of romance. I hope that authors are taking note of the flexibility on the part of this new publisher and will make the necessary contacts with Carina if they have any novels that fall outside of the "romance" genre, or even those that fall within romance. >>Does that listing make sense to you? *g* I think LI has refined their process since I started with them.<< Nice segue Josh. I did notice all the different classifications but didn't comment before - I just thought you were experimenting. :) >>I always enjoy visiting at Wave Central. I wish I had more time. Next year really is going to be QUITE different.
I’m serious.
I am!<< Where have I heard this before? Oh, I know. Last year. LOL >>People are the wackiest animals!<< Certainly those who visit this site regularly. 🙂
As an aside, I’m sort of disturbed by what I sense is almost a lack of self-esteem in certain m/m writers. Like…if m/m = romantic fiction, then they are “only romance writers” and therefore can’t be taken seriously. This sort of genre snobbery has been around forever, but you don’t generally find it self-directed within the genre!
AMEN – thank you for saying that, Josh. I’ve seen so many m/m writers saying “I don’t write literature I write romance” or implying that m/m is somehow worth less than other genres. I want to kick them! 😀
BTW, plenty of other genres have other “rules” to their genre. You could write a mystery that is never solved — I’m sure it’s been done — but readers would then want to kill you. A genre writer has to make the story work in spite of or better yet because of the rules.
No, there are no rules for mysteries. The detective can not catch his man, the detective can be killed, the serial killer can even be the protagonist and goes on to kill again and again (The Tom Ripley series is a good example) – the “classic who dunnit” obviously assumes that the killer will be found, but even if it isn’t, mystery readers aren’t quite so exacting.
Hi Treva
>>A genre writer has to make the story work in spite of or better yet because of the rules.<< You're right. However this post started because, as I said earlier, I was reading too many "romances" with rushed endings, in order to achieve that all important HEA within the word count. Now that we have found a way around the "romance" designation i.e do not market the books as romances but as a gay mystery, suspense or whatever, I hope that you and other publishers will be open to not having a HEA/HFN ending, where appropriate, in some of these books. The "romance" readers can't cry foul because the books won't be marketed as romances, so they will know ahead of time what they're getting. Thanks for dropping by Treva - I always love to have you here on our little site. 🙂
What I find frustrating as a publisher is that the romance community demands to know the ending before they will read it. Not all books we publish have happy endings and I should not be forced to spoil the outcomes of our books just to be able to market them to the romance community.
Hi Mark,
I am sorry but I do not get it at all. You published Hidden conflict anthology, right? Sorry I do not remember any other books you published on the top of my head. I loved the anthology and I am totally fine with not all of the stories in there having a happy ending. What I do have a problem is with the fact that you still want to market your books to romance community even if they do not have happy ending,r ight?. I personally do not think it is fair. I will be more than happy to read the books from the authors I love which do not have HEA ending, but please mark them accordingly. I do not want to be tricked into buying a book which is something different than I thought it is. I love the categories which Josh Lanyon’s books have for example and totally agree with Wave that this will be very fair and I will not go and pick them up thinking they will have HEA necessarily.
Like Hidden conflict could be marked gay military fiction with romantic elements, or something along these lines. Why not? In fact I do not remember how it was marked, I bought it because I wanted to read Alex Beecroft’s story and well, enjoyed other three tremenddously.
And I am not sure about demanding to know the ending (yes, I love spoilers, but it is not just about the ending), all that I read so far is people demanding proper marketing of the books. What is so wrong with that?
Mark Probst said, “What I find frustrating as a publisher is that the romance community demands to know the ending before they will read it. Not all books we publish have happy endings and I should not be forced to spoil the outcomes of our books just to be able to market them to the romance community.”
Okay, I must be reading this wrong. Because it seems like you’re trying to say you don’t like marketing to romance readers because they want to know it’s a romance? I mean, that’s the point of genre. Mystery labels should give mysteries. Fantasy labels should provide fantasy stories. So romance should get the same. I don’t think endings need to be given away to do this. The blurb should, in fact, hint at the conflict, not the resolution.
Romance is a popular (and therefore profitable) genre. And speaking as a reader and in defense of my own readers: yeah. If I ever write something not a romance, I want to make it clear in a blurb that it’s not. And I expect to lose some readers, just as I’ve left other authors who have switched from romance to something else. To market to romance but not give an actual romance to me seems horribly disingenuous.
Except that can’t be what you’re saying Mark. Where is this that you’re having to give away endings? I apologize, but I’m having difficulty understanding this no matter how I turn my head to look at it. Clarification would be much appreciated.
Heidi asked, “Where is this that you’re having to give away endings?”
Simply by saying “we can market this one as romance because it qualifies” is spoiling the outcome in my opinion.
“What I do have a problem is with the fact that you still want to market your books to romance community even if they do not have happy ending,r ight?. I personally do not think it is fair.”
Serius11214, yes I’d like to be able to market non-HEA to romance readers, but I don’t because they will say exactly what you just said – Not fair!
And “Hidden Conflict” was NOT marketed as romance though there were Amazon readers who tagged it as such!
Hi Mark,
Maybe I am misunderstanding you, because if you want to market non romance book to romance readers as *non-romance book* under correct category, then I do not see a problem with it. Many romance readers are not just romance readers including myself and I am sure some of them may buy your hypothetical book. But if what you are saying is that you want to stick a Romance label on non-romance book and THEN market it to romance readers then I am just at loss as to how it is will be fair in your opinion.
Yes, I insist that publisher let me know whether the book is a Romance or not. Yes, as many people agree happy or hopeful, optimist, whatever ending is a requirement of the genre. But otherwise, you would be deceiving me as to what genre the book belongs, right?
I just do not get it, would you put a label mystery on the book which has no mystery and try to sell it to mystery lovers? Would you put a label fantasy on the book, which has no fantasy settings and try to sell it to fantasy lovers? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, because I am having a hard time seeing how it is not deceiving a reader in your opinion and I doubt you are proposing deceiving a readers, basically telling them Gotcha.
Sorry Mark just wanted to clarify one more thing, maybe then I will not be confused anymore :). So you said Hidden conflict was not marked as a romance and I think it is great, because I do not think any of the stories except Alex Beecroft one qualifies to be. Basically what you are saying is that you would have wanted to mark it as Romance instead and that’s what in your opinion would be not spoiling the ending and marketing it to romance community?
Permanently on catch up, so I haven’t read all the comments yet, so I’m sure anything I say has already been said. Comment will have book/film spoilers.
It’s well known that I hate the labels that people put on books, but I suppose I understand the reasons – shelving in bookshops being one of them. But I’d prefer more people to be writing “gay fiction” and selling it as that, as m/m does seem to have been sidelined as romance only.
As I said in my email when I suggested the list of gay books that aren’t romances, I think readers are missing out, bigtime, by not trying books without a Romance label. One of my great guilty pleasures is a CLASSIC WEEPY and there’s such a raw primal pleasure to be in BITS at the end of a book (or a film) and sobbing over the beauty of the sadness where everything goes wrong. Or the hero sacrifices himself for love, or one hero is left alone to carry on but has the memory of that love to sustain him.
In “At Swim Two Boys” (imo the best gay love story ever written) the ending tore me apart. The clues were all there in the book–the setting: the Easter Uprising, the fact that you expected the Other One to die because he shouldn’t have been there–I spotted what was happening about 40 pages from the end (and I didn’t know the end in advance) and sat sobbing my heart out for those 40 pages.
BUT that book has never left my heart. And that’s the way with truly great tragedies, that these are the stories that people REMEMBER.
ok – i don’t think that there’s only two categories here, e.g. HEA and TRAGEDY, of course not. But I do think that writers should not be scared off from writing a non HEA. And I do think that perhaps “Love Story” could be a good label for a story with a romance within it, but doesn’t guarantee a HEA.
Matter of point: the only book I’ve had trouble selling is Junction X which has no HEA. Kensington actually said that although they liked the writing and the story–the theme of the dead gay had been done to death (scuse the pun) and they didn’t want to publish more dead gays.
I know that the ending of Standish has annoyed many people, but that was entirely deliberate, a GWTW ending, if you will–and the readers can fill in what they think happen next. I’ve never been so deliberately cruel/obtuse since, but if you look carefully the ending in Transgressions could almost be a tragedy. You have two men in bed in a house in Westminster surrounded by Cromwell’s guards, so what happens in the next ten minutes is anyone’s guess. At the end of Tributary, the protags drive off together into the sunset – to join the Spanish Civil War.
I know that many of the historical writers struggle with that HEA, and the pastede-on ending is something that most of us dread–the dichotomy of allowing two men to live as lovers in times which were often hostile for such things is a tricky thing to do. It can be done, but when you see two men running off to get married in church (which I’ve seen twice, I believe, in m/m Regency romances) just to satisfy the HEA criteria will make many laugh and other historical writers roll their eyes in despair.
Trouble is, of course, is that we’ve inherited all these Rules from the existing publishing industry and things aren’t going to change in the labelling of romances, and you’ll be very unlikely to change people’s minds when they really really won’t read anything unless they are guaranteed of a HEA.
But I’d hate to be like that, personally. I’ve never believed in the HEA anyway – the whole “it begins when you sink in his arms and ends with your arms in his sink” is the more cynical and realistic HEA after all, isn’t it? No-one lives happily ever after.
I know several of the people on my livejournal friendslist read the ending FIRST just to check the ending is happy. For me, though – it’s about the JOURNEY.
I remember the first time I read Ruth Sim’s “The Phoenix” – she self pubbed it to start with, and it didn’t have any romance indications on it. As I started to read it, I became absorbed with the characters and when it all started to go wrong I checked the cover, desperately. No Romance Label. Oh God. That meant I was walking a tightrope, and that there was no guarantee that these men would get back together. I really really really WANTED that HEA, I was–for that reading–every bit the Romance Reader, but I found it a much much satisfying read by NOT KNOWING.
I DON’T want to know what happens when I pick up a book. In the same way I don’t want to know the plot of a film when I sit down and the credits start to roll. Hollywood is not going to pander to my expectations – chickflick or even romance can end in tears, heroes and heroines in any genre film could end up dead at any time – and I wouldn’t want them to.
As you say, no other genre insists on letting the reader know the ending before they even buy the book. Detectives don’t always catch their prey, the bad guy doesn’t always get his just deserts,
the Mountie doesn’t always get his man.
Unless it’s labelled “romance” of course.
Erastes:
As I said in my email when I suggested the list of gay books that aren’t romances, I think readers are missing out, bigtime, by not trying books without a Romance label.
Sirius11214:
Hi Erastes,
Yes maybe those readers are missing out big time. I know I am not, because I had and continue to read plenty of books with no romance label which may or may not have any romantic relationship in them whatsoever. What I want and quite a few readers on this thread seem to want is to being able to know what book they are buying beforehand, Romance or no romance.
Erastes:
I’ve never been so deliberately cruel/obtuse since, but if you look carefully the ending in Transgressions could almost be a tragedy. You have two men in bed in a house in Westminster surrounded by Cromwell’s guards, so what happens in the next ten minutes is anyone’s guess.
Sirius11214:
Well since you mentioned it, I do not think one needs to look particularly carefully to see that ending in Transgressions has a great potential to be a tragedy, in fact I am having trouble imagining optimistic solution for our heroes. Thus to me it is not a Romance, not even close. Believe me I learned my lesson with Running press books. No I am not blaming them for deceiving me because the book was a gift from a friend (I already bought three others). But if I had to buy it, yes I would have been annoyed, because I would have expected same type of endings as I got in Lover’s knot, in False colors and in Tangled web. In my opinion your book should have been labeled m/m romantic historical or something along these lines, or even love story could be in there somewhere (I like this suggestion very much), but not Romance. I think it was a very well written book and in a sense I am glad that I finally stopped waffling and read it, but as I said lesson learned.
Hi E
>>In “At Swim Two Boys” (imo the best gay love story ever written) the ending tore me apart. The clues were all there in the book–the setting: the Easter Uprising, the fact that you expected the Other One to die because he shouldn’t have been there–I spotted what was happening about 40 pages from the end (and I didn’t know the end in advance) and sat sobbing my heart out for those 40 pages.
BUT that book has never left my heart. And that’s the way with truly great tragedies, that these are the stories that people REMEMBER.<< I think that many romance readers forget that itr's not always the end but the journeys that provide the enjoyment. A lot of romances now end up as throwaways because of the stringent rules that surround Romance. This is what RWA says on its website about the HEA "An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love." I like the "emotional justice and unconditional love" part. Makes me feel good inside. :) However, under the Romance Genre subgenres, M/M is not listed. Since Romance is listed on the RWA site as the largest performer, compared to other genres, generating $1.37 B in revenues, I can understand why every author wants to have his/her piece of the pie I suppose. >>Trouble is, of course, is that we’ve inherited all these Rules from the existing publishing industry and things aren’t going to change in the labelling of romances, and you’ll be very unlikely to change people’s minds when they really really won’t read anything unless they are guaranteed of a HEA.<< My issue is all of the trumped up HEAs that fool no one, but readers love them, however it makes it very difficult to review and rate a book where the ending is many times patently false. >>the Mountie doesn’t always get his man.<< Don't let the Mounties hear you or they will come after you and they will get their WOMAN.
No offense,Erastes – but saying the happy ever after doesn`t exist – THAT`S cynical.
What do we live for,if not for the will to fight and make sacrificies to make a fairy tale come true?
Yes,the books labeled “romance” with their HEA/HFN endings are modern fairy tales – nothing more. But we need them;we need them as kids and we need them as adults. But the other ones (drama/tragedy),too.Not everything in life is sunshine and roses.Important to know(!).-Or should I say “fairy tale gone bad”?*g*
But I want to know what to except before I read a book. With help from the labeling,a hint in the blurb…doesn`t matter how.
Nothing`s worse than a “sad” surprise at the end
when you`re anticipating a HFN/HEA.
I don`t say I´m a romance-only reader, – far from it.I´ve read many books with a sad or disturbing/depessing ending that were breathtakingly beautiful.
Funny thing is – in Germany the label “romance” more or less doesn`t exist.It`s called “women`s literature”.With all the possibilities of HEA/HFN,non-HEA/HFN and everything in between.But there is always the blurb…!
s.
**Have I made many grammar mistakes? Sorry for that – Usually I don`t write comments that long!*g*
Forgot something;
When I buy/read books and there`s no “hint” in the blurb,it`s not “labeled” and/or the story is unbearably thrilling – there`s always the quick peek at the last pages…..yes,I`m that bad!!
Hear hear! Wonderful post!
I prefer to read m/m fiction not m/m romance unless it’s well-written, I loved Caught Running by Urban and Roux for example.
From the books I read a happy ending is when the main characters don’t die. 😀 Yes, I tend to read very dark and weird novels were people usually disappear, die or are already dead when the book starts (horror, sci-fi and weird fiction not crime).
So “Deadly Nightshade” ended happy to me simply because none of the main characters died. They didn’t get together but that’s life, and since there are more books in the series I couldn’t wait to read more to know what happened.
“I was hoping that M/M would be more creative and cutting edge but I’m a lone voice crying in the wilderness. :)”
Lol, that’s what I thought m/m would be too. Also an insight into relationships between men since I’m a woman and all that.
If m/m romance continues to be more like m/f romance in disguise with HEA I will stop reading them.
There is plenty of yaoi or slash fanfiction that I can read,from fandoms with violent characters that end with some kind of happiness, well some do.
Isn’t happiness different for different people, anyway? Who are we to judge? 🙂
Perhaps a new label should be dark m/m, like dark fantasy, where I tend to find books I like, so readers know what they are getting into.
Late again to the discussion.
I’m coming to this a bit late, but I figured I’d speak up anyway since I’m both a reader and writer of gay romance.
I completely agree with what Ally and several others have said…if a reader picks up a book that’s labeled a “romance”, it doesn’t matter whether it’s het or gay, the vast, vast majority of romance readers expect it to have a HFN or HEA ending. That’s the genre of *romance.* Period. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether the romance is straight or gay, if it takes place between humans or aliens, if it’s contemporary or historical, etc. It simply means that romance readers like the romance genre because it offers certain expected elements. And they have a right to get what they expect. Just as readers of other genres have a right to expect certain things.
I’ve been a romance reader since I was twelve years old, it was my passion for long, long years before I ever started writing it. And what I ALWAYS expect in a romance is a HFN/HEA. If I don’t get it, I’m pissed. Now, as many others have said, I read widely across all genres and I have absolutely NO problem at all reading a story that has a romantic couple in it that don’t get a HFN/HEA–just don’t label it as a romance. It can be general fic, suspense, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, erotica, or whatever…I’m easy and I have no expectations for a happily ever after in any other genre at all. But if I pick up a book called a romance, then that means I’m in the mood for the elements that go along with that genre, including a happy ending for the couple.
I wouldn’t consider most of the older titles you listed, Wave, as romance. They’re mostly general fiction. I think Brokeback, for example, is a beautifully written story with compelling characters struggling to find love…but I would never in a million years call it a *romance.* Yes, the characters have a powerful, romantic relationship, but the book doesn’t fit the *romance* genre. I don’t think it was ever intended to fit the romance genre, and I don’t think if the author were writing it today she’d change the ending to fit it now. It’s gay lit fic, as it should be. And my saying this doesn’t have anything to do with it being m/m. I feel exactly the same way about Gone With The Wind. To me, that’s historical general fiction, not romance.
I think we’re talking apples and oranges here. Just because a book is labeled m/m does not mean it’s automatically a romance. There are sub-genres within gay fiction just like there are straight fiction. I’ve read m/m detective fiction, I’ve read m/m horror, I’ve read m/m general fiction and I don’t expect any of them to have a HEA or to be a romance, even if they have a couple in a romantic relationship in the story. However, if I read a story that’s labeled as m/m romance, I will expect certain things from it just like I would if I read a story labeled as a het romance. The romance genre has certain expected elements, the HFN/HEA being one of them. As Ally said, if you pick up a sci-fi, you expect to see an element of science in it. If you pick up a murder mystery, there better be a murder and a mystery. If you read a young adult book, the characters have to be young adults and not grown ups. Like ’em or not, those are the parameters of those genres. If you want a book that has no particular expected elements at all, then general fiction is the category in which you’d want to look.
So I don’t really see this as being an issue. I think there are plenty of gay fiction books that aren’t romances and don’t need happily ever afters or happy for now endings. And most of the ones I’ve read aren’t labeled as m/m romances. They’re labeled as gay general fic or gay horror or gay erotica or whatever the sub-genre. I think that if you’re reading a m/m romance and you feel like the HFN/HEA was rushed or not believable, then much of the time that’s got nothing to do with the sub-genre and a fair amount to do with an author’s skill. Some authors have a very difficult time writing short stories and shorter novellas…they try to tackle too big a story for the small space and end up with characters and a plot that aren’t as fully developed as they could be. But that doesn’t mean their intention isn’t for it to be a romance, and it doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong in the romance genre. It just means they maybe weren’t as adept as they should have been at tightening up the scope of the story so it better fit the length, or writing the existing story at a longer word count that could better accommodate development.
Right now, m/m romance sells. Sells extremely well. Gay general fiction or other sub-genres in gay fiction not as well. I’m generalizing, of course–there are always exceptions in both cases. But overall, the sub-genre of gay fiction called m/m romance (along with its expected elements) is in high demand. If that’s what the vast majority of readers want, and the vast majority of authors want to write, then I see absolutely no problem with that. It doesn’t mean authors can’t or aren’t writing in other gay sub-genres, because they are. It doesn’t mean publishers won’t accept stories that don’t fit romance parameters, because many do. Amber Allure, for example, sells other sub-genres of gay fiction, as I’m sure other gay presses do. If readers want gay fiction that’s more “cutting edge” or envelope pushing and doesn’t always have happy endings, the books are out there. They just probably aren’t labeled as “m/m romance.” And they shouldn’t be. M/M romance is its own sub-genre within a much larger picture.
>>I completely agree with what Ally and several others have said…if a reader picks up a book that’s labeled a “romance”, it doesn’t matter whether it’s het or gay, the vast, vast majority of romance readers expect it to have a HFN or HEA ending. That’s the genre of *romance.* Period.< < Intellectually I understand the romance protocols, but in practice, when reading some M/M romances (especially the shorter ones) where it's obvious that the writers tacked on a HEA in a rush in order to receive the all important "romance" designation, it makes a mockery of what Romance is supposed to stand for. As I mentioned to Erastes I took this off the RWA site "An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love." I guess in many romance books I'm still looking for the "emotional justice and unconditional love." As reviewers we get beat up a lot by authors when we don't award their books a high enough rating but many times it's because they try too hard to meet the protocols of the Romance industry and end up with a half baked book, but it has a HEA so readers love it. >> Just because a book is labeled m/m does not mean it’s automatically a romance<< I agree with you that M/M is not synonymous with romance because there are many themes in M/M and I love the diversity of the subgenre. What I find difficult is that so many authors try to squeeze every book they write into the Romance designation despite all the optiions they have, because they understand that they could make more money that way with their book, no matter how poorly written as long it has the all important HEA. I think my question in the post was partly rhetorical and clearly all the romance readers have given a resounding ‘yes” to the question of whether every single romance must contain a HEA. I wish that so many writers didn’t feel that M/M was synonymous with romance because that’s partly the problem. In their zeal to have their book qualify as a romance they forget other important elements of a good book – a plot, well drawn characters, and a credible ending.
I think m/m has become so popular and potentially lucrative that a lot of publishers — some with people who know what an editor is supposed to do, some who do not — are just throwing stories into print without worrying about the quality of the writing. We’re going to see rubbish in M/M. That’s a good sign, actually.
What’s needed now are more reviewers who know what a review is supposed to be — to explain WHY they liked a book, or, if they did not, what they took exception to and why. I got a 2-star rating once on Winds of Change, and when I happened to wind up conversing with the reviewer, many months later, it turned out that she hadn’t liked it because she was upset that I didn’t use the names of actual historical ships. The review itself was one sentence and gave no clue!
Too many romance sites won’t even print critical reviews.. and while I don’t like them any better than any other writer, I think it’s better to have a moderately good rating than five stars because there was Lots of Hawt Secks and no discernable characterization.
I know there’s software that generates romances–saw it advertised in Writers’ Digest at least a decade ago. I expect by now there are lots of them, and probably ones for menage, too. And I’ve seen books that might as well have been produced that way, and they probably get ‘formula’ readers. We can’t change that.
All we can do is try to write worthwhile stories and call attention to the best of what we read.
Mark Probst said, “Simply by saying “we can market this one as romance because it qualifies” is spoiling the outcome in my opinion.”
So do you feel this way about all genre fiction, or just romance? Do you get upset about having to label a mystery?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with readers crying unfair about misleading labeling, either. If you don’t like romance and don’t want to market it, then yes, please don’t.
Well, I’d like to AMEN everything M.L. Rhodes said, but especially this: “Right now, m/m romance sells. Sells extremely well. Gay general fiction or other sub-genres in gay fiction not as well. I’m generalizing, of course–there are always exceptions in both cases. But overall, the sub-genre of gay fiction called m/m romance (along with its expected elements) is in high demand. If that’s what the vast majority of readers want, and the vast majority of authors want to write, then I see absolutely no problem with that. It doesn’t mean authors can’t or aren’t writing in other gay sub-genres, because they are. It doesn’t mean publishers won’t accept stories that don’t fit romance parameters, because many do. Amber Allure, for example, sells other sub-genres of gay fiction, as I’m sure other gay presses do. If readers want gay fiction that’s more “cutting edge” or envelope pushing and doesn’t always have happy endings, the books are out there. They just probably aren’t labeled as “m/m romance.” And they shouldn’t be. M/M romance is its own sub-genre
within a much larger picture.”
I think the best thing people who like m/m fiction which is not in the romance subgenre can do to get more of those works is to buy and review and promote those works as far and wide as possible. Because what will sway publishers is sales. Now, we come full circle because less reputable publishers and authors thinking “if I get a romance label I’ll get more sales” and tack on the ending that made Wave so crazy—yes, unfortunately, this is what will happen.
The classic story from romance writers of all colors of the rainbow is that our work is dismissed as trite and silly and so easy that anyone can do it. Usually at a dinner party someone tosses off that oh, they should just sit down some weekend and knock off one of those trashy Harlequins and get the big bucks. There are two wrong assumptions in there (anyone who has heard HQE’s pay scale is already snorting about the big money), but the one that gets bees in bonnets and underpants is the “knock off” and “trashy,” even if the SBs have co-opted the latter. There’s this perception of romance being less. Of this annoying little genre that gets in the way of real books.
But romances ARE real books, and the sneering comes out of jealousy, I think, because they sell so very well. I’m always amazed by industry professionals, especially authors, who will sneer publicly at romance. (The literary fiction genre does it best.) They don’t seem to realize just how great a volume of readers they’re insulting. I don’t know, maybe the idea is that if they shame them, they’ll convert? Gosh, that always works so well in everything, doesn’t it.
I think m/m romances will get heat for a long time to come, because unless humanity does a sea change, stories of love and happily ever after will continue to be the most popular, and in the growing field of LGBT fiction, these are what will sell the most. The truth is, there are not meetings in back rooms to take over anything. There are just industry professionals who understand that much as we all love books, sales are paramount, and yes, they will buy more of what will make them more money. Again, the other subgenres within m/m have every right to be here, and the more the merrier, and yes, if you love them, support them however you can.
I suppose the same tendency of humanity means that m/m romances will get flack and sometimes get dismissed within the m/m field too. I just hope it’s a lot less. I’d rather see m/m stay a family.
And readers? You get to read what you want. You have the right to read what you want, romance or not romance. But then, so do all readers. And none of them are wrong either.
I think that some of the scorn for formula romances is earned fairly, and comes from the fact that so many of them are so utterly predictable. Mr. Dark and Sneering will turn out to have a Tragic Past that excuses all his faults–even ones that any sensible woman would run screaming from–the “feisty” heroine who has hitherto had brains and nerve will go all mushy when Her Man finally stops acting like a jackass…
Yes, there are some really good stories written in the category of Romance. But the Mills & Boone formula has guaranteed that there’s a lot of rubbish out there, and if a reader happens to run into half a dozen with the same identical plot — as I did in my teens — it doesn’t give the impression that there’s anything worthwhile to be found in the genre. I think romance has the most sneering because it’s mostly written for women and there’s a huge cultural prejudice against women’s issues. We have not really come a long way, baby; we are still fighting for equality on every front.
M/M has reached the point where mediocre work is getting published. This makes it identical to every other genre out there.
But the thing is…. there are a lot of readers who do, in fact, want reliable formula. The M&B machine is a success because it caters to the McBurger audence, the readers who want consistency and predictability above all, with quality a secondary issue.
Actor Robert Vaughn, who played Napoleon Solo in the hit Man from UNCLE series, had two pictures on his dressing-room mirror. One of them was himself in costume as Hamlet; the other was himself as Solo. The first was labeled “ART,” the second “COMMERCE.” I think every creative person has to find her own working balance between those two points.
Erastes said, “As I said in my email when I suggested the list of gay books that aren’t romances, I think readers are missing out, bigtime, by not trying books without a Romance label.”
Well, that’s possible, but that’s the reader’s call. I went through a phase that it was all I read. It was a dark time, and some of those books I still go back to in dark times. Now my go-to is Pratchett. But I know a lot of sci-fi fantasy readers who only read those. Or mystery readers. I think people read what makes them happy. For every reader, “happy” is a different thing, and sometimes the happy comes from books that aren’t. And that’s okay too. But it also has to be okay then for people who just want good endings to get them.
In my twenties and even early thirties I cared a lot about doing it right and seeing all sides and trying everything. I’m still too young to shut the blinds, but I’m perfectly at peace with making sure my leisure time fulfills me, varied or not.
I agree Heidi. What if reader wants to read ONLY romances all the time? It should be up to them only. I read more romances these days than I used to in the past, even though I am not abandoning other genres, but believe it or not at some point I was feeling GUILTY about that. I do not think I should feel guilty for my choice of reading material. 🙂
Who says that m/m romance is the best selling gay category? That’s wrong. It’s mystery. Ask most gay bookstores.
“Who says that m/m romance is the best selling gay category? That’s wrong. It’s mystery. Ask most gay bookstores.”
I admit, I don’t have sales figures in front of me. But I suspect if they haven’t changed (overall, all sales, not just in gay bookstores), watch the trend to shift. Trying to figure out if such things can be gleaned by looking at Amazon, though this is by no means scientific.
Industry wide, romance is unquestionably the highest selling genre fiction. Those stats I know. RWA usually has them posted on the website.
I think over the past couple of years ebooks have made a difference in sales for the various sub-genres of gay fiction. A lot of gay romance is ebook only, and a lot of it is in short story or novella format, which isn’t conducive to print books in many cases.
Mysteries may very well be popular at gay bookstores, which deal almost fully in printed books (I’m assuming you meant brick and mortar gay bookstores). But in ebook format, gay romance sells like crazy. If you look at the Amazon Kindle store gay fiction bestseller list, the bulk of it is made up of gay romance and gay erotic romance. And sales at many of the epublishers mirror this. I’m not in any way dissing the other sub-genres, just simply saying that gay romance is hugely popular in ebook format in particular.
One other thing — a romance HEA doesn’t have to be unrealistic. It should end at the point where two (or more) protagonists have made sacrifices, learned and fought to get to where they are…which is together. It doesn’t mean nothing bad will ever happen to them again. It means at that point in time (and if it’s HEA, for the foreseeable future) they will stay together and be happy in doing do.
Hi guys
I really love all the different perspectives that I get when I do these Friday posts. Last time I suggested IN FUN that we IMAGINE a world without condoms and everyone beat me to a pulp because they didn’t see the humour in the post. Shame on them!! 🙂
This post is much more serious for me because I review a lot of books labelled as romances and when I arrive at a hastily contrived HEA/HFN sometimes I can’t believe that the heroes have ridden off into the sunset together because they were so far apart a few pages earlier. As almost everyone pointed out, m/m ROMANCES sell more so obviously every M/M author (and I can only speak for M/M since I no longer read het) will do whatever he or she can to squeeze that book into the Romance designation, no matter how improbable the ending. Unfortunately these same authors are mad when we review their books and don’t give them the rating they feel they deserved. So this is a double edged sword.
I do understand the Romance protocols even if I don’t agree with them. I started out reading fantasy, science fiction and murder mysteries and I didn’t care whether the protagonists ended up together. In Romance, no matter how improbable the ending is, the heroes have to have a HEA/HFN. I do wish that this were not so but this is a long established tradition.
Now when I review books I no longer use “romance” as a genre, I just use “contemporary M/M” or Mystery, or Paranormal because many of the stories, while they meet the criteria to be labelled as romance since they have the requisite HEA/HFN, the endings of many of them are not believable. I know these books are fantasies but authors tell me that even though the books are fantasies they reflect real life. I find that hard to believe.
I love the M/M subgenre and will continue to do so but I wish that M/M romance did not have to operate under the same claustrophobic rules as het. But that’s just me. I would like to think that in future this subgenre will offer cutting edge, imaginative, creative stories about men in love that are not operating under the same rules as other sub genres, however Romance, which has been around for over 100 years will always call the shots, as well as the readers, for any book that’s designated as a “romance.” The Romance old guard never wanted to recognize M/M in the first place since men in love did not fit their “one man, one woman, HEA criteria” and this is the price to be paid if M/M wants to stay as part of the Romance “family.”
Marketing is essential for any business and publishing is no exception, and perhaps more authors need the appropriate tools to effectively market their books that don’t fit within the romance designation so that readers will want to read them. This way they won’t have to force their novellas or short stories into a genre where they don’t fit.
Only very skilled authors can write a short romance with all the elements including a credible plot, characters that move and engage the reader, and a HEA, and make it believable. Unfortunately many M/M authors are either new to writing or to the subgenre because lots of writers seems to be jumping on the M/M bandwagon these days, and at times the results are not optimum, to put it politely.
The best part of this post is that it resulted in many innovative suggestions about how to resolve this problem, as well as some great ideas for the M/M subgenre as a whole.
Ah, the subgenres. Yes, this is a bit of a bone of contention with me in particular. (If you want to see the list yourself, it’s here: http://www.rwanational.org/cs/romance_literature_subgenres) You’ll notice that there is inspirational romance, but no erotic. And no, no m/m. Now, it’s been a long, long time since I knew statistics for the subgenres in any detail, but I do know that (of all the ironies) erotica and inspirational rose at the same time, and there was a moment when they were neck and neck, and were the highest rising new subgenres. I want to say erotica pulled ahead, but I don’t know that for sure, and I have no current info whatsoever. What I can tell you is that there has been an inspirational category for around ten years at the RITAs (the RWA awards, kind of like Oscars but not) but despite heavy lobbying, there is no erotica. There is a Regency category, though. For years Regency and Inspirational failed to have enough entries for the contest, but no, no erotica. And don’t look for LGBT anytime soon. And don’t even say the word “ebook.”
I may have said this already, but oh well. I don’t think as a collective romance readers or authors want endings tossed on. I will say though that those of us who love romances have sometimes different bars for judgment, because we come to the table for different reasons. In the same way a mystery or fantasy lover might forgive bad writing or even sloppy character or story, or stock, a devoted romance genre lover might embrace with some zeal a story that would be sneered at outside of the genre. My personal preference is a story which could hold its own anywhere. It’s what I like to read, and it’s what I strive to write. But yes, there will be romances which many find ridiculous and even idiotic and yet readers will love.
I maintain you will find this in all genres. I can personally present you with an armful of godawful fantasy and sci-fi novels and mysteries without trying too hard. But I can also direct you their boatloads of devoted fans as well. It might get louder in romance because there is more volume. But trust me. It’s everywhere.
Hi Heidi
I did check out the RWA site before I wrote this piece and I noticed that M/M is not listed nor is erotica. 🙂 I also found this amusing
“An Emotionally-Satisfying and Optimistic Ending: In a romance, the lovers who risk and struggle for each other and their relationship are rewarded with emotional justice and unconditional love. ”
I’m still waiting for the “emotional justice and unconditional love” part of the HEA. 🙂
I also found it funny that all of the m/m authors were busy trying to write “romance” when the RWA doesn’t even recognize the subgenre, but that’s a rant for another day.
I know that many of the other genres out there have their share of poorly written books, but as I said a couple of times, the difficulty is when I have to review poorly written M/M books and unfortunately excellent ratings are not a gimme – they have to be earned.
I love this subgenre and I hope that in my own small way, by posting on some topics, maybe I can get a few authors to listen. I don’t believe that readers want M/M to become a replica of het, with the only difference being that the protagonists are gay men. At the risk of repeating myself, I would like to see this subgenre evolve into something that we can all be proud of, with creative themes and stories that will move us to such an extent that perhaps it will no longer matter if the stories are romances or something else. Cutting edge, fresh, creative and innovative plots will make a whole lot of difference.
“I’m still waiting for the “emotional justice and unconditional love” part of the HEA. :)”
Emotional justice. I’m not sure what that is, exactly. Hmmm.
There’s been a lot of stink in the past about the “romantic elements” aspect because a lot of big name romance authors were sliding into mystery and women’s fiction. The category was created for that, but there are a lot of people who don’t like it. There seems to be a constant war between genre purity and genre expansion. Sound familiar?
“I also found it funny that all of the m/m authors were busy trying to write “romance” when the RWA doesn’t even recognize the subgenre, but that’s a rant for another day.”
To my knowledge, most m/m romance authors do not belong to RWA, though I hope that changes. I found out over the weekend that Dreamspinner is in fact recognized, which means I could submit my stuff for a RITA this fall. Which means I’d have to rejoin. Depending on how fiesty I’m feeling, I just might. I quit because it felt like spitting into the wind, but now there’s an LGBT chapter, and my publisher is recognized. We’ll see.
“I know that many of the other genres out there have their share of poorly written books, but as I said a couple of times, the difficulty is when I have to review poorly written M/M books and unfortunately excellent ratings are not a gimme – they have to be earned, and some authors don’t understand why their books were not given the rating they thought they deserved.”
Oh, that’s just unprofessional, that is. That’s like writing your readers (or your reviewers) and explaining to them how they’re wrong. That’s also a career death wish, but each to their own, I guess.
I think you get to review how you want, as do all your reviewers. To my mind all reviewers and all readers should be approached by publishers and authors with respect, because you are giving us a service and are buying our product. You’re the reason we’re here. No, we don’t write to order, but we don’t get to tell reviewers how to review and readers how to read.
But see, this is why I want more m/m networks. There’s a lot of education authors and would-be authors can give each other. In theory, that’s what RWA is supposed to be, and I think it still is. But if m/m romances are trying to claw their way not even into the spotlight but into the line for gruel, that’s not good. So I dunno.
I keep hearing rumors about an m/m conference someone is trying to organize. If my health and wallet can swing it, I am so there.
RWA does have a chapter of M/M writers. They get to pay the hefty dues and get announcements of all the spiffy RWA activities.
They get to make their own awards, too, because when you’re at the back of the bus with the erotic writers and RWA is only about squeaky-pure One Man One Woman (widow/ers with children allowed, but NO QUEERS and NO SEX where the reader can see it…) you don’t qualify as “real” romance.
Oh, you can pay the entry fee and enter your book… but one blackball of “NOT ROMANCE” from a judge will knock your book out.
I don’t know why so many people genuflect to RWA as though its approval is required. Romance has been around a lot longer than that organization, and I wish the British organization would open up a North American chapter. I’d join in a heartbeat.
Gay romance is part of gay fiction, not all of it. It’s like squares and rectangles. I have gone through a long angsty period where I read a lot of good but depressing books, and I’ve had enough, thank you; I get sufficient misery from the news and from being at the age where friends begin to die off.
I do think it’s fair to expect that a romance has a happy, or at least a hopeful, ending, and I have no problem with my stories being classified in that category. As others have said, it isn’t unreasonable to expect a mystery to be resolved–even if that’s not all that common in RL–just as it’s reasonable to expect science fiction to have some scientifically plausible factors (as opposed to fantasy, which only requires a universe with consistent rules). I do think m/m has the opportunity to be more creative, because the circumstances under which GLBT folk live varies so much, historically and politically. I am married in Canada; if I were in Iran, I would be tortured and executed. Quite a difference, even in one point on the timeline.
But.. I want happy endings. I write happy endings. And, honestly? I don’t expect them in Serious Gay Fiction. I just don’t. And I don’t want to read books where most of the characters are is venal, short-sighted and selfish, and where good people wind up getting screwed. Looking at the news, with that oil catastrophe that has the potential to wipe out life on earth (Not catastrophizing, folks; that mess is poisoning the ocean, and if the oceans die, we will perish) I want escapist fiction so I can spend some time away from the consequences of greed and stupidity. I want to write stories that give hope. I don’t want to be put through the wringer by a story and then thrown over a cliff. The Front Runner is a superb piece of writing. So is Lord of the Flies. But you’d have to pay me a million dollars to re-read either of them.
Heidi
>>I keep hearing rumors about an m/m conference someone is trying to organize. If my health and wallet can swing it, I am so there.<< If you're talking about the one that Ethan Day is trying to organize next year here's a link to the post I did http://www.gayromance.org/?p=23435 >>But if m/m romances are trying to claw their way not even into the spotlight but into the line for gruel, that’s not good. So I dunno.<< I LOVE this. I must use it sometime - I'll give you the credit for the line. 🙂 I hope that someday we'll get it right in terms of the M/M subgenre and the first step is when everyone recognizes that it's not a replica of het with gay men as the protagonists.
Hi Lee
>>I do think it’s fair to expect that a romance has a happy, or at least a hopeful, ending, and I have no problem with my stories being classified in that category.<< I agree that romances should generally have a good ending but I guess, as I said earlier, when an M/M author's only objective is the HEA in order to qualify as a romance, and forget that she/he is supposed to be writing a story with all the elements that make it a good read, that's when I have a problem. >>I want escapist fiction so I can spend some time away from the consequences of greed and stupidity. I want to write stories that give hope<< There is nothing wrong with that and your stories are beautifully written. I just wish that some of the up and coming authors could read stories like yours that inspire, so that they can understand what good writing is all about.
I think a bit of serendipity got the genre where it is now, with two factors contributing heavily to the heavy emphasis on Gay Romance.
The first is e-publishing and Print On Demand. That gave many people the chance to start small presses with relatively low investment in production and sales. (That’s the up side. The down side is that it’s hard to learn editing and business survival by the seat of the pants, which means some publishers have a very short shelf-life, and writers should ALWAYS have a rights-return clause in their contracts in case the biz folds).
The second factor is that Romance is an enormous genre, and the low-cost, low-risk avenue for publishing allowed entrepreneurs to publish books that the big boys wouldn’t even bother with — romantic sci-fi, all sorts of paranormals, books with highly explicit sex… and *gasp* TEH GHEY!
There may be a third factor, slightly less influential: Fanfiction has been featuring gay romance (and tragedy) in many sub-genres for at least a couple of decades. It created a market. Half the m/m writers I know, myself included, learned our craft in that school. And when these stories started being revamped (no, that wasn’t a Buffy pun), published and bought by the (mostly female) audience, I think it startled everyone, especially serious writers of gay fiction who were mostly gay men.
Are romances the only stories we have to tell? Probably not. But for many writers, that was the avenue open to us, and it’s generally easier to find a publisher if one has been published already. Many successful writers moved from Romance to other genres. And if the story incidentally had HEA or HFN, so much the better.
It’s funny; I never thought of the Adrien English series as a ‘romance.’ I see it as a mystery series, much as I see Cochrane’s Cambridge series. And I’m surely not the only one who’d have felt that the ending of Standish would have been more of an HEA if Ambrose had somehow wound up with Fleury. (I can say this with impunity, because there is a large ocean between me and Erastes…)
Together 4-evah is not necessarily an HEA, either. We’ve probably all lived through break-ups that were blessed relief. Sometimes a happy ending can be a put-upon partner saying to an abusive lover, “Sorry, no, I’ll manage alone, TYVM.” Is that a romance…? I don’t know. It could be, if it’s part of a series where the protagonist does eventually wind up with a true love, but I suspect it’d have to be published as a trilogy of novellas to avoid reader desertion.
This is a great topic, but I don’t think m/m is anywhere near finished in its evolution. As Clare says, eventually we ought to see historical fiction with gay characters, sci-fi, fantasy, mysteries (we have this already, somewhat–it’s curious that mysteries have had some gay heroes for years while so many other genres shy away). But it’s early days yet. When I sent Ransom to Linden Bay, they were just deciding whether to publish m/m at all. Now it’s all over the place. That was only about four years ago. Genres just don’t crystallize that fast.
If I were betting, I’d say some publishers are going to stick with the HEA formula and some will experiment, and there’ll be a certain amount of overlap between the audiences. For the big presses, formula that nets big sales will always win. For small presses, it’ll be a matter of staying afloat and earning enough to make the work worthwhile, and that’s different for every individual.
Lee, loving all your posts.
I think the other interesting wrinkle in the unfolding of m/m is how the NYC establishment is in so much flux right now and likely to flux a lot more before it’s all said and done. They’re also angering ebook readers right and left, even as ebook demand rises and continues to do so. Meanwhile, m/m embraces ebooks, and the authors are in my experience very accessible to readers, which readers also say they love. And the m/m market is meeting the voracious demand for its genre better than NYC. I mean, Jesus H. I sold my first book last October and I now have four novels out (as of an hour ago), one novella and one short in an anthology, and another novella coming in a month or so. In a traditional NYC house I’d still be waiting for the first novel to come out.
I’m not sure what it all means. But it sure is interesting. And maybe I’m biased, but it feels to me like I’m with the people riding the wave, not going under. (There’s probably a better ocean/wave/surfing analogy, but I’m an Iowa girl. We’re real low on ocean.)
Late to the party.
Like Erastes, I don’t believe in happily ever after. ALL relationships end, whether voluntarily or not. In life, there are no happy endings, only headstones and widow(er)hood. With stories, we can stop before it gets to that point.
My position, as it was explained to me:
Romance=HEA or HFN.
Love story=ends any way you like
It’s like theatrical definitions. If a play ends with a wedding, it’s a comedy, whether or not there is any humor in it.
This is where we have trouble over in Science Fiction Romance. SF likes to keep the ending open. Romance likes it all tied off.
When writing GLBT stuff, I demand a happy ending. I’m tired of “dead queer in the third reel.”
For me, it comes down to “Define happy.”
If an ending is satisfying and the characters are together (for whatever value of “together” you use), I consider it happy.
Hi Angel
>>My position, as it was explained to me:
Romance=HEA or HFN.
Love story=ends any way you like<< My mistake was thinking that the two were synonymous - i.e. that a love story was a romance and I found out how wrong I was. I have to research all of these tropes more thoroughly so that I don't get tripped up by some of the definitions. If I get my butt kicked often enough I'll learn faster. 🙂 We all love happy endings but I'm more realistic (not pessimistic) than most readers and don't necessarily need a HEA/HFN to consider a book a romance. But that's just me. 🙂 I don't seek out sad endings because I have 'comfort reads' like most people that I curl up with when I'm feeling sad, and most of them are love stories or romances and sometimes for me they are interchangeable. Thanks for commenting Angel.
Hi Wave,
Thank you for this very interesting topic. I love your site, and I check it daily in order for me to go shopping for books. 🙂
I would like to chime in with my very humble opinion on this sacred cow.
As a reader, I believe in the HEA and those are the kind of books I like to read!
I scour online publishers, Amazon, Fictionwise, ARE, B&N, etc, for such books. I spend my money on what I love and HEA= Romance is where I spend the most of it when it comes to reading material. I read review sites in order to get an idea of the flow of a book and yes if it’s HEA or HFN. And yes, if possible I always go to the end of the book to see how it ends. GUILTY! I also want to know the ending of movies too, but that’s another topic. 🙂
I see that some of my favorite authors and soon to be favorites have responded to your very interesting topic. A shout out to Ally, ML, Josh, Heidi, etc.
Now back to my response. 🙂
In college I was required to read certain books in order to pass my classes, but in my RL I read whatever I want to! From a few of the comments here, it seems to be implied by a few that liking to read HEA books makes a reader simplistic because they don’t want to go on this journey with certain authors writings. Then fine I’m simple, naive, have my head in the clouds, etc, etc, but give me what I pay for. I happen to like quality books that have HEA! If the author knows what they’re doing the HEA will never feel forced or out of place. I don’t really care how an author gets me there, but let’s go on that HEA journey together. I will never dictate to an author how to write their book and I expect that same respect in choosing my reading material. An author doesn’t want to write a “romance” book that ends in HEA, that’s fine, let me know, and I’ll go elsewhere for what I want. There are so many wonderful authors to choose from, I’ll just have to survive without reading that author’s book.
We all know that people will die, change their minds, etc, etc. I saw firsthand on 9/11 what hatred for a fellow human being can do. Should that experience color my world and make me not want my HEA? I think not! At least in the USA, why does the latest news on Sandra Bullock and her soon to be ex grab our attention so much?
To me HEA = Commitment. I want to believe that this couple, or group of people, whether het, gay, alien, etc, made a COMMITMENT to each other and will stick together through thick and thin. Isn’t this part of a very famous vow some of us might have heard of where a couple, etc, commit to be together through the good times and bad, in sickness and health, until death do they part? Isn’t this what a huge amount of the world’s population is fighting for? How about that gay couple in Africa that almost spent 14 years in prison for announcing their engagement? Only after an International outcry were they pardoned, and now have to be in hiding in fear for their lives. Did they grow up on Harlequin’s or is there a basic need in human beings to commit to one another against all odds?
As mentioned by so many others before, please keep the truth in advertising. I read just about anything from books on quantum physics, to People’s magazine. My favorite to read is the sacred HEA. You may get my money the first time by misleading me, but you will never get it the second time! HEA books will always be popular because it touches something fundamental in the majority of us where we would like to believe that no matter what we face or hear about in our daily lives, there’s someone out there who’s keeping their word to one another until death do they part.
Regards,
Beth NYC
Hi Beth
Thank you for commenting. You made a number of excellent points about the Romance genre and the majority of readers’ expectations.
>>As mentioned by so many others before, please keep the truth in advertising<< We talked about the marketing aspects of publishing many times in the comments, and I think that authors who want to write stories with alternative endings are getting the message loud and clear. There is a market for these stories just like there is a market for romance, but truth in advertising is the key. As I mentioned to Ally two comments down from this one, it's a lucky thing that readers are such a diverse group which means that M/M can pretty well give us whatever we want, we just have to read the fine print.
Good grief, so much going on since I visited this post! Wow.
I write romance — gay specifically — because I want to. No one’s making me tack on HEAs for $$. I like to put my guys through hell then make them happy in the end. It gives me the warm fuzzies. That’s what I liked way before it ever occurred to me that I could make money doing it. I suspect that’s more common than not and that some people just aren’t as good at it as others. It’s still more an issue of quality, not a need to change readers’ expectations of the genre.
As a reader myself, I am notoriously unforgiving when it comes to my reading in any genre. Just ask my family. If an ending (or any other element, really) seems out of character, illogical, or otherwise wrong, I get most vocally unhappy about it. Nobody would like me very much as a reviewer, I suspect. Again, I think there are more readers like me than NOT like me, at least judging by the blogs and such that I see. I dunno, maybe I’m wrong, since I mostly follow gay fiction not straight.
I’m an RWA member and a member of the RRW chapter. I’m signing two of my books at the Literacy signing in July at nationals. I’m a part of PAN (published authors network) in RWA. Last year at nationals, every single one of the books I brought to the booksellers and librarians networking were picked up within minutes, and practically everyone I talked to wanted to know more about RRW and GLBT romance. Attitudes are changing, slowly but surely, toward GLBT romance and ebooks as well. I want to see my genre accepted as part of mainstream romance, and you can’t acheive that goal by ignoring RWA. You have to work toward change from within.
Hi Ally
>>Good grief, so much going on since I visited this post! Wow.<< I know. It just keeps going. :) My comment about the RWA not recognising M/M or erotic books has to do with what's on their website. There's no mention of either there so I thought that M/M was like the stepchild no one wants. :( Romance is obviously the biggest genre in terms of its revenue potential - one has only to check out the RWA site to see why SOME authors write Romance. Similarly, many het authors are now moving to M/M romance because it seems to be outstripping het in terms of growth. However, Ally, no one would ever suggest that you write M/M romance for anything but love. :) When I wrote this post my question was whether Romance with a capital 'R' always had to have a HEA/HFN, even when the story did not lead to that conclusion - I felt that the hastily contrived HEAs (many of them in shorter books) were a disservice to the readers. However the readers don't seem to mind regardless of whether the endings make sense, so my question was answered. Obviously there are a few readers who don't mind a lack of a happy ending in their M/M stories but clearly they are in the minority, and the way that "romance" is currently defined would eliminate these books from being called a romance. I like a "hopeful" ending myself but I'm flexible and will take a more realistic one many times if it makes more sense. I guess it's a lucky thing that readers don't all want the same thing so there's room for authors who write every type of story. One of the things I love about these posts is that everyone has a chance to have their say and sometimes they change minds. >>Attitudes are changing, slowly but surely, toward GLBT romance and ebooks as well. I want to see my genre accepted as part of mainstream romance, and you can’t acheive that goal by ignoring RWA. You have to work toward change from within<< I agree with you there Ally but it seems that RWA is the one that's ignoring M/M (at least on their website), not the other way around. We have to stop meeting like this. I promise that I'll come up with something innocuous for my next post. I promise. 🙂
Wave, honey, you know I shall stalk you through the internet tubes no matter how innocuous your postage. Heh.
Damn!! I was hoping that you wouldn’t drop by on another day when I was losing again, for the umpteenth time. There shbould be a law that I should win at least one out of every three Fridays. Why do you always have to come up with unassailable arguments against my well thought out posts? (I swear they are not rants.) 🙂
LOL well I don’t know about “unassailable” but my parents always did say I loved to argue 🙂
Thanks for such an interesting post, Wave, and I’ve found the comments interesting too. I don’t really have anything to add to the actual discussion, as a lot got covered, but one thing that really fascinates me is how people read.
I know that personally if I’m reading what I know to be a romance, I can open myself up a bit more, whereas I sometimes have to brace or protect myself if I know the ending may hurt. And I’m not always up for the latter kind of read. (For example, I want to read The Frontrunner, but can’t manage to yet pick it up. Some day.)
Whereas I think for others, they may find the reading experience richer if the ending is uncertain.
As a writer, I actually think that technically the ending of a romance is the toughest part of the book. Not that a reader shouldn’t feel disgruntled when it hasn’t worked for them, of course.
Hi Joely
>>I know that personally if I’m reading what I know to be a romance, I can open myself up a bit more, whereas I sometimes have to brace or protect myself if I know the ending may hurt. And I’m not always up for the latter kind of read. (For example, I want to read The Frontrunner, but can’t manage to yet pick it up. Some day.)<< I certainly get that and most romance readers are like you. I like the uncertain endings - not necessarily unhappy, but more trending to realism. However I'm in the minority. Re The Front Runner, it really is a terrific love story (note I didn't say romance because that has a different connotation) and if you can brace yourself for the ending I think you should read it. Have lots of chocolate and tissues handy. Have you ever seen the movie called "Love Story"? It was tragic but oh such a wonderful love story and most people who have seen it once have seen it at least 20 times, even knowing how it ends. Well The Front Runner is something like that.
Wave, it’s like geometry.
All squares are rectangles (4 sides, 4 90 degree angles), but not all rectangles are squares (which have equal sides).
All romances are love stories, but not all love stories are romances.