Last week I read a book that will make my top ten for the year (Thrown Off the Ice by Taylor Fitzpatrick). The story, and subsequent reviews, brought to mind the issue of how the genre deals with stories that don’t have specifically Happy Ever After or even Happy For Now endings. We accept cliffhangers (grudgingly) and even books ending with a separation, in a series, in the expectation that the series will wend its way finally to that HEA. But books whose ultimate end is different, non-traditional, or bittersweet are caught between genres.
True genre romance should have a happy ending with the main couple/trio/group contentedly together. That’s part of the definition of romance. And for those who read the genre for the warm certainty of that ending as they close the book, it’s essential.
But books that are focused on a loving romantic relationship as central to the story, but come to some other conclusion, are hard to tag and classify. Sometimes readers get upset when a book like Marie Sexton’s One More Soldier or even more, one specifically of loss like John Goode’s Last Dance with Mary Jane or Victor J. Banis’s Cooper’s Hawk are classified with romance. By strict definition, that tag is wrong.
Yet, the vast majority of the readership for those lovely stories is going to be romance readers like me, who are in it for the depth of love and feeling, wherever the ending may take the main characters. And we want to find those books.
What about books detailing a long committed relationship that comes to its natural end in old age after decades of love? Does death really cancel out a lifetime of love, in calling it a romance? (Isn’t that the only true proof of “Ever After”?) How long do two main characters have to be happy together for that to not be overruled by loss? Can we classify The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren as a romance as well as a tragedy?
To me, it’s all about discoverability, and expectations. Tagging these stories as romance really helps the readers who will love them to find them. With the huge volume of stories out there, expecting this kind of love-focused story to break out of “gay fiction” and find its readers is unreasonable. We can help reader expectations by also tagging the stories as bittersweet. Despite not wanting to spoiler people, at least that much forewarning prevents the real anger some readers feel when there’s no HEA for them. But that’s not a category books sell under.
Do we put that info in the blurb? Or is that too spoilery, so we ask readers who want the HEA endings to look at tags? For my story Full Circle, which has a positive ending for the MCs but not the solid romance ending, I put a review saying so on Goodreads. Do enough people look there for that to help?
Another site that people with an aversion to bittersweet endings can check is Queeromance Ink (https://www.queeromanceink.com/) where the stories listed have a spoiler-tagged option to check the ending type. My story Full Circle has the ending tagged as “nontraditional” rather than HEA or HFN. But the site only covers a few thousand of the tens of thousands of stories out there.
I would hate for anyone who might love the long slow build and progression of the relationship between hockey players Mike and Liam in Thrown Off the Ice to miss it, because it was removed from “romance” for the nontraditional ending. And yet, there are people who don’t want anything but warm contented certainty as they close the book, for whom no amount of love or progress or humor is worth a hit of pain or disappointment at the end. Reviews, tags, blurbs, spoilers – what’s your preferred answer for listing a book that is all about love, but punches your heart in the ending?
– Kaje Harper
Sept 2019
I need my HEA or at least HFN. I’m at a point in my life with my own losses and my feelings about what’s happened to our country that I most definitely do NOT want to get emotionally invested in a fictional relationship that doesn’t turn out in the end. The story can be dark, it can even deal with infidelity, as long as the characters work things out and are together at the end.
I totally understand that, and you’re far from alone. That’s the dilemma – there are a lot of readers for whom the warm resolution at the end of the story is the point of reading it – to leave the book feeling happy and affirmed in a positive way.
But marketing categories give love stories that don’t end solidly happy no real way to both separate themselves from those that do, and yet find readers for whom a love story is the thing they’re looking for. And that’s where the issues of tagging and warnings and spoilers come into play. And, much like trigger warnings, the question is whom the onus should be on to make things clear, and how clear, versus who should have to search out that info if its relevant to them. There is no single answer here either.
Interesting question…
Maybe the work could be hashtagged “bittersweet” and/ or it could be categorised as in the “bittersweet romance” genre. Though the industry would have to embrace these expansions of the traditional boxes.
Agreed, definitely tagging is part of the answer (I’m not sure how a hashtag would work specifically? You mean as a searchable term in the blurb, or elsewhere?).
Even better might be a “bittersweet romance” genre since tags don’t always get seen.
It would take both fans of the books and people who really want them separated out, to get that designation into place and I worry that a hard push for it which would include “this shouldn’t be included in genre romance” might end up with a careless behemoth like Amazon just pushing the books back into general fiction without accommodating a new category.
Ideally I would love to see vendors like AZ post the tag list for a book prominently under the blurb – that would be an easy way for authors to communicate content to readers.
One of my favorite books is Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman. For years readers were emotional but accepting of the non traditional ending. Then the movie which is loyal to the book came out and viewers were blown away by the ending. Many said it was the best four minutes in film. Then as they talked about it some wrote fan fiction giving the two MCs their HEA. People were begging for a sequel. The author even got on board and wrote a sequel which comes out in October. I’ve heard we’ll have a HEA. I love the ending of the book which leaves room in my imagination for closure for Elio and Oliver. These stories are gut wrenching but they stick with me for days and days. I love them.
Great post Kaje. I can read non traditional ‘romance’ so long as I know about it up front.
Axios by Jaclyn Osborn is one if my all time favourite books in any genre and it is absolutely a love story, but it guts me to the bone.
Is it a romance? I think so yes. Does it have a HEA, nope. Does it have absolutely the right ending for its narrative? Yes, any other would have been a great disservice to the protagonists and historically inaccurate.
Sometimes I want to have an ugly cry but still feel all the love that went before it.
For me it is the romance that draws me in. HEA or HFN is always NICE, but not required. Because let’s face it, those to tags just don’t always happen in real life. My husband died after 18 years of happiness and he died happy. Is that a bad ending? No it wasn’t, but it did happen. Realism in a novel is always appropriate. So an NTE (non traditional ending) is okay by me.