Romancing the Genre (With Apologies to the Stone)

This week, we're going to look at working romance into your other genres. What is the appeal of having romantic subplots in stories that are more typically focused on action, adventure, or even horror? We turned to the jury to get their verdict. 

Have you found a romantic subplot in your action and adventure (whatever genre you're actioning in) stories to be a helpful extra layer or not? Why?

Corrina Lawson: To be specific on questions, my own work straddles the line between romance and other genres. It's a terrific layer because it should (ideally) key into the growth of the character. A character has to undergo a sort of transformation to their best self in the story--and sometimes it's only the romantic interest who can see through the chaff to that best self. (Witness, say, Romancing the Stone, where Kathleen Turner basically forces Michael Douglas to take a hard look at who he wants to be.) 

Selah Janel: I haven’t written a lot of romance, but I’ve done a few things and a lot of what I write has romantic subplots. For me, I really like exploring relationships and interactions between characters. I really like playing with circumstance and tension, and getting under the surface to explore how characters relate and grow together. 

HC Playa: I write adventures with sex and love because I cannot for the life of me write actual romance.

Lucy Blue: Why do I write romance? Because I think human connection is the most interesting, most valuable reward any protagonist can achieve. It’s what we fight for. It’s what we survive for. And we can portray that by putting in a generic hot chick or dude to fridge and forget while we get on with the kung fu fighting. Or we can be brave and let that relationship be real. In movies, that works all the time. But in books, a real relationship equals romance, and romance equals Hallmark. And yeah, that makes me tired.

Emily Leverett: I've got a romantic subplot in my Eisteddfod Chronicles. The two MC have an affair. It's as much about the political implications as the personal, and both will continue to matter as the story comes to a close. Sometimes (all the time?) it's not possible to separate the personal and political. 

Sean Taylor: I almost always have a romantic element in my stories. I think it makes a fantastic B-plot or even C-plot depending on the length of the work, and it allows me to showcase more characteristics of my characters rather than just their ability to punch or exorcise horrors. 

David Wright: I tend to let the characters decide.

Mike Hintze: I go with the flow. The story tells me what happens

What is the appeal to readers to find a romantic story squirreled away inside other genres?

Lucy Blue: I have never written about rose petals in my life. I write action-packed, gory, hard-edged horror and fantasy stories with real conflict and peril that just happen to have a romantic relationship at their center. But as soon as I say I write romance, other horror and fantasy writers think rose petals and emotional melodrama. (This is me not talking about it.

Sean Taylor: As a reader myself, I always love to find them, as long as they don't overpower the A-plot. But they can get as close as they want to without bothering me. I look to the greats like Rebecca or even Haunting at Hill House. Without the romantic subplots, even those stories (one to a great degree obviously) would have been far more "one note" stories.

Emily Leverett: A romance can make a good backdrop for those explorations, because little is more personal than who you're having sex with.

Selah Janel: I think people tend to simplify what romance is and why people read it. I think it’s another way of seeking catharsis and when a person sees themselves or their personality reflected in a character, it gives hope that things can work out for them and they’re worthy of love, too. There’s a whole gamut of situations and emotions to explore - is a feeling required, unrequited, is there loss involved or baggage that might be an obstacle, how they see themselves and others - just all sorts of things that factor into how people relate to each other. It makes that moment when two characters do connect or reconnect that much more interesting and sweeter.

Corrina Lawson: The appeal to readers is more insight into characters, I would guess. Less so than in novels, but in movies, the romance part often seems tackled on because the love interest is only there to be rescued or in peril. *Even today.* I think romance gets a bad rep because of those types of movies. Most of the time, the movies would be better without them because they're not central to the character's story.

Or do you feel that romantic subplots just get in the way of your main plots?

Mark Holmes: I love a good romantic subplot! The problem is in 8 to 10 pages of a comic script I usually don't have any space to tell one other than a quick smooch at the end of the story.

Nik Stanosheck: The romance can be a way to get to know the characters and to help them grow and develop more.

Corrina Lawson: Romance is a type of relationship. I find authors who write relationships well tend to also write romance well, and it adds character and depth to a story. I should clarify, that in the genres I write, characters try to find their best selves. Obviously not true of other genres where tragic endings are fine. But romances there can also underscore character faults and bad choices.

Sean Taylor: At least the way I try to write them, they add to the main story rather than getting in the way, at least I sure hope so. That's the plan when I start to write anyway.