Why Romance?

How I found my way to my favorite genre

Last week, I found a short story I wrote for eleventh grade English in October 1998 and read it aloud on Instagram. I had to issue a bit of a warning because, unlike most of the writing I do nowadays, this piece didn’t have a happy ending. I was fifteen when I wrote it, and all my crushes were unrequited, so naturally I wrote about a break-up. When commenters mentioned how much they prefer my stories with happy endings, I got to thinking about how I went from break-up stories to romance.

I definitely read romance as a teen. It was not my most-read genre, but the books I remember most fondly from those years are all romance: Winter Love, Winter Wishes by Jane Claypool Miner, The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman by Louise Plummer, Thames Doesn’t Rhyme with James by Paula Danziger, Jean and Johnny by Beverly Cleary, Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen, etc.

I went to college thinking I was going to learn how to be a novelist (colleges do not teach this, FYI), but there was never any opportunity to decide what kind of fiction I wanted to write. I learned quickly that genre fiction was frowned upon in academia, and that only literary fiction would be accepted for assignments. I didn’t even really know the difference, but I assumed my professors knew better than I did, and I made every effort to fit the mold of what they said constituted worthwhile writing, rather than making any attempt to find my own voice.

Two professors in particular took a liking to my work, and I was so happy to have their approval that I started getting grandiose ideas about my writing career. Again not understanding how things work, I applied to at least six MFA programs. These professors got mad at me for applying to so many (how was I supposed to know?), and after the last application went out, I also became aware that the recommendation letters they had agreed to write were not positive. One called me “off-beat” and the other said I was too quiet. A third professor finally took pity on me and explained that MFA programs were very selective and I needed to get myself a back-up plan. (She didn’t say out loud what in retrospect I believe she was thinking, which is that I was not someone who would seriously be considered for an MFA program. )

After this demoralizing experience, I gave up on writing, changed paths, and went to library school. In my first library job, I was responsible for teen collections and programming. So I went back to reading YA romance. Some favorites during this time were The Espressologist by Kristina Springer, Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle, and books by Deb Caletti, Rachel Vail, and Catherine Clark. But I didn’t read books for adults anymore, a habit that continued through my second library job as a children’s librarian. I kept up with Sarah Dessen, and other YA romance authors, but read their books only sporadically.

Throughout my library career, I wrote almost exclusively nonfiction. I wrote book reviews and articles about library service, and I was later asked to write two textbooks for children’s librarians. I wasn’t writing fiction at all for the most part. I made occasional attempts at NaNoWriMo, and I would often veer into romance with those attempts at novels just because it felt like the easiest genre to write for someone who isn’t interested in a lot of world-building and likes light, fun books. I was also involved in some writing-based roleplaying communities, and there was always romance happening in those storylines, but a lot of people got very explicit about it in a way that made me uncomfortable. That made me avoid romance novels, assuming they would do the same.

It wasn't until 2018, after I had left library work and assumed my role as a stay-at-home-mom that I got back into reading books for grown-ups. I started with cozy mysteries. Once I got into the habit of reading those, other “clean” genres floated onto my radar by way of reviews on Goodreads, posts on Instagram, etc. I found Harlequin’s Heartwarming imprint and read a few of their books. I also got into Susan Wiggs, Debbie Macomber, and Kristan Higgins. My romance reading ramped up even more during the pandemic when all I wanted was light escapist books. The Attachments by Rainbow Rowell and I Owe You One by Sophia Kinsella permanently won me over to romance as a reader.

In 2020 and 2021, partly inspired by the short stories of Rosamunde Pilcher, I also decided I wanted to come back to fiction writing. By this point, I was reading romance so regularly (and watching so many Hallmark movies) that I didn't even really think about what genre I was going to write. Romance came to me easily and naturally, so I just went with it. With no one to tell me I was doing it wrong, or my genre didn’t count, or I didn’t have the skills, I wrote what I wanted to write, and everything started to fall into place. My first romance story appeared in Spark Flash Fiction in the Spring of 2022, and I’ve published dozens more since.

Thinking about it now, I think these are the main reasons I like writing romance:

• I can set the story in the real world and draw from personal experience for characterization, plot, conflict, etc. (I don’t like world-building or research, though I have done some.)

• The stakes of the story can be low. I don’t enjoy being stressed out by my reading material all the time, and the rollercoaster of relationship drama is usually more entertaining than upsetting.

• There is room in romance for including little domestic details of people’s lives, which I love to read and write about.

• The ending is always the same. Every time I sit down to write a romance, I know my goal is a happy ending. That takes at least 60% of the guesswork out of plotting for me.

• It turns out I’m pretty good at it. Obviously, I’ll never know what would have happened if I had skipped college and started writing consistently without expert interference, but it does seem that when I landed on romance as my genre, that’s when I came into my own as a writer

It has taken me a long time to shed the prejudices against genre fiction that were taught to me in college, but I’m glad I got there. While there is a place for literary fiction - and sometimes I still write some! - there is good writing in all categories, and elitism doesn’t serve anyone.

What’s your genre? How did you choose it? I would love to know your story!