Friday, February 2, 2024

Genre Expectations: Writing Romantic Fantasy and Fantasy Romance


by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author

The best advice you can receive as an author in 2024 is to write a great story. Period. If you’ve put in the work to hone your craft, to identify your audience, and to understand your genre, and you’ve made the effort to get the words on a page, your writing will stand out. 

But that brings up another topic: Genre.

I would swear that when I was young there were only three speculative genres in the world: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Well, that is no longer the case in today’s world. With the increasing popularity and accessibility of self-publishing, authors can now create wild, imaginative subgenres of fiction to captivate and attract the niche stories that their specific audiences crave.

Being able to write to a niche audience and still be financially successful is a huge opportunity, but it requires a deep understanding of the genres you’re utilizing and the audience you’re speaking to.

If you write sci-fi comedy and I mention 42 and a bowl of petunias or tell you not to forget your towel, you’d better understand those references. If you don’t, you haven’t read the book that defines that genre (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams).

If you write space westerns and can’t understand how spaceships, faster-than-light travel, bar room brawls, and cattle drives can all take place in the same story, you may need to consider a different genre.

Declaring a genre is a promise you make to your readers. By placing yourself in a Category of Story, you are labeling your novel or series in such a way that your readers won’t be surprised or disappointed by what they find in it. 

But there are SO MANY genres and subgenres now. How can you tell if you’re making a promise to your readers that you can’t keep?

For the next ten months, we’re going to be diving into some of the popular genres in the market right now. We need to understand what audiences who are looking for specific genres want. Sometimes that includes tropes that readers want to see in a story. Sometimes that involves certain types of story mechanics. So we’ll see if we can narrow them down and identify them.

And, since this is February, what better genre to start with than Romantic Fantasy? Or maybe I mean Fantasy Romance? Did you realize that they are different genres?

Yes, I’m serious. 

Romantic Fantasy (sometimes called Romantasy now) is a fantasy novel with significant romantic subplots. So that means it may take place in a world that’s not our own. It may have elements of magic. It may have epic worldbuilding that includes different cultures and languages. And it will have a romantic storyline, of course, but that storyline isn’t the primary point of the story. The fantasy elements take center stage rather than the romantic storyline. 

On the other hand, Fantasy Romance is a romance novel with fantasy elements. The romance, the relationship between the characters, is the primary point of the story, and the fantasy elements add some excitement and sparkle to it. 

To be fair, there are no Genre Police (outside of internet trolls) who are going to come after you if you cross the very blurry line between these two related story category. But understanding the difference between them comes down to understand what your audiences want. 

An audience that wants a romance novel that is telling the love story between two people may not be bothered if the fantasy elements aren’t top tier. What they want is a story focused on the relationship between the love interests. 

An audience that wants a riveting, detailed, intricate fantasy novel with some romantic elements to add general swooniness is going to be upset if your worldbuilding isn’t spot on. 

For me personally, I’m not a romance writer. I haven’t yet mastered the art of communicating intense, believable emotions on that level. I understand them well enough to write a romantic subplot, but I’m not sure I know how to make a romantic story the primary plot of a novel. I write fantasy books with romantic elements, so if I write that kind of a novel and promote it to romance readers, they’re going to be disappointed. 

Beauty by Robin McKinley is a great example of a Fantasy Romance, a fantasy story that is primarily focused on the romance between two characters. It’s a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

The Ravenwood Saga by Morgan Busse (Mark of the Raven, Flight of the Raven, Cry of the Raven) is a Romantic Fantasy. While the romantic story between the two main characters is essential to plot, the primary storyline isn’t the romance. It’s the main character learning what it means to be able to walk in other people’s dreams.

The romance genre and the fantasy genre go together beautifully, but one of them will take precedence in any hybrid. And the genre you use to categorize them will either invite your audience in or leave them disappointed.

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Award-winning author, A.C. Williams is a coffee-drinking, sushi-eating, story-telling nerd who loves cats, country living, and all things Japanese. She’d rather be barefoot, and if she isn’t, her socks won’t match. She has authored eight novels, two novellas, three devotional books, and more flash fiction than you can shake a stick at. A senior partner at the award-winning Uncommon Universes Press, she is passionate about stories and the authors who write them. Learn more about her book coaching and follow her adventures online at https://www.amycwilliams.com.
Posted by Edie Melson at 1:00 AM
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1 comment:

  1. Chriswells.grace@gmail.comFebruary 2, 2024 at 10:38 AM

    Very interesting. Thank you for this post & looking forward to the series! :)

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