im not sure that I’ve read a romance / fantasy before this one, Nora Roberts “Stars of Fortune”. In it, six characters obtain and master powers to search caves, fight demons, and battle evil gods. A lot happens, especially compared to some travel log fantasies where little does. That said, all these people do half the time is cook dinner and drink wine and have sex or think about sex. You know that feeling of reading about second breakfast? That, but with way more weight and focus. If cross genre can be thought of as living on a sliding scale, how much focus do you think there has to be on the romance, before the book is romance? Is it all about the nature of the crisis? What if more than half a book is romance but the crisis has nothing to do with the relationship. What sort of book is it then?
I love Nora Roberts - I think she's probably had more influence on me as a writer than any other well-known author. I do avoid her more fantasy-based books though, because it's not really my cup of tea. For the most part in for a book to be considered a genre romance, the romance between the MCs should be the central conflict. Like if you took the romance out, there wouldn't be much of a cohesive story left. It's possible that Nora is breaking that rule with Stars of Fortune, but she's Nora F***ing Roberts and anything she writes is going to hit the bestseller list. When you have the body of work and success that she has, there's so much more leeway than with a newer or even unpublished author who's going through the querying process.
There's a difference between "romantic [insert genre here]" and "romance [insert genre here]. "Romance" is a specific type of book and if your book ticks all the boxes required for it, then it's Romance, in whatever genre. If your book doesn't tick all the boxes, then it's something else. There's no slider. It's all or nothing. Your novel can be "romantic" when there's lots of focus on relationships but you don't follow the rules of romance. A story where a dragon falls in love with a princess, then ends up marrying her, can be a romance fantasy. A story where a dragon invades a kingdom because he's in love with the princess can be a romantic fantasy if she turns out to be a bear and the dragon actually didn't want to marry a bear, so he just turned round and went back home to watch a "Pride and Prejudice" marathon on Netflix. A story where the dragon takes over kingdom after kingdom for fun, until he finds one with a pretty princess and decides to settle down would be just fantasy. Yes, hunger
For me, I think the distinction is this--how much of the main plot relates to romantic relationships? If you could take out the romance (the characters still become closer and have conflicts at the same points in the story, it's just platonic) and the story would be essentially unchanged, it's not a romance novel.
As a kid I read everything. My mother loved Nora Roberts, so she passed me her hand-me-downs. I don't give Nora Roberts the credit for the influence she has had on me. The comment above about the 'second breakfast' cracks me up. It's a knife-edge scene when someone is trying to cook the breakfast of breakfasts while their partner decides to tell them that the relationship is over. The story isn't about what is happening to a character, the story is about how that character chooses to react. Robert's books has that in spades. How I wish more fantasy, science fiction and military writers would have read a Nora Roberts book or two.
If it is a subplot then it is just part of the whole, not the main theme of the story. Typically Rom is the main theme and goal, and everything else is subplot. So you can have romance be a big subplot to the main one, and it will still be within the confines of the genre you're writing. Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta Series is first and foremost Murder Mystery, and secondly a Romance. But I suppose it can be classified a Hybrid of the genres. Up to you on how you want to undertake your story, and the directions you want to have it go in. It doesn't have to just follow one major genres, it can be a multi-genre work if you like.
Yep, that's a classic Nora Roberts book you got on your hands there, though to be fair it sounds like a pretty accurate descriptor of most everything I've written as well.
It's useful to remember that most adults books, regardless of genre, have some kind of romantic subplot. Even horror stories often have one, with two of the 'victims' coming together in their trauma. Having a romance plot is normal, and doesn't mean you have to put a book in a romance subgenre (like a fantasy romance - it's probably just a fantasy).
