Discussion What makes a story a Romance?

What does a story need to include for you to consider it a romance? Do you think most of the stories that are labeled as romances on NU are labeled correctly?

 

They are labelled correctly, but terrible romance stories. Romantic Subplot tag follows the same flaws.

 

Nah, just like the comedy tag, the romance tag is way over used.

To make the novel a romance, the main character needs to spend a good portion of the novel interacting with their person of intrest in a romantic manner. Just because the MC has a wife/GF/crush doesnt make the story a romance. Political marriages or marriages of necessity are a very real thing, and have nothing to do with romance. Hells even having a smut scene or three doesnt mean jack chit if there are no emotions beyond base lust.

To me for a novel to need a romance tag should include feeling of mutual intrest from all parties involved. So in a very real sense a lot of the harem novels that revolve around the dense protagonist that couldnt catch a clue even if a bare titty was to slap him up side the head, doesnt count as a romance. Thats just a poorly written comedy about gaggle of backstabbing vultures fighting over a an action figure or ken doll.

 

it's romance when the romantic interactions between two people are the main focus of the story. i don't consider harem or reverse harem to be romance because well, @Miserys_End already said it all.
this isn't a genre I tend to read, as 90% of the stories have me rage-quitting within 100 chapters

 

My first thought was anything that had dynamic relationships. Romance or not... then I thought that covered virtually all books written. So is it wrong to think of all books as a romance? Yup, don’t ask me.. apparently I’m not good at excluding others, even if it’s just books.

 

In addition to the quantity of interactions, here are some litmus tests:
- Are the characters' actions driven by the emotion of love? Is the plot driven by the relationship?
- Are the laws of the world, probability & physics all bent for romance? Do the feels give the MC super power, strength, etc. Kirito from SAO at the end of the first arc.
- The ending. Occasionally, the above criteria can be filled, but they are used to serve another primary theme, see "Scott Pilgrim" movie.

 

The purpose of the genres is to differentiate works for the reader or editor, so painting with too broad of a brush muddles rather than clarifies.

Saying every story is romance is about as useful as answering "food" when being asked what do you want to eat.

 

Imo what makes a story a romance story is when the main focus of the story is on the actual relationship.
Stories can have romance in them without being categorized as "romance stories", simply because the main focus of the story is not on the romantic relationship.

 

The story is romance when the relationship directly impacts the plot.

 

Only if there was pollinization, else it can't be called romance!
Jokes aside, like some her have said, a novel of the romance genre deals with the relationship between some individuals (I say some, because it doesn't have to be two.) But this is if you are talking about the genre of the novel, which to me is kind of like the topic/theme of the novel. If it's romance, I'd expect the novel to revolve around the relationships.
Still, what makes it tricky is that, if you aren't talking about it as a genre, almost every could be "romance". Edge Lord touches a girl, keeps his poker face, but blushes so hard when he's alone, that he can't sleep for days? "Romance." Novel about macho men fighting all the time, but there is one scene where the protagonist has a fan that has a big crush on him? "Romance."

I can't say I pay much, if any, attention to the tags in NU, but most of the time it seems like as long as there is one little scene with a topic, someone adds it. Some are somewhat necessary for some people, like rape, torture... basically anything that is hard to read through, those serve as warnings, but for the rest, it should be mostly about the main focus points of the story. No one would call Baki a romance manga, because at one point he falls in love with a girl and has sex with her. The story is like 99% fights and 1% is romance.

I personally find it annoying when I see a tag that I like, but it's actually just one tiny hidden scene, that you could easily ignore. Reading 1000 chapters hoping to find those scenes you were expecting is pretty annoying. So I personally would only call a story a "romance story" if romance was one of it's core themes/main focus points.

 

1. What does a story need to include for you to consider it a romance?
The relationship and love in between the couple has a big impact in the story's plot. And it also need to have a lot romantic scenes/relationship details in between the couple.
Romance is essentially a story about human relationship. The relationship description would cover at least 50% of the story's content. Any less would be termed as Romantic subplot.

2. Do you think most of the stories that are labeled as romances on NU are labeled correctly?
Just by definition, yes. However, I think NU shouldn't tag a Romance genre on anything with a 'Romantic subplot' tag.

 

Only if that romance continues to affect the plot for more then a couple chapters. In fact i would argue that it would need to become a reoccurring theme for a romance tag to matter. Because is it really a romance if a MC has a fling for a few chapters, then goes back to ignoring anything romance related for the next thousand chapters? At that point you could say those chapters were only included so the novel could achieve a romance tag, which it clearly is not.

 

Yeah, this one. If the story isn't primarily about a romantic relationship then it's not a Romance novel. If anything in the story is more important than this relationship then said story belongs in a different story. Genre labels are not about answering "what category can this story fit in?"; it's about answering "what is this story about?"

 

A novel is only a romance when the feelings developed between two characters are an integral part to the plot and the development of the characters themselves. This can happen multiple times and relationships can fall apart and breakdown for me and still have it being a romance so long as they are consistently touched upon and the breakdown happens logically. So yes I can see harem being allowed in the tag and with single final person we leave the main character off with can be introduced later on in the story even if that is probably a way to get a crap ton of bad press on the story it can still be the case.

tldr: A romance is when the feelings between characters are well developed and integral to the plot.

 

Honestly, i think a lot of people confuse romance with drama. Sure the two can go hand in hand, but to keep beating the dead harem horse, i don't really see much romance in three to thirdy females fighting over a dense protag. Lots of forced drama and poorly written comedy, but very rarely anything that could be considered true romance.

Toradora would be an excellent example of a romance. Deathmarch I would considers to have a romantic sub-plot. And most chinese cultivation novels ive read rarely had anything approaching what i would call romance.

 

To give an example I don't think harems necessarily count. Romance requires a deep connection where both persons emotions and actions impact not just themselves, but the story. This doens't mean it is the central part of the plot, but it should be top 3 things for the plot