I don’t write romance.
What? You don’t believe me? Because there’s this whole romantic subplot in Jaeth’s Eye? The one involving the guy who saves the (teenage) girl a couple of times, and she reacts rather predictably? The one that I’ve personally seen set at least one reader’s heart all-a-fluttery, and him not particularly the sort of person who even likes romance in the first place?
Kay, you liar.
But no, really. That’s not romance. What that is is a more or less appropriate reaction, given the characters and the circumstances and the age of the heroine at the time. Does it make the feelings any less real? No. But it’s not romance.
You’ll realize it’s not romance if you read further into Book 2 and 3.
Because romance, by the nature of the word, kind of implies that the characters’ problems somehow magically get solved by getting together. They figure shit out, they get together, and now everything’s all right and they live happily ever after and if they were broken before they’re not anymore.
Not in my work. Love happens, yeah. Attraction. Sex. Lots of one or all of those things, because these things are a given in a world that attempts to follow real-world rules. But I like writing stories where stuff happens after the true love’s kiss. You know, the one where the heroine wakes up and realizes, hey wait a minute…I married a frog. Or something like that.
And really, the biggest reason why this is is because if I wrote the happily-ever-after-let’s-not-look-at-each-other-without-blushing-or-wanting-to-rip-each-other’s-clothes-off-EVER, then I would be missing out on a whole world of drama and angst like you won’t believe. “What do you mean your mother actually hates me? But I saved the world!” “I saw the way you looked at that whore, and me stuck at home teaching the kids how to fight monsters!” “Last night was…meh.”
Maybe the whole epic love thing just isn’t something I can wrap my head around in. Maybe I’m a cynic.
What can I say? I’m a simple person.
Don’t read The Agartes Epilogues for the romance. You’ll be sorely disappointed. (That said, there are love triangle piss fights for those who like their love triangle piss fights…)
I love reading how characters become drawn to each other. I love fantasy romance & I write it, yet your absolutely right. I hate happy ever afters. It’s simply not realistic.
Time to track down your first novel, I’m interigued by your ideas. 🙂
Thank you! Sometimes they’re crazy ideas, but eh. 😛 I really hate “happily ever afters” too, especially considering that we all die (and don’t get me started on the “Happily-ever-after because they live forever in elf land!” thing). Fantasy just becomes a lot more interesting when we can draw parallels from it to real life. Some people disagree, believing it takes out of the “mythos” feel, but I don’t know. There is just so much beauty in the mundane versus the ethereal.