Your Book Needs a Happily Ever After
At least if you’re going to write a romance novel — then a true HEA is a must.
In case you missed it in some of my previous articles, I write romance. I also write Medium articles, and blog posts, and podcast scripts, but when I write fiction, I stick to romance. It’s a genre I grew up reading and loving, and one that I love endlessly. It’s also a genre that, unlike some other fiction genres, comes with very strict hard and fast genre rules. It comes with the territory, and that’s fine by me.
It’s not always fine with the writers of Twitter, however. Every few months or so, the discussion of the happily ever after (HEA) requirement in romance novels comes into the topic of conversation on Twitter. Undoubtedly, someone will come into the writing conversation (usually not a reader or writer of romance) attempting to write a romance novel without a happily ever after (sometimes, they’ll argue that well-loved tragedies from centuries ago are romances, too, which always makes for lively debates.) If you live in the Twitter space at all as a writer, you’ll understand why this quickly becomes heated — there are a lot of writers on Twitter with a lot of opinions, and the hot topic of the day often spurs on hundreds, if not thousands, of tweets and replies. Kylie Scott sums up the need for a HEA quite succinctly here:
The funny thing about this debate is that it’s about a genre that’s pretty set in stone. Unlike fantasy novels, where the only limit is the imagination, and contrary to literary fiction, we intend to make the focus and a bit of experimentation is welcome, romance readers expect an HEA. If you have the intention of making it as a romance writer, you must have an HEA. Not only will romance publishers reject your romance novel if there is no happily ever after, but readers will be furious after investing time and energy into your characters’ love story and torpedo your career — at least your career as a romance writer.
Bryn Donovan, the former executive editor for Hallmark Publishing (who, you know, probably has some knowledge on the subject given how Hallmark is known for their happily ever after feel-good stories), has also taken to Twitter to defend the HEA on numerous occasions:
So if you’re on the side of the writing world that questions if romance should always end in a happily ever after, or if you’re someone who is debating trying to “break the mold” and leave the readers of your romance novella heartbroken at the end of the story, think twice about the genre. Maybe romance isn’t for you, or maybe seeing the same HEAs in every romance novel seems predictable to you, but that doesn’t mean having HEAs in the romance genre is optional, or that it doesn’t work.
But what exactly do readers expect? Here’s a bit of a happily ever after breakdown for those who are less familiar with the genre than yours truly:
Your book doesn’t have to have an HEA, per se, it could have an HFN
What’s the difference, you might be wondering. Or better yet, what’s with all these weird acronyms? A lot of modern romance novels, as well as romance movies (like the aforementioned Hallmark books and movies) actually end with an HFN rather than an HEA. The difference is largely semantics, but is important to understand if you’re going to write in the romance genre.
An HFN is a happy for now ending. In an HEA, the traditional way to end the story is with marriage. The princess finds her prince and they have a big wedding at the castle — they live happily ever after. In an HFN, the couple ends up together and are happy for now, even if we don’t get to see their big wedding or the birth of their two children. With an HFN, the rest of the story is implied — just because you don’t see that wedding and the birth of Sally and Joe, that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen. The HFN is enough to bring a satisfying conclusion to the love story, but not so detailed as to lay out everything that happens over the next 50 years of the couple’s relationship.
The HEA is important to readers, so it should be important to you as a writer
You are writing for your reader, after all, right? HEAs are so heavily embedded in the romance genre that you’ll leave readers sorely disappointed if you do not include your own HEA in your story. I can attest to this — I expect the hero and heroine of every romance novel I pick up to end up together. I even complained about this to one of my best friends when I read a fantasy novel she recommended. I was hooked after the first book, but only got through book three (out of five) because I became so frustrated that the heroine wasn’t happy in a relationship with the hero! My friend now makes sure a book has a HEA before passing it along to me (thanks, Nicole!)
Many romance readers will be like me and end up unhappy with your book if the hero and heroine don’t end up together. At least, they will be if your book is a romance novel. I was able to get over my frustration with the aforementioned book because it wasn’t a romance novel. Even though I wanted to characters to end up together, it wasn’t a requirement of the genre, so I knew my expectations were out of line for this particular book (although I did finally end up finishing the series and the ending was at least sort of an HFN, which made me pretty happy when all was said and done.)
If you’re debating writing a romance novel, remember to include a happily ever after! If you’re thinking about writing a genre-bending story that includes to characters falling in love, go for it. But don’t market it as a romance, and, more importantly, don’t expect romance readers to be lining up to read your book. All genres have expectations to some extent when it comes to the content, and none are quite as set in stone as the romance genre. You wouldn’t watch a Hallmark movie and expect both characters to die in the end, after all (I’m looking at you, Shakespeare.)
Previously published in The Writing Cooperative
