yansusustories
Matchmaker of Handsome Men
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2019
- Messages
- 622
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- 133
I've been pondering this question over the last few days and wanted to ask for some opinions: Where do you draw the line between adding romance as a genre and using the romance subplot tag?
I usually write romance novels where the relationship has a significant part in the plot so I never had to worry about that. I'm not as clear on that with what I'm working on lately though. In that story, the couple ends up getting together at the very end and they don't spend a significant amount of time together throughout the story. In fact, they don't even meet face-to-face until the later part of the novel.
I looked up the description of the tag over on NU and it reads "When the story has some male-female or other similar couple relationships, but not enough to warrant a romance genre tag. Can be used in tandem with Harem. Usually for when relationships are created without any further growth or expansion of said relationship, though this isn't always the case."
I feel like this leaves wide open what a romance subplot is or isn't. In regard to my story, they would still grow from literal strangers to one person feeling responsible for the other to finally getting into a relationship which kind of is growth relationship-wise but not in the sense I had this with my other stories (where they would usually grow as a couple as well).
I'm kind of stuck on this because I feel like giving the romance genre might make romance-readers disappointed because it's not as much romance as they might have expected, while the romance subplot tag might be too little to capture what is going on and non-romance readers might feel cheated because there's too much romance in their non-romance story. So, hoping for some of your perspectives to help with making a decision!
I usually write romance novels where the relationship has a significant part in the plot so I never had to worry about that. I'm not as clear on that with what I'm working on lately though. In that story, the couple ends up getting together at the very end and they don't spend a significant amount of time together throughout the story. In fact, they don't even meet face-to-face until the later part of the novel.
I looked up the description of the tag over on NU and it reads "When the story has some male-female or other similar couple relationships, but not enough to warrant a romance genre tag. Can be used in tandem with Harem. Usually for when relationships are created without any further growth or expansion of said relationship, though this isn't always the case."
I feel like this leaves wide open what a romance subplot is or isn't. In regard to my story, they would still grow from literal strangers to one person feeling responsible for the other to finally getting into a relationship which kind of is growth relationship-wise but not in the sense I had this with my other stories (where they would usually grow as a couple as well).
I'm kind of stuck on this because I feel like giving the romance genre might make romance-readers disappointed because it's not as much romance as they might have expected, while the romance subplot tag might be too little to capture what is going on and non-romance readers might feel cheated because there's too much romance in their non-romance story. So, hoping for some of your perspectives to help with making a decision!