Ditching Romance and Sexual Tension

I don't mind love interests either, but I don't think every fantasy book requires one. Heck, the whole point of one of my novels is that the female lead HATES the guy who wants to marry her (by force, I might add) and spends the whole book trying to escape him -- and not to return to her actual True Love, either. She's single and quite happy to be so. A romance does seem likely to pop up between two supporting characters in the sequel, but the jury's still out on whether that would benefit or harm the overall story. It would probably be a Token Romance anyway.

In another novel, I'd started out with every intention of keeping the male lead (a vampire) single, and hooking up his (human) sister and (vampire) best friend. That completely backfired. Not only did the friend and the sister barely interact, but the friend seemed to harbor some affection for the male lead, and only admitted it at the climax. I'm trying to rework it in the second draft. I want it to ultimately end up as something platonic, or perhaps a father/son thing, given the very large age gap between them.

 

I think readers expect romance in fantasy in much the same way as they expect battles: they might initially be surprised not to see any, but if you give them something cool to distract them they'll soon forget.

I also think that if you can't write romance you probably shouldn't, as there's nothing worse than a badly done romantic subplot. By the end of the Farseer Trilogy I absolutely hated Molly, an incubus on the story who added nothing and had no relevance to anything except as a love interest for Fitz.

As to your second question, off screen character development often feels like a cheat unless it follows very logically from where said character ended the last book (so if a character ends one book declaring his intent to train as a swordsman, then the next book starts two years later with his skills correspondingly improved, that's fine); for something like this, if I read that two characters had gone from platonic friends to married in between volumes I would balk at it, unless you've done some seriously heavy foreshadowing beforehand.

 

Agreed. There is no rule that any book has to have romance. In fact, sometimes it takes away from the story instead of adding to it. Not every part of life needs to be reflected in one novel. There are novels where no one dies, no one is born, no one one has a birthday, etc, during the course of the narrative. That doesn't mean the character doesn't experience those events, but they might not be relevant for that particular story.

As for the second part, I agree with ScipioSmith and Devor. If the characters went through a life change between books, I'd lose trust in the author. What else happened between books that the author will spring on me? It's one thing if they remain platonic friends throughout, but the shift in their relationship requires some explanation. I'd expect you to pick up the threads and show how their relationship is different and how it's the same. So either way, you still have to explore their relationship, otherwise it feels like a subplot you picked up but quickly dropped or it feels forced.

I'm not saying you have to give them mushy, gushy feelings and they have to recite sonnets to each other, but I'd want to know what changed and if they're happy or not, if they're comfortable with each other or it's awkward.

Do they need to get married or is it something to meet any expectations of romance? If it's the second, I recommend skipping it altogether instead of bringing marriage into the second in after you've made it clear in the first that they were just friends.

 

Like others said earlier, I don't think romance is absolutely mandatory for any genre. That said, I would like to have some love or at least sex in my stories, as I'm a horny guy.

That said, as a fan of action-packed stories, I tend to write my female protagonists as warriors, yet that raises the question of whether such women would involve themselves in romance in the first place. I would think pregnancy and nursing would get in the way of fighting.

 

Judging by the name Molly, I believe you mean succubus instead of incubus (unless of course the author stuffed that up too haha, stranger things have happened).


When it comes to romance subplots and sexual tension I emplore everyone to play it with logic. If a character, given the right setting and the right situation to fall in lust or more, doesn't ... well I'd be very highly suspicious. There are certain things you can sweep under the rug, but when it comes to something so ingrained in the human condition it would be all kinds of wrong to ignore "sexuality" completely, especially if you have human characters.

Amongst other things it depends on age, teenagers and young adults are hardly going to be able to ignore it regardless of what was expected of them by society (mating instinct, you know). Adult less so, they'd be able to exercise a bit more control I'd say. Now of course I'm speaking in generalisation (before any one picks me up on that), but your mileage may vary.

So. If you want to ditch a romance plot... well, 1) not everyone falls in love. Some people are asexual, some people aren't in the right frame of mind given there current and past situation, some people just don't "click". 2) give those character something to distract them. A war could do the trick, they might have more important things to do after all like, I don't know, saving the world.

Even if it's nothing more than a footnote, I think it should be thought about.

@ Mindfire: I would expect most people would need to see some kind of evidence of a love interest before the two are suddenly married in the next book. I'm not a "sucker for romance", nor am I so insecure in my masculinity that I need to act as though romance is the devil, but even I would feel cheated. As Scipio said: Foreshadowing would be needed.

Just because something is hard for one to write doesn't mean we shouldn't write it. Logical conclusions win in my mind.

 

Just be aware that no matter what your personal reasons for writing something are you are still in all likelihood writing to tell a tale, aka writing for other people. At the end of the day it's your readers who matter and if they feel cheated then ...

What I'm saying is do what feels right for you, write what you would like to read, and so on, but be careful, in my opinion trolling to prove a point isn't worth losing an audience for.

Of course ... if they get it, all power to you! haha

He's a king. If he wants a wife he'll get it whether its in the books or between the books, and whether she is in love or not. Your pragmatism points are good ones.

 

I don't expect romance, but I enjoy it. Life without love is a waste of time. I think most stories are the same way. So don't sweep it under the rug.

YES I would feel cheated, and confused if two characters completely platonic in the first book were married by the second one. If you want me to care about your characters then I will think of them as friends. If my friends showed up married one day without warning I would be very put out.

 

You could drop a few winks and glances to hint that they like each other (or that one likes the other at least) in the earlier book, without getting into any kind of detail, and have them married in the later book. Still, they'd have to be married for a while before they could plausibly stop doing romantic things.

All the same I am strongly of the opinion that if you aren't good at writing something, don't write it.

 

You could drop a few winks and glances to hint that they like each other (or that one likes the other at least) in the earlier book, without getting into any kind of detail, and have them married in the later book. Still, they'd have to be married for a while before they could plausibly stop doing romantic things. EDIT: You could have one betray the love of the other explaining a convenient coldness toward each other early on in their wedlock.

All the same I am strongly of the opinion that if you aren't good at writing something, don't write it.

 

I don't mind the pragmatic angle, but I'd still expect to know the difference before and after. They were friends, and then what? Polite partners who respect and admire each other but aren't passionate? Still friends but with playful sexual undertones? Deeply in love with each other?

There are different kinds of friendships and different kinds of love and the gap may be too big to bridge. At the very least, foreshadowing in the first book and a rundown of their decision in the second book would help. It doesn't need to go on and on for chapters, but readers ought to be filled in. Trolling people takes away from the satisfaction some of them might have had with your characters.

It depends on how their relationship plays out. If they are like buddies or travel companions, then it's not enough of a hint. If they're very close friends who trust each other implicitly...maybe.

If you see it as a natural evolution of their relationship, why skip the progression?

I'm curious about something. How important is this woman's role in the first book vs. the second? Is it at roughly the same level or is it more important in one than the other?