Love sub-plot?

No, a novel does not need to have a love subplot.

80,000 to 125,000 words for fantasy is generally find. It depends on the market(s) you're targeting.

 

More of the last few books I've read have avoided the love subplot than used it, its really not necessary, unless it feels necessary with your characters. I don't really have any love plots in any of my planned fantasy stories, though the one sci-fi story does have two couples at the start, and another that grow by the end.

 

Love in the general sense, sure. Brothers, mothers, friends, wives. But I don't think you necessarily need to have love, or falling in love, as a sub-plot. There are so many types of love in the world, frankly I'm a bit sick of every story insisting on having a romance build when they could explore other, equally important, equally interesting relationships. Have a husband and wife (or wife and wife/husband and husband) go on an adventure together, instead of a boy and a girl go on an adventure and fall in love in the process. We've seen the latter a thousand times. I'm not sure I can name a single example of the former.

 

The love sub-plot is symbolic for a number of things, such as progression, evolution, victory etc. When Prince Charming marries Cinderella he's showing that he's become king and claims the prize which demonstrates that - the bride. When you don't have a love-subplot, the underlying symbolism is demonstrated using substitutes.

It's not the girl that's important, but what she represents.

[same goes for heroine stories, where the bride is male - like Erin Brockovich].

 

I am a big fan of the love sub-plot but it has to be organic and realistic within the scope of your character development and the world that you have created. (There was a thread similar to this a few weeks ago that had a lot of the same arguments as above). Because love is such a huge part of the human condition you risk isolating readers who are drawn to those romantic (or other love based) relationships by not having them present.

If you have two characters, even slightly leaning in that direction by spending lots of time together, and experiencing tramatic and life changing events together, some readers will expect that a deeper relationship naturally evolves from those shared experiences.

Just don't be surprised if you have something like that and readers start to ask 'will they/won't they' as it is a natural curiosity.

 

I have three books in mind following my first character, and only in the first one is there a hint of a love sub-plot. I say a hint as it doesn't go any further than similar views and opening up to each other. However I do like what was said about a married adventuring couple, as that is what the main character joins up with in the second book, and you see how their love isn't just in your face giggly school children love. It is mature and rather regal, so they show the main char a side of the world he hasn't really encountered before.