On (Not?) Writing Romance - Catherine Czerkawska
From the Roman de la Rose - possibly the earliest romance! Let me say right from the start: there's absolutely nothing wrong with romance. Some of my good friends write romances, and they do it beautifully. And a lot of what I write certainly has romantic elements. But if somebody reads my books expecting them to obey certain romance conventions, he or she may be doomed to disappointment, and that's one of my reasons for becoming an independent 'writer as publisher'. I don't fit many of the genre specifics. Traditional publishers were never very sure where to place my novels. When I'm uploading them as eBooks, even I don't know quite where to place them and swither between contemporary women's fiction, historical fiction, (I write both) literary fiction and - you've guessed it - romance. Specifically, though, I don't really do happy endings. Or at least I don't do happily-ever-after endings. I do my best to make the endings satisfyi...