Those of us who studied and wrote and worked in literary circles have encountered it time and time again: the disdain that so many in the book world have for romance novels. Romance novels are a guilty pleasure; romance novels don’t count for your book goals; romance novels aren’t “real” literature.

The “romance novels are less legitimate” mindset can be difficult to overcome. We’re taught to read and seek out “real” literature, as if books about love and growth are not “real” books. 

It wasn’t until I was an adult, working in the book world, that I grew to love romance novels. I embraced them as a reader for the sheer joy of reading romance and I embraced them as a student and editor for the history and philosophy behind romance novels that often gets forgotten.

The sexist history of romance delegitimization

A shocking revelation: the reason that a traditionally female genre that focused on women’s pleasure was viewed as frivolous and unsophisticated is sexism.

Although the romance genre has now spread to writers, characters, and readers of all genders and orientations, it started out as, primarily, books written by women for women about female desire and pleasure. 

“By women, for women” books have struggled throughout history to gain reputability. As my nineteenth-century-fiction prof explained, English novels as an entire genre were viewed as feminine and insignificant until Sir Walter Scott came along “and wrote about manly things like history.” When novels stopped being simply by women, for women, they suddenly became respectable and valuable additions to the literary canon.

Novels are no longer a single, all-encompassing genre. Fiction has been, and continues to be, subdivided, and, as it was originally, its genres continue to be judged as more or less legitimate based largely on who writes them and who the intended audience is.

A book with romance is not necessarily a romance novel.

Romance can be found in all genres. People fall in love. Maybe they have sex. But love and sex, in themselves, do not make romance novels. 

For a novel with romance to be a romance novel, the central plot has to be connected to and resolved by the characters’ romance. And each of the central characters’ arcs has to, similarly, develop through the central romance. The relationship leads to character growth, rather than the other way around.

Can serious books be romance novels?

When I was younger, I argued that Jane Austen’s novels were not romance novels, but rather social criticism and commentary. They were real literature, I argued, not just romance. It wasn’t until I opened my mind to romance novels, wrote my thesis on Jane Austen, and ultimately became an editor that I learned the truth: Jane Austen’s novels are serious social commentary and romance novels that follow a marriage plot structure. 

They can, in fact, be both.

What is the marriage plot?

(No, not the book by Jeffrey Eugenides. Despite it being a novel about the marriage plot and a woman who writes her thesis on Jane Austen’s social criticism, I couldn’t stand the characters and never finished it. Oh well.)

The marriage plot is a story structure that emerged in the eighteenth century and has remained prominent in varying forms in literature ever since. The basic idea is that at the start of a book, two characters are introduced, and by the end of the book, you know that they will get married and live happily ever after.

While the structure of marriage plot novels has shifted over the years (notably in the nineteenth century through writers like Elliot and Thackeray), the base concept of “meet, overcome obstacles, fall in love, and live happily ever after” has dominated ever since society shifted, several hundred years ago, to value romantic love over homosocial love (think medieval quest stories).

Why is the marriage plot so successful?

Unlike books of other genres, marriage plot novels tell you the ending right at the start. Within a few chapters of Pride and Prejudice, you know that Jane is going to marry Bingley and Lizzy is going to marry Darcy. In a Karen Marie Moning Highlander book, you know without a doubt that the time-travelling woman is going to marry the hunky Scottish man she gets thrown against.

The marriage plot is not about the ending. It’s about the middle.

If you know from the start that a couple is going to wind up together, then the book is not about whether they’ll wind up together, but rather how it will happen and why they can’t be together from the start.

Maybe the characters are from different social classes and have to overcome their prejudices and family expectations to realize that they should be together. Maybe they have competing personal goals but ultimately work together, fall in love, and grow as people through that relationship. Maybe one character has a dark secret in their past that they can only move past through the relationship that develops with their love interest.

The marriage plot works because it provides a framework in which to discuss the mitigating factors around the romance. Romance novels can explore social inequality, personal trauma, and myriad other things. And they do this by emphasizing the importance of love and relationships.

Romance novels are valuable.

Romance novels, though delegitimized from the start by the literary elite, have always had value. They are valuable for their explorations of societal, interpersonal, and internal dynamics that keep people from reaching their happy endings. 

They are valuable for their place in the canon of women (and now all genders) unapologetically announcing and claiming the things they need and want. 

They are valuable because sex and romance and desire are not bad or shameful, but rather things to be embraced and celebrated.

They are valuable because by rejecting hegemonic ideas of sex and prudence, they allow everyone more pride and autonomy in their bodies, desires, and feelings. They are valuable because by rejecting the idea that only "serious" literature is valuable, we move closer to a freer, more welcoming and compassionate world.

They are valuable because they are fun, and reading for fun and relaxation is good and worthy and important.

Do you have a romance novel that you want to share with the world?

Whether you’re looking to self-publish or submit to agents or publishers, Rookwood Editing is here to help, and to give your romance novel the love and attention it deserves. Get in touch today!