Romantasy - appropriate for WotF

Posted by: @ease

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although a few have romance as a sub-plot

I would have thought more than a few?

Ok, took me a while to figure out we aren't talking sword, sandals and gladiators.

Does romantic fantasy even need sex?

I guess a "they stayed the night together," or such.

I don't think romance needs sex.

The events prior can be more interesting.

Perhaps the goal is the wedding and they aren't busy before.

Or it could be the tention before the first date.

Or maybe they just can't.

Think robocop, boy in the bubble, sort of thing. 

Maybe it's love by letter.

Perhaps thinking of why not to include it is the best way to come up with an interesting story?

Romantasy fits under the rules - there is definitionally a fantastic element. And I have read romance short stories before coming in way under 17,000 words. So it can definitely be appropriate.

And just because one hasn't won yet (I have not read all the winners from every year, so this is not to say for sure that one hasn't) doesn't mean one won't. Maybe someone else can come up with reasonably recent first-of-their-kind winners?

I think that romance as the primary plot would be a tough win. It's a romance in a fantasy setting, which is no different than a romance in any setting. The plot or throughline for most romance-driven novels is the two main characters being pulled together, torn apart, then bonded. 

While I'm sure that could be done under 17k (though the higher the word count, the better), the odds of placing in WotF are low because that's not what they're typically looking for. Not impossible, but, I think, damn near.

I guess we'll have to keep our eyes open and see what comes of future volumes! Given it's recent explosion in popularity, it might be a boon to the anthology to have a romantasy in there.

Very true that a straight romantic plot would be a tough story to win on here. Fantasy and sci-fi needs to drive the plot for this contest. As a secondary or even tertiary plot line though… maybe?

This isn't an example from WOTF, but since people are wondering how to even write a romantasy under 17K words, here is a romantasy written in only 2,400 words. (Content warning: torture). "The Breaker of Mountains and Rivers" by Aliette de Bodard published in Uncanny. 

@reigheena this is exactly what I was looking for/wondering about. Thank you so much! How refreshing to return to decent uninterrupted unmarred real talk about writing.

@ease Could not agree more!

Took a look through my records of what else I've read this year and discovered another romantasy. This one's cozy. 4,600 words "Mail Order Magic" by Stephanie Burgis published in Sunday Morning Transport. 

So there should soon be plenty of examples of short romantasy (even if not in WOTF specifically) - Flame Tree Press has been running a series of romantasy short fiction anthologies, keying in to the growing interest in the segment

https://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/romantic-fantasy-first-submissions-0

I bet the subgenre is scattered through WotF history and isn't that obvious unless you're specifically looking for it?

"Romantasy" has been a thing as long as fantasy has been a thing and even before then (e.g. Lancelot and Guinevere), it just didn't have that portmanteau of a name until it was popularised recently for marketing reasons. There's no reason for it to have excessive sex.

Out of interest, I'll check out the stories above.

I wouldn't call my story ("As Long as You Both Shall Live," coming in Volume 42) a romance per se (that genre has very well defined tropes). But the love story is absolutely central to the plot.

Having said that, my story is cyberpunk, not fantasy, so I can't speak to the question of Romantasy in WotF. But romance? Love stories? Totally! ❤️🚀⚔️

Posted by: @alexh

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I bet the subgenre is scattered through WotF history and isn't that obvious unless you're specifically looking for it?

"Romantasy" has been a thing as long as fantasy has been a thing and even before then (e.g. Lancelot and Guinevere), it just didn't have that portmanteau of a name until it was popularised recently for marketing reasons. There's no reason for it to have excessive sex.

Out of interest, I'll check out the stories above.

So that's an interesting point Alex, and I guess it depends on what we define as 'romantasy' as I think the common expectation is that it should follow the core concept of romance while being in a fantasy setting vs a romantic fantasy where the core is fantasy.

And the core of a romance genre is often 'meet cute's, often misunderstanding (not actual betrayal), and an *essential* component in every romance is the Happily Ever After (or Happy For Now in more modern work - but still a happy ending whether 'forever' is promised or not). That definition is straight from the Romance Writers of America genre definition. We can disagree with it, but I don't write romance so I would say they know more than I do about what is romance and what is not /p>

That's contrasted with Love stories which can have any element you like but importantly do not need a 'happily ever after'. Romeo and Juliet is a love story, therefore, but not a romance. Because it's also tragic.

Lancelot and Guinevere is also a love story, not a romance.

As to WOTF? Who knows /p>

From a marketing perspective romantasy is on the up-swing still so it would make 'strategic' sense to include, though shaped for their target market of middle schoolers. But at the end of the day the gateway is Jody and beyond her, the success of any romantasy put forward as finalist will I suspect depend on who is judging that month. 

Posted by: @ease

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I've read the rules:

Excessive violence or sex and the use of profane, vulgar, racist or offensive words or images, as solely determined by the judges, will result in the story being rejected.

But romantasy can be so much more than excessive sex. (And if the sex is relevant to the plot, is it really excessive? But I'm being obtuse; the book is deliberately MG-accessible). Has anyone tried submitting romantasy stories? If so, how did it go? I've read a lot of volumes, including ~90% of the most recent dozen, and don't recall any romantacies (sp?), although a few have romance as a sub-plot (David Farland's own winner comes to mind).

Given that romance is so dependent on suspense, is 17,000 words too short? I think no, but I'm also the world's worst romance writer and a minimal romance reader.

I got the impression that if there is mostly romance the story gets rejected. So romantasy gets rejected. I heard Kary's readings of first 250 words reject several of these stories.

@craydimensional I kind of think this is a matter of knowing your market. I've been trying to read some of the previous years' stories, and it appears that what they're really looking for is stories where that speculative element is the focal point of the piece. Which means that if your story is a romance that just happens to be set in a fantasy setting, that speculative element isn't at the forefront. So it really has to be a speculative story where there just happens to be romance for it to work. Like falling in love while fighting a dragon. Or having witty repartee while in a starfighter dogfight in a war to save the universe. The romance is the sauce to the quest's main dish. It adds a lot of flavor, but shouldn't be more filling than the entree. 

Posted by: @bootzenkatzen

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@craydimensional I kind of think this is a matter of knowing your market. I've been trying to read some of the previous years' stories, and it appears that what they're really looking for is stories where that speculative element is the focal point of the piece. Which means that if your story is a romance that just happens to be set in a fantasy setting, that speculative element isn't at the forefront. So it really has to be a speculative story where there just happens to be romance for it to work. Like falling in love while fighting a dragon. Or having witty repartee while in a starfighter dogfight in a war to save the universe. The romance is the sauce to the quest's main dish. It adds a lot of flavor, but shouldn't be more filling than the entree. 

Speculative stories exist that wouldn't be a story if there wasn't the romance. What if one character is a ghost, for example? Or a dragon, where there are romance elements that only work because one of the lovers is a dragon. I read a story where a phoenix is one of the lovers, set in a fantasy world (so not magic realism for example), and I don't believe that story would've worked without the romance, as specifics to the phoenix were central to the plot.

@alexh I know those stories exist, and have read a few myself, but not really within the context of WOTF. In the example you shared, I would still think of it as speculative staging for a romance story, instead of a speculative story that has romance. The cast and the setting are speculative, but it sounds like the story is mainly romance.  Of course, I haven't read this particular one, so I can't gauge if maybe there's more to it that I'm missing. If it's more about what it's like to live as a phoenix, and it happens to have their romance, then yes, maybe that would work, as long as the focus was on the speculative element.

Volume 41 did contain a story I'd say could fall within romance, but the reason I think "Blackbird Stone" by Ian Keith worked, is because the focus was more about how the mechanics of people from two different planes of existence could even meet, and less about their actual romance. Of course, this is just my opinion based on the limited information I have, and there's always exceptions to every rule. I'm sure if it was really well written, compelling, had characters and/or a setting with an interesting speculative element, it could work.