Is The HEA Predictable?

Romance novels get a lot of flak. Sometimes, there are good reasons—a lot of them are run-of-the-mill or even bad smut. I’ve seen books with cardboard characters and even flimsier plots.

Some of the criticisms levied against romance novels stem from other, less magnanimous areas. Romance novels as a whole are often dismissed as “mommy porn,” “trashy,” and other unflattering monikers. They’re treated about the same way as “chick lit”: utterly dismissed as having any kind of artistry or literary merit.

One criticism that I think holds some water is that the romance novel can be—and often is—predictable. In particular, one of the staples of the genre—the happily ever after, or HEA—can become quite staid.

Everything Hinges on the HEA

I’m not here to mess with the HEA. There have been plenty of arguments about whether a novel can count as a romance novel if it doesn’t allow the main characters a happily ever after or, at the very least, a happily enough for now (HEFN).

The conclusion to that debate has been, and always will be, that romance novels must end with an HEA/HEFN. If it doesn’t, it’s not a romance novel. Romeo and Juliet, for example, isn’t a romance, because it has a terribly unhappy ending. Indeed, the play is a tragedy. It might be a great love story (although even that’s debatable), but it is not a romance.

So: the HEA is non-negotiable. It’s a staple of the genre. It’s one of the expectations of the genre. If readers pick up something you’re billing as a “romance” and get to the end without that “happily ever after”? They are going to be pissed.

Genre Conventions Are Contracts with Readers

That’s because what we think of as “genre conventions” are actually contracts with readers. Genres exist as shorthand for readers. When we say “mystery novel,” they can think Agatha Christie. When we say “cozy mystery,” they know it’s likely a small-town mystery with an amateur sleuth. For something more along the lines of a 1940s noir film, we should be looking for “hard-boiled detective” fiction. Same with “cozy fantasy”: this is not big-stakes fantasy. If you want that, you should be looking at high fantasy (no, not that kind of high).

Science fiction comes in a few different varieties, like cyberpunk, planetary romance, and hard sci-fi. Romance, too, has many different flavors: contemporary, paranormal, romantasy—the list goes on.

Genre Lets Us Find What We Want to Read

What each of these genre descriptions provides is shorthand to the reader about what they will find between the pages. And with that shorthand comes a set of expectations. If something is billed as cyberpunk, we’re going to think of something along the lines of Neuromancer or “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

If we want hard sci-fi, we’re probably not looking at these titles—although there can be overlap. Similarly, if we want high fantasy, we’re going to look to Tolkien and his ilk. Cozy fantasy lovers are going to flock more to the Travis Baldrees of the world.

And this is because we have expectations, as readers, when we pick up a novel that is billed a certain way. It’s why a lot of readers have been upset about many contemporary romances being called “romcoms.” Readers are finding the “com” part of the description sorely lacking in a lot of these books. When you have broad swaths of readers complaining that your romcom missed the “com” part of the memo, then you probably don’t have a romcom on your hands.

When we come to the romance genre, the HEA is the biggest part of genre expectations. As I noted, “romance” can be defined by the existence of an HEA: has one? Is likely a romance. Doesn’t have one? Not a romance!

Of course, there are other points that define a romance. A book can have an HEA and not be a romance. Romance generally focuses on a romantic relationship between two core characters. It is the story of how they get together.

Writing to a Script for Romance

One of the criticisms levied against romance novels is that they are too formulaic. Here, people are taking aim at the Harlequin-style novels, where there are strict sets of rules for “how to write a book.” Harlequin, being the big name in this genre, generally has some pretty strict guidelines. In certain lines, for example, there is a hard-and-fast rule that the couple can’t kiss before the third chapter.

These kinds of strictures exist for a reason. They help writers produce books faster. More than that, they also help writers produce books that meet reader expectations. Readers enjoy what they enjoy. They’re more likely to pick up a book if they know it’s going to conform to their expectations.

Would anyone be disappointed if the characters kissed in Chapter 1 or 2? Maybe. It depends on why the rule exists. Is this particular line known for being more of a slow-burn romance story, letting tension build between the characters? If so, then having the couple making out in Chapter 1 is going to disappoint some readers.

Formulaic vs. Predictable

The criticism of the Harlequin-style model is that it makes books predictable. A lot of people claim not to like predictability in their fiction—although, as I’ve argued elsewhere, we really do actually. Our brains like trying to predict patterns. It can be like neurological candy for them when they “guess” the pattern correctly. And even those readers who claim to love novelty in their fiction actually like predictability a lot more than they think.

The long and short of the matter is that we do actually like predictability. That’s why genre is even a meaningful concept. If people truly loved novelty, then we wouldn’t gravitate to the same kind of books over and over.  Some of us may like it more than others, which may explain why some romance readers get boxes of the same kind of book every month. But the fact remains: we like when we can predict things. The question is simply a matter of degrees.

Even so, a formulaic approach can become staid and boring. If you know the characters can’t kiss before Chapter 3, what compels you to read Chapters 1 and 2? Often, it’s the build-up to the kiss, the tension between the characters as they are introduced. But that isn’t always enough to keep our interest.

The Formula Doesn’t Always Equal Predictable

Formulaic novels do not necessarily have to be predictable. They may follow a vague outline, such as Romancing the Beat’s recommendation for the third-act break-up. So many romance novels hit this plot point; it’s likely easier to point to those that don’t follow this structure. Yet plenty of romance authors do it.

Just because we can predict that there’s going to be a third-act break-up and an HEA, though, doesn’t mean we know what’s going to happen. In a vague sense we do: the characters will break up for some reason, then resolve the issue and get back together.

Yet what we don’t know is how this will play out. Different authors will execute this differently. Right off the bat, a key difference is why the characters have broken up. Is it some sort of misunderstanding between them, or have external forces separated them? The question isn’t whether they will overcome the break up and get back together; it’s how.

I can give you three examples right off the bat.

Case in Point: The Third-Act Break-Up

In Blind Tiger by Jordan Hawk, Alistair feels guilty that he can’t protect his love interest, Sam, and believes Sam would be better off without him. He thus dumps Sam. Sam, heartbroken, departs, but then comes into crucial knowledge that can save Alistair and his adopted family from bigger trouble. That sets the stage for Sam’s return and the make-up after the break-up.

In Sienna Sway’s The Alien’s Kidnapped Omega, external forces separate Saar and Alex. Earth’s military forces literally drag Alex off-planet, leaving Saar behind. The question is how these two will overcome what seems like impossible military might—and the vast void of space—to get back together.

Finally, KJ Charles does the third-act break-up masterfully in Slippery Creatures, the first of the Will Darling books. Kim is a slippery bastard throughout the entire book. Will (and the reader) are never quite sure how far to trust him. Will, at various points, feels betrayed by Kim, and since we’re in a single POV book, the reader is along for the ride with Will. Yet, like Will, we hold out hope that Kim is not the backstabbing bastard the narrative wants us to believe.

Obviously, we get to an HEFN ending for these two, so things are perhaps not as dire as they appear to Will.

None of these three examples are exactly the same. One of them is internal forces; one is external forces; and one is a mixture of the two. All of them lead to an HEA, and so you could argue that the reader is going to be bored. They know at the outset of the situation that the problems will be resolved. Otherwise, we can’t get to the HEA.

Holding the Reader’s Attention Is Testament to Author Skill

In these situations, I think, the ability to hold the reader’s attention even though they “know how it ends” speaks to the author’s skill at weaving a story. As a reader, I know Sam and Alistair have merely had a misunderstanding and that they both actually want to be together. I know Saar and Alex are going to find a way through the mess of Earth’s military forcibly taking Alex off-planet. And I know that Kim is (likely) going to come through and rescue Will—both from the external forces that have trapped the two of them and from Will’s own brooding emotions at being duped and betrayed.

Getting People Emotionally Invested

The fact I want to keep reading and see how the scenario plays out suggests the author has managed to get me emotionally invested in the characters and the outcome. I care whether Kim has betrayed Will, because I like Will. Of course I care whether Saar and Alex will find a way around an impossible situation to be together, because I care about Saar and Alex. And I care whether Sam will grow a backbone and get Alistair to pull his head out of his ass, because I care about these two characters. I’m rooting for all of these couples to get together.

Unless we’re in a weird novel where there’s a whole relationship and romance where the hero gets killed off last minute and the heroine marries his best friend or something (hey, it’s happened), I know the outcome. And, for some people, that’s boring. And, in the wrong author’s hands, it is boring—because they’re failing to get people invested in their characters and the outcome.

That’s what a good romance does: it gets people involved in the stakes. In most cases, the stakes are simply two people’s happiness. In other cases—like in a lot of KJ Charles’s work—the stakes can be a lot higher.

But even if the HEA is a predictable outcome, even if we know these characters are going to get there, we are emotionally invested. And means we are willing to let the author take us on a journey to see exactly how these two characters find their way to their HEA.

So, even if it’s the most predictable thing in the world, in the hands of the right author, the path to the HEA can be breathtakingly refreshing.