A version of this post was released in February for members of Smart Bitches After Dark. I received a few email messages thanking me and one suggested releasing it for everyone – a fine idea! Especially considering that I am still thinking about the HEA and what it does, and I’m curious what you think as well.

So think of this as a preview of what we’re up to, and an invitation: if you’d like to sign up for Smart Bitches After Dark, you can do that any time! Come join the fun!

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First, thank you to Susan E for the suggestion of calling this the “Dish Course,” for “the gossip we serve up while we’re spilling the tea.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the HEA, and how all the portmanteaux of “romance + other genre” are becoming more prevalent. As annoying as some find them (understandably) I think they are doing something rather crucial.

In addition to communicating genre expectations, the portmanteaux are also communicating structural expectations. Specifically, “This Has An HEA. The One You Expect in a Romance.” That part is fascinating.

This is not to say that the underlying concept of the HEA – that tension is resolved happily – is solely located within romance. Many a reader has has been asked about romance, “But doesn’t it get boring that they all end the same way?” I mean, this is a question that I’ve heard more than a few times, and maybe you have, too?

Either that query, or some variation of how the structural expectations of romance make the entire genre “predictable” and “boring” while also giving us “unrealistic expectations.”

And in reply, I usually mention that if mysteries started appearing where the crime isn’t close to solved at the end, readers would be mighty peeved. Genre fiction contains expectations, and is kind of like a puzzle: we all know where we’re going for the most part because the genre told us, but we often have no idea how we are going to get there.

[Sidenote: this is why I think there are so many current or “recovering” lawyers in romance (™ HelenKay Dimon for ‘recovering’ LOL). Writing in law has an expected structure of which parts go where, what each section is supposed to do, how it ends, etc. There’s a scaffolding and language that lawyers are expected to know and follow, but inside that scaffolding, folks can make all kinds of impressive arguments. People who are trained in legal writing operate creatively within a very specific structure, much like with genre fiction. And in some ways, genre fiction can be read as an argument: at the end of a mystery, the reader will be convinced that this person(s) did the crime(s), and here is why and how. At the end of a romance, the reader will be convinced (one hopes) that this couple will live happily ever after, and here’s why.]

The HEA has received as much denigration as genre fiction, especially romance, but it’s only recently that I’ve really begun to think about how very powerful that HEA is.

“Satisfying emotional resolution” is probably a more accurate term, but I’m going to use HEA as a short hand because what I’m talking about is the promise of safety. Essentially: the promise of an HEA means to me that my feelings are safe within this story. Any unpleasant emotions I am about to experience will be respectfully handled and successfully resolved – and if they’re not, well, that’s why I blog about it. 

I have frequently discussed romance as a genre where it is safe for me to feel emotions that otherwise can be very disturbing when left unresolved, because the promise of the HEA is the promise that all of those activated emotions will be resolved by the story. For a lot of readers, that HEA and how it works within the story are major reasons why they read romance.

And speaking of short hand! Let’s talk portmanteaux for a moment.

You already know I love to say Rrrrrrrrrromantasy with the rolled R because it’s fun. Genre fiction portmanteaux are both silly and useful: they attempt to convey more accurately what a book is and how it will work. It’s a marketing term, but first it was a fandom term. The latter influence probably makes the term more slippery in terms of a firm and universal definition, but we went through the same thing with “New Adult” and eventually arrived at a somewhat common understanding.

As I wrote in the Washington Post:

Romance gets top billing in this portmanteau, in part because ‘fantamance’ is a terrible name, and because there’s a difference between a fantasy with romantic elements, and a romantasy: in the latter, without the romance the book falls apart.

Ah, “Fantamance.” What a world that would have been.

The romance is an essential part of Rrrrrrrromantasy in terms of plot, but also because of the HEA. Rrrrrrromantasy can include traumatic, emotionally wrenching plotlines and some real peril, but because of the named emphasis on romance, there’s also the promise of that HEA – it’s going to be ok.

Recently we ran a Q&A from author Amy Zed who interviewed indie author Meg Smitherman, whose latest book is a blend of sci-fi, horror, and romance, and is referred to as “Horromance.”

The term “Horromance” is also doing something interesting with the inclusion of romance. For example, I have not been able to stop thinking about this part of the Q&A:

Amy: Why do you think the connection between fear and sex is so intriguing to readers, and how do you tap into that when writing your horromance books?

Meg: I kind of touched on this earlier, but there is so much to say about it! There is this rise of incel culture and the very frightening celebration of toxic masculinity that’s becoming louder and louder. Men are, in many ways, women’s primary predators. Domestic abuse, sexual assault, doxxing, harassment, stalking… these are things held over us every day, as a gender. It’s impossible not to be afraid of these things.

So when it comes to fiction, I think in many ways, people find it cathartic to read stories that can feel as terrifying as the real world, but which allow us to process those emotions in a fantastical setting, especially if there’s a happy ending.

Between incel culture, toxic masculinity, the triumph of broligarchs all having their midlife crises at the same time while accessing incredible amounts of power – there’s a lot to be scared of. As Meg says, “…people find it cathartic to read stories that can feel as terrifying as the real world, but which allow us to process those emotions in a fantastical setting, especially if there’s a happy ending.”

That sounds very familiar to my own descriptions and explanation of the romance genre over the years. Why do I read it? Because it’s cathartic to read stories that inspire genuine, often complex emotions within a narrative structure that helps me process them, and promises the emotional resolution of a HEA.

To be clear, fantasy romance, romantic mysteries, horror romance – they’ve been around for a while. The portmanteaux that blend romance with another form of genre fiction are merely making one word out of what we used to use two to describe. The portmanteaux may be new; the books fitting that description are not.

But the increasing use of portmanteaux beyond “Rrrrromantasy” really focused my attention on what the romance part is doing, and what the word “romance” is communicating. 

Dr. Chuck Tingle said in an interview with me in Episode 579:

Dr. Tingle: I think that horror and erotica and romance are very related. I, I’ve talked a lot – actually, I’m dang, doing my dang book tour, I’m a whole slideshow about this, but the, I say the trinity of maligned genres, and that is in three genres: it is erotica, comedy, and horror. I kind of see them related because, you know, they are looked down upon in a sort of, maybe the, the snooty, literary minds of, of a sort of – I’m doing air quotes for listeners – “intellectuals.” If you enjoy any of these genres, they are not serious or real art –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dr. Tingle: – and, and I’m sure, you know, this is a big romance [show], so everyone listening to this knows what that’s like for romance.

Here’s the same with, with comedy and horror and to, to various degrees, and I think that the reason for that that I have found is because those elicit reactions of the body….

Sarah: Love, laughter and fear…. They’re all physical responses.

Dr. Tingle: Yes! Cause they’re primal, instinctual things, and so I think that a lot of, a lot of people have kind of – and going back to religion, you can see that religion…you’re not supposed to listen to your body. Your mind should override all of these things; this is the correct way. There’s an anti-body thing that has been going on for, I mean, since dang humanity began….

…if you think about issues of abortion, women’s rights, people really want to control women’s bodies in general…so maybe, maybe that’s why romance has really, really taken the brunt of that, too.

Dr. Tingle: There’s just all of these genres that aren’t afraid to play with reactions of the body.

Erotica (and romance), comedy, and horror are denigrated in part because they deliberately seek to cause involuntary physical responses. Arousal. Attraction. Love. Laughter. Fear.

So of course Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy – all genres that can feature a lot of peril and cause physical responses – are blending with romance and forming new words about it. Because the HEA informs the audience: “Feelings here.  Also HEA. Come on in. The emotional regulation pool is nice and warm.”

Draco pointed out to me on Bluesky that these are also “considered ‘easy’ to create, while making good erotica, comedy and/or horror is actually pretty hard.” THAT, TOO.

I certainly have a LOT of emotions lately that I have to process hourly at this point. I’m guessing that feeling of emotional overwhelm is familiar to you as well.

And the certainty of a satisfactory resolution to all of the very real, very big, and very difficult, scary feelings I’m having? HARD TO FIND RIGHT NOW.

So a fictional journey that allows me to experience primal and often involuntary feelings of fear, amusement, attraction, or love within a safe boundary where I know it will be ok in the end is even more powerful.

The HEA is so neat.

It’s powerful in how it invites emotional experience with the promise of a satisfactory resolution of all those vulnerable emotions.

It’s powerful in what it offers: a way to experience the physical effects of big emotions in a way that you have control over – you have control of your body and your experience. If you don’t like it, you can stop.

It’s powerful in what it asks: Who gets the HEA? In a just and fair world: everyone.

And it’s powerful in what it does: it reflects back to us the most optimistic and loving and revolutionary idea: that we as flawed, imperfect people are worthy of being loved for who we are.

I’ve quoted this a bazillion times, but I will never forget Racheline Maltese saying in 2020 that:

“Romance has a liberation wing, wherein protagonists bend the world to find their joy, and a compliance wing, where people bend themselves to find their joy.”

I still think that’s 100% true.

I also think that right now, deliberately centering the idea of the HEA is a form of liberation, and rebellion. Steve Ammidown published a barn burner of an article about the HEA for Zocalo Publishing (DO NOT MISS THE ART SERIOUSLY) (No really, the whole article is top notch, AND THE ART) and wrote:

…as a historian of the romance novel, I have found that the expectation of a happy ending remains contentious, both inside and outside the genre. People who don’t understand the importance of the romance’s hopeful promise push back against it.

Meanwhile, many dedicated romance readers are only able to imagine happy endings for some. In this particular moment, with hope in short supply and the value of diversity under attack, the expectation of a HEA for everyone is a powerful tool for the romance community to wield….

The HEA is one of the most basic human desires. In a world that constantly tries to beat any kind of hope out of us, reading about a happy ending helps us imagine something or someone worth fighting for. That’s why the romance genre’s “golden rule” matters so much—and why it should apply to us all. Because everyone deserves to see themselves in a happy ending.

So as I may encounter still more portmanteaux with other genres and romance (I await “Econo-mance.” “True Crimomance.” Ooh, ooh – “Nonfictomance!”) I think what’s really being communicated by all the blendy words is the presence of the romance, and its endings.

“Yes, it’s all the things you like about [insert genre] with the addition of emotional resolution and a protagonist relationship that ends happily!”

Portmanteaux aren’t going anywhere, and neither are attempts to market books by genre and by trope to audiences looking for that genre and trope. Thinking this hard about why the portmanteaux are popular, what they’re doing, how they work, and why they’re important has made me appreciate how inclusion of part or all of the word “romance” is signaling a very specific message: “HEA found here.”

How fucking powerful is that.