#46: All Romance Stories Must End Happily

807 47 10
                                    

  It is good and all to see two lovers get together in real life, but in literature it is so cliche.  If things always end up good for a couple in a story, there is no tension or really a plot.  As a result, romances that follow this route can be quite dry, a huge reason why I'm usually not a huge fan of the genre.  In order to quench the thirst of a reader, sometimes you have got to shake things up in a romance story.  For example, you could end your story bittersweet by the two lovers still being together but one of them is at a college three states away.  There is also the route where you can make your story a romantic tragedy, such as is the case with the iconic Shakespearian play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.  However, to do either route, you have to put the reader off guard and not tell them you are going to do this in the beginning of the story. 

A Hundred Cliches That Really Need To DieWhere stories live. Discover now