Part of the barrier, of course, is the expectations of each genre. A romance author is expected to concentrate on the relationship and sex, which leaves very little room for worldbuilding. I have a psychic contemporary I’d love to write, with an entire world of people there for a very specific reason. But to sell it to romance, I’d have to leave out most of that groundwork and concentrate on the relationships. To do urban fantasy, I’d have to build nasty monsters and cut back on relationships. Just writing it the way I want to write it doesn’t work for marketing. We need to break down more genre walls.

This is the issue I’ll be facing with a multi-volume story I’m working on — and I can’t say I’m looking forward to that challenge. When folks ask what genre my story is, I honestly cannot answer that in a single word. Nor am I willing to compromise the story for the sake of easier pigeon-holing.

Is there a classification for bildungsroman-fantasy-adventure-love story?

In romance, IMO, we’ve become slightly jaded. Our readership is huge. Publisher demands are often more for quantity than quality. And for years we’ve been getting by on skimming the surface. The UF authors had to beat down huge walls with their talents to get where they are. As their popularity increases, you’ll probably start seeing the same problems there as in romance, so the circle will come around.

Part of the barrier, of course, is the expectations of each genre. A romance author is expected to concentrate on the relationship and sex, which leaves very little room for worldbuilding. I have a psychic contemporary I’d love to write, with an entire world of people there for a very specific reason. But to sell it to romance, I’d have to leave out most of that groundwork and concentrate on the relationships. To do urban fantasy, I’d have to build nasty monsters and cut back on relationships. Just writing it the way I want to write it doesn’t work for marketing. We need to break down more genre walls.

I’m suspecting that it’s all about which publishing line an author is contracted to. If you’re contracted to a SFF label, the book will end up in SFF. IF you’re contracted to a romance label, the book will end up in romance. Am I right?

I think that’s actually supposed to be due to the Library of Congress’ genre classifications, but it seems like these days, well, not so much.

I’m actually reading a Linnea Sinclair book because I enjoyed Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace so much. I figured I’d give this whole “romantic” science fiction a try. Yet whereas Grimspace was definitely a sci fi novel with a relationship, Sinclair’s book is a romance novel with spaceships and laser rifles. But they’re both classified and shelved as science fiction. Go figure.

We’re now frequently seeing books in the romance section without HEA’s – and sometimes even without development of a romance within the book (mostly urban fantasy/paranormal series). And, on the other hand, authors like Linea Sinclair who do tend to heavily feature romance and HEAs are shelved in SFF instead of romance.

I’m suspecting that it’s all about which publishing line an author is contracted to. If you’re contracted to a SFF label, the book will end up in SFF. IF you’re contracted to a romance label, the book will end up in romance. Am I right?

Followed by Mercedes Lacking

Cripes, that should have been Mercedes LACKEY