Why are HEA endings necessary?
Sure, people love a happy ending, but some of the grea-*test*-('") romances ever written are also tragedies, just look at Romeo and Juliet. No HEA there, with both lovers dead. I can just see some slush pile reader looking at the synopsis and saying, "Nope, both dead at the end, shitcan this. What kind of pen name is Shake a Spear, anyway?"

Romance-genre is just a subset of romance as a subject. I don't think genre categories say one thing is better than another. They just help you know what is in the box. Otherwise we would just buy tins labelled 'food' and hope it was something we liked the taste of. When I want chocolate pudding it doesn't matter how good the beetroot is.

"Romeo and Juliet" wasn't published by a genre romance press. :) It's the same in the fan fiction world - love stories aren't necessarily HEA. Ditto SF/F love stories, mystery love stories, etc. This is simply a convention that has grown up within the genre romance community and that most genre romance readers seem to like. But I've run across one or two romance publishers who will consider non-HEA stories.

Somebody over at another thread just posted something that defined a romance ending as "emotionally satisfying." Oh *boy*, do I wish the genre romance world would switch to that type of requirement.

I don't know. I would be happy with that but the big romance audience (pegged at somewhere between 25% and 50% of fictions sales) seem happy with a narrower defintion. A few publishers and writers who stretched it too far haven been getting backlash. I mean, any kind of love story can be published--but going for the huge genre-romance market and not meeting their expectations seems a little like trying to have it both ways. (Time to bring up the whole MM thing to shopw what a hypocrite I am?)

So what's the difference between a romance and a love story?

Snarky answer: "Love story" is the term used by those of us who have been cowed by the genre romance community into using that term for our non-HEA stories, because the genre romance community thinks it has the patent on the word "romance." I don't think there's any difference in practice. I prefer the term "romance" for romantic stories, because it makes clear that romantic love is involved. To me, a friendship story is a love story, but that's not how the term is usually used.

I just feel that you know from the context if a person is saying romance (generic) or romance-as-a-genre.

The only reason I want something marketed as a "romance" to have a HEA or HFN is so that I know what I'm getting. If I want a story that makes me feel good and know that, at the end, the result is predictably HEA or HFN - I'll buy a romance. And sometimes, when the day really SUCKS, that is what I want. But if I want somethnig with romance but not needing a HEA or HFN, I'll buy something with romantic elements. So, as a long time reader of many genres, I do see and appreciate the difference. Guess i'm the minority here.

I'd be quite happy with HFN (happily for now, for those of you not in the know) as the only other option, but is that actually happening? Because, when I tried to submit the booktrailer of a love series that is HFN to a romance novel group at Yahoo Groups, I was told it didn't qualify, because of the HFN. (The moderator was then kind enough to start a second group just for "untraditional" romances.)

I don't mind them and they fit the "romance" criteria for Joyfully Reviewed, the review site I review for. I think things are swinging toward a greater acceptance of it, as well.

I agree with the need to have some sort of classification so that a reader doesn't buy a depressing book. I like to know if I'm getting a real bummer of an ending, because I don't like tragedies. Most of my endings are either HFN, or semi-cliffhangers, which will either lead to another HFN or an HEA. I just don't agree that romance as a label should own the HFN/HEA endings. I think people who write tragedies should be honest and name the story what it is. A tragedy, romantic or otherwise.

It changes how you read the whole book. Even if bad things happen if you know it is genre-romance you know it works out in the end. It makes the read more relaxing IMHO