Yeah, but I don't want a surprise at the end that'll bum me out for days and days. That's just mean. I'm just going to get my wood stove ready, in case anyone tries to surprise me with a bummer ending. ;-)

You guys seem to be assuming that there's some place to market non-HEA love stories. There isn't, not unless one gets to the very small-press level. One can market them as something other than a love story - a contemporary novel, a science fiction story, a mystery, a GLBT novel - but not as a love story. That means we non-HEA writers are losing our target audience, namely readers who specifically seek out love stories. I come from the slash world, which is 98% made up of love stories, and where there is *no* requirement of HEA. Ditto, I gather, the yaoi world. This implies that there are a heck of a lot of love-story readers out there who are interested in something other than the genre romance conventions. I'm not saying that non-HEA should take over the romance market (for me, personally, a story has to be very, very well written before I'll swallow a tragic ending), but perhaps there's a need for more imprints that publish romance that goes beyond the traditions of genre romance.

I wasn't actually trying to advocate having or not having non-HEA love stories, merely trying to explain my own reading and how it relates to the "romance" genre. There seems to be a discovery on the part of the larger presses that Yaoi has a following. Might not the same be true of the non-romance love stories? Either way, I think most things like this become market driven.

"merely trying to explain my own reading" Whoops! An explanation: I read in 28-point type, so when I read posts here, the poster's name is off-screen. Unless I recognize the poster's signature, I'm not likely to realize when multiple posts are made by the same person. So I thought there were more people chiming in on this topic than there actually were. :) At any rate, I always assume that people here are talking about their personal tastes in literature, unless they say otherwise. "Either way, I think most things like this become market driven." Yes, but it's a circular thing. Yaoi readers aren't likely to look to romance publishers for yaoi writings unless they're labelled as such (as they are now). I don't look to romance publishers for slashy writings because they aren't labelled as such in the romance world. Even in cases where a slash writer is the author of a genre romance book, the writer may be following genre romance conventions rather than slash romance conventions. (Admittedly, there's a heavy overlap, but there are significant differences.) So the only books I've been tempted to buy - but don't have the money to do so, darn it - are from the small number of presses that dare to use the word "slash" in their press descriptions. Now, if I heard, through the grapevine, that the genre romance world had begun to publish slashy writings, without actually using the word slash, I'd eagerly dive in. But at the moment, all I have to go by are the subgenre labels, and "slash" isn't a word mentioned at any genre romance press - not even Torquere, which has drawn heavily on the slash world in finding its writers. So I don't seek out genre romance novels when I'm looking for slash-style romance (which is most of the time). Yet I'm a love story writer, and half of what I read are love stories. Genre romance publishers aren't reaching folks like me. :/

It's okay, Dusk :) No harm, no foul. I think the big publishers have yet to really recognize that there's a huge market for slash fiction and a lot of it the audience is het women. Heck, even a lot of the smaller presses don't seem to see that market op. Then again, they thought paranormal couldn't co-exist with HEA or romance until about 3-4 years ago, too. I can't write decent slash to save my life, unfortunately :)

:). Well, I get frustrated sometimes, because the genre romance publish world seems oblivious to original slash's possibilities, the SF/F publishing world knows about it but says, "It won't sell," the GLBT publishing world says, "Let's wait and see . . ." (Drums fingers.)

I'm just really not getting the whole "slash" thing. Could you define it? Even better, provide an example synopsis of a slash type story, and explain what about it qualifies it for the slash category. People seem so eager to pigeonhole everything. I understand it may help in reaching a target audience, but it also seems constraining to have to follow a pre-established set of conventions. Doesn't that get boring after a while? Also, like Emily said, knowing how the book ends affects how you read. That doesn't really help the suspense the author may be trying to build, as the story reaches its finale. Writing is an art form; one of the main purposes is to provoke an emotional response. Knowing what is going to happen ahead of time can really blunt a writer's effectiveness.

As far as I'm concerned, and purists will no doubt be irritated with me for getting it wrong somehow, slash is pairing same sex characters together for the purpose of making them have sex. Original slash is pairing characters of your own creation together. Fan-fiction slash (and the earliest form of slash) is pairing two characters from someone else's creative work together, like Kirk and Spock. How is this different from gay fiction? Not sure.

I guess I thought all "slash" was gay fanfic, but lately I've seen people using it much more broadly. It seems like a silly term to use for gay fiction, why not just call it "gay fiction" so nobody is confused? Also, is it more about the sex, or the romance? Or both? I'm having a problem figuring out where my stories fit, in this whole genre business. I'm becoming more and more inclined to just write what I want to write, and tell the publishers and readers to figure it out for themselves. I'm worried, though, that my work will be dismissed out of hand because it doesn't fit into any of the neat and tidy categories that publishers seem to want.

This whole HEA thing is one of the reasons Tainted Past got delayed during the acceptance phase. The ending is HEA some definitions and not HEA by others. In Full Circle, it's HEA in so much that the main couple stays together and the secondary couple is a bit closer to being together, but I wouldn't call the ending "happy". One reader review called me merciless, but she also called it original. I don't think there's a better compliment than that. :D As a reader, I don't really care for an HEA as long as the ending makes sense for the story. I don't like it when the writer springs a non-HEA just as an attempt to be different. I find HEA's fulfilling, but sometimes they just don't fit.

I think you may be right, there. I know my market is definitely women, not gay men. When I write slash anywhere to describe my story, I know readers of slash will understand what the content of the story will be.

One of the main categories for non-HEA love stories is 'women's fiction'--which is starting to be a shelving group and is certainly a agent focus. It covers the general area of love and family-related fiction, what used to be saga etc. I don't see it being a particulalr issue that there isn't a non HEA love story category specifically. There aren;t a lot of specific categpries out there. But in most cases there is a category that is inclusive of that content. Slash is like yaoi--it is far more specific than gay fiction. people who like it seek it, I am pretty sure the readers drive the categories and the writers followm in thise cases and with HEA-romance. My main evidence being the howls when writers and publishes mislabel something to try and grab market share--hence offending the market which ain't buying any faux genre. (e.g. romances where the hero dies, 'yaoi' with a westernised aesthetic)