How to Mix Romance and Magic to Write a Romantasy
If you’re a romance reader—or writer—then you certainly know the formula of the genre: Two (or more) people spend the first two acts falling in love, and then there is a third-act conflict which usually involves a breakup. Then comes a re-connection and finally, a Happily Ever After. The Happily Ever After—or HEA—is nonnegotiable. If the characters do not end up happily together, then it’s not a romance. It may be a book with romantic elements, but it is not a romance novel.
Within the romance genre, there are what feel like countless subgenres and tropes. Do you fancy a romance in which the protagonist is abducted from Earth and then crash-lands on an icy planet filled with blue aliens who are coincidentally looking for their mates? Science fiction romance has got your back. Would you rather read a story set in a modern office in which the love interests really, really hate each other (at first) specifically with a scene in which the heroine gets hurt and the hero must tend her wounds? A contemporary enemies-to-lovers with the hurt and comfort trope is what you’re going to want to search for. These subgenres and tropes are so vast that when you first join a romance readers forum, it feels like you have to learn an entirely new (and awesome) language.
Even within a romance subgenre—such as a romantasy, or fantasy romance—there are even more sub-subgenres and sub-tropes.
So, say you were interested in writing a romantasy. How would you go about it?
Well, bear in mind that the rules of romance, from the falling-in-love part to the HEA, still stand. Does that sound a little limiting and boring? Don’t be concerned. Romance is the best-selling genre by far for a reason. Readers want the familiarity of this formula. It’s the tropes, and how you execute them, that make your book original and unexpected.
When reading a romance, we all know they’re going to end up together, whether one of the love interests is a human and one is a red-eyed vampire, or they’re both humans but one is a single dad and the other is a pop star in the middle of her world tour. We know they’re going to end up together but what we don’t know are the delicious details of how they fall in love. This is where the tropes come in.
What tropes appeal to you the most? I’m partial to Enemies to Lovers, angsty Hurt and Comfort, and Touch Her and Die. Sit down and make a mind map and write down every trope that you’ve enjoyed or found intriguing. Found family, Only One Bed, An Alien Planet Whose Hot Inhabitants Are Missing Their Female Population and Need Mates—get them all out there and on the page. I love using Mildliner highlighters in all colors to make my mind map as pretty as possible, adding hearts and stars to the best of my favorite ideas.
Next, think of fantasy or magical novel tropes that you love the best. Vampire and Werewolf Rivalry, perhaps, or, what about a Portal to Faerieland? Maybe you don’t want to get too deep in the fantasy part of it, like I did with my romantasy novel Witch of Wild Things. I wrote down “Wild Magic” in the planning process, knowing that the details of the magic system were going to be unknown to even the characters themselves.
When planning a new novel, I love looking at my list of appealing romance and fantasy tropes and then begin making combinations. Two combinations are fine, but I think the sweet spot is three.
Enemies-to-lovers discover a Portal to Faerieland in their Contemporary Office Setting.Grumpy and Sunshine accidentally anger a Troupe of Vengeful Witches while on a Road Trip.A Second Chance Couple is thrown into Forced Proximity in order to plant hunt, and she must keep her Botanical Magical Powers a super-secret from him. (My Witch of Wild Things tropes combination!)
Check out Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s Witch of Wild Things here:
(WD uses affiliate links.)
Once you’ve settled which tropes are going to be the main ones in your romantasy, my next recommendation—if you haven’t already done this—is to research which books contain all or some of one of your tropes and read as much as you can. Reading is the best way to get the genre’s standard formula in your subconscious, so when you plan your plot, the bones of the story are already there, ready for you to add the details.
Which brings me to my favorite part of planning a novel: the details of the world-building. As Beth Revis writes in the amazing Paper Hearts: Some Writing Advice, make your world old and lived in. Make it have old religions and old myths and old folklore. Make your magic old. Make it so old, people might not even know its origins. And wrap it all up in the world, and in the plot, and in the lives of your love interests.
For example, in Witch of Wild Things, I decided the magic in the book would be wild and unknown. The characters all have guesses as to where it came from, but no one knows for sure. My protagonist Sage carries this magic in the form of a supernatural connection with plants—she can make them grow and bloom at will. But she has to keep this a secret from her new work partner, Tennessee Reyes, which is really hard to do when they’re actually working with plants all day long.
Romantasy might be one of the most fun genres I’ve ever written. I sincerely loved every part of drafting Witch of Wild Things. And I think that might be equally important to reading the genre you’re writing in, or mind-mapping your favorite tropes. Make sure you love what you’re writing—the characters, the world, the sense of awe in the magic. Readers will feel your love for your book, and they will fall in love with it, too.