But I was sitting here, Red Bull in hand, staring out my window and realized something very important. Romance Isn’t Weak Writing. Loyalty, Love, Commitment, and hell Friendship all goes into the same category.
Now there are various degrees of said acts, and some can take it from the cutie Rom-com to Dark, wrap your hands around the throat, in two seconds flat. Some fade to black or closed door, while others let it all hang out. Some writers are more formulaic or “cookie cutter”, while others come up with their own brand of how they deal with their stories.
But calling romance “weak writing”, “thoughtless writing”, or even “lazy writing” has always said more about the critic than the genre. Especially in a billion-dollar business model that seems to have an evenish number of readers on both sides of the fence.
While yes, the Romance community is mostly built on female readers, but men, especially those in the Booktok world, are more than likely just as interested if not more. We have the bad boy bikers, Mafia Don’s, Sports, Mechanics, and let's not forget the billionaires. I mean we have every person that has the badassest job there is or will be a story for it.
Romance is one of the few places in fiction where emotional stakes are allowed to be the point. Where vulnerability isn’t a side effect—it’s the engine. And that makes people uncomfortable. Especially in a world that rewards detachment, cynicism, and emotional distance.
Romance demands intimacy. It asks writers to explore fear, desire, trust, power, longing, loss—all without armor. It requires precision in emotional pacing, not just plot mechanics. You can’t fake chemistry. You can’t shortcut consent. You can’t phone in emotional growth and expect readers to stay.
If anything, romance is harder to write well. It forces characters (and the author) to confront themselves. To be seen. To risk rejection. To change. And change—real change—is one of the hardest things to write convincingly.
Romance also carries a cultural bias. Stories centered on connection, care, and emotional labor—especially when written by women—are often dismissed as frivolous or indulgent. But there is nothing frivolous about examining how people love, survive, and choose each other in a complicated world.
Romance isn’t weak because it deals with feelings. It’s strong because it refuses to treat them as disposable. A well-written romance can dismantle power structures, challenge trauma responses, and show resilience in ways action-driven narratives often avoid. Love becomes the battlefield. Trust becomes the risk. Healing becomes the victory. That’s not soft. That’s brave.
Romance doesn’t exist to lower the bar of storytelling. It raises it—by asking writers to go deeper, not louder. And hell look into there own lives and experiences going how would I have done that differently. How would that of played out if XYZ happened instead?
Lets face facts here peps…. Romance has only been a widely excepted genre in the last 50ish years. Before that, people hid what they read, wrote, or talked about when it was book related. Romance has gotten a bad rep from being blamed for making women delicate, irrational, and in danger of being ruined by the unrealistic, dramatic, or immoral scenarios depicted in fiction to, as some had put it, letting your “freak flag fly” openly.
Most women, and a few men from what I’ve heard, didn’t start delving into their likes or dislikes until they read it. Once they had that eternal spark light something they didn’t even know was possible. Which is good on the Author for making their readers feel something they didn’t know was there.
So, I say all of that to say this. If you are writer of Romance, don’t listen to the critics. Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and they all stink. You keep pushing forward and carve out a name for yourself. Readers, now its y’all turn…. LEAVE THE DAMN REVIEW. And be constructive about it. What didn’t you like vs. what you did? Because a simple “I didn’t like it” doesn’t tell us anything.
Okay…. Now that I have half ass said my peace, I am off to get more of the laundry done and some more writing. Because lets face it 500k isn’t going to write itself and the books are trapped in my head. But leave a comment below with What’s a romance story that changed how you see love—or yourself? What are you carrying forward from the stories that stayed with you?
See you tomorrow.
Be Brave, Be Bold, But Always Stay Humble
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