Hopeless Romantics Forum What makes a Romance Genre

What is it that truly makes a romance poem/ story/ book, etc.?

What type of settings would make this? Is usually clean, i.e. everyday life, fantasy worlds were the character goes stumbles through without a scratch but deals with many obstacles and at the same times fall in love?

Is it the lost love? That burning desire to be loved, but not find it, or have lost it?

I am just trying to wrap my mind around this. Many of my stories revolve around a central love theme, but most times I but my couples through the wringer or end up with a bitter tone at the end.

Love is a many faceted diamond whose value is remarkable, purity warrants greater value, beauty is unmistakable, and strength stands to cut any tie that would stand against it. It is impossible to write about love, I think, because for as many kinds of love there are, there are a million instances of it's existence, death, and birth. We can simply write about an aspect of it, a single sparkle given off by that brilliant whole. A time and place when it might exist in one of its many forms, and try to convey it's characteristics through the only medium that we are able to fully understand; ourselves.

To write about an aspect or instance of love is a splendid and honorable thing, for there is no other force in the world that might move so powerfully. Love created us. Love sustains us. Love defines and encourages us. A person cannot exist without love, be it love for a spouse, a child, a pet, a country, a cause, or an activity.

~ Nicole