why do fantasy romances keep chickening out halfway through
Okay, I know I'm about to commit blasphemy in the paranormal romance church, but I need to get this out of my system before I start screaming into a pillow.
I have been inhaling paranormal/fantasy romance since high school.
You know, give me danger, tension, trauma, morally questionable men, emotional complexity, female rage, all of it. You know the jam.
So naturally, like any decent millenial, I started with Twilight. Yeah. I know. But listen. It started great.
Book 1? Atmospheric as hell.
Small town, creepy woods, existential dread, moral conflict...It was great.
And then the series proceeds to faceplant into pure wish-fulfillment sparkleporn with… let's say deeply questionable reproductive plotlines (you KNOW which one).
Cool. Whatever. I survived.
Then ACOTAR enters the chat. And it starts beautiful.
Dark courts, trauma handled like an actual character beat, politics, danger, consequences.
There's this gritty emotional scaffolding and you think "oh damn, this series has actual spine, it might actually go somewhere interesting."
And then halfway through…
Girlboss Ascension Pack™ in addition with Unlimited Sparkle Powers DLC.
Emotional consequences? Hahaha... Yeeted into the sun.
Like ma'am, I was invested.
You had me leaning forward.
You had grime and shadow and moral rot.
And then you hit me with "surprise!! new genre!! here's your deity upgrade babe ❤️. Because you were such a good girl and you suffered so here's your cake. With powers and glitter."
Look. The thing is...I DON'T HATE power fantasy.
People love it for a reason.
It's just… why do authors start one book and finish a completely different one?
Why promise nuance, moral ambiguity, hard choices, consequences, and then proceed to give me glitter?
Why set up a theme and then run away from it screaming?
If you hook me with atmosphere, danger, trauma, consequences, and then halfway through decide "no, actually this is now a horny empowerment fairytale with wings and abs, deal with it,"
I feel like I showed up for an exam and got handed a birthday cake.
Like yes thank you but also WHAT IS GOING ON.
And maybe this is just me getting too attached to emotional integrity, idk.
But honest to god, half the reason I even started writing the way I do is because I kept waiting for that darker, grounded, emotionally-resonant stories that never arrived.
Everybody kept chickening out and choosing dopamine instead of depth. Because - market.
I know dopamine sells. I get it.
But at some point I realized:
If I want the book I've been searching for since I was fifteen…
I have to write it myself.
Writing the thing everyone else abandoned halfway.
With actual consequences, and trauma that isn't cured by kissing, and characters who break and rebuild without acquiring Goddess Mode or a free set of sparkly wings. With darkness that doesn't shy, with uncomfortable silences and love that needs to be fought for instead of handed over with a pretty bow.
Because apparently writing with integrity requires balls and spine.
Here's the link just in case anyone's interested in what I'm scribbling
What do you do when your blood makes you prey and your heart makes you a target?
A dark YA werewolf romance where wolves aren't fluffy and h
jbbartram-illu
tangentwithtanner
dededos
areudirty
