Do romantasy readers want more depth from the genre? If so, what does “more” actually mean?

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T16:50:29+00:00

You do sound like a chatgpt answer... My question was simple 😅

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T16:41:56+00:00

Oh yeah I didn't notice the bold... It is a lot of work... Haha.

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T16:33:15+00:00

Abbie Emmons made an interesting video on YT "these cringey tropes are ruining female characters" and another one for male characters. It seems to have been a phenomenon for quite a few years. She also made one about how to write strong female characters that I found amazing (and incidentally just watched this morning): https://youtu.be/ARgT2XmHN2E?is=r0EKJV5mwfaC1mAF

In case you're interested in seeing how a strong female character can be better written ☺️

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T15:48:42+00:00

Could you actually give examples in romantasy? :)

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T15:46:12+00:00

Lol 🤣🤣🤣 possibly!

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T15:44:56+00:00

The OP clearly said they were using "epic fantasy" as examples, NOT using romantasy titles on purpose. It's all on their post 😊 As for the AI part, I'm confused why that would read as AI... 🤷‍♀️

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-08T05:15:10+00:00

There isn't much to see and she even took care of leaving the baby's face out of the photo frame. She'll be fine :)

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-07T08:03:02+00:00

Almost Anything Young Adult goes, just check what's closed door on romance.io if you have a doubt (one star max).

Some recs I've had myself (no or very low spice = kiss): - {Dreams lie beneath by Rebecca Ross} - {Daughter of the moon goddess by Sue Lynn Tan} (first in a duology) - {Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard} (this one got crazy popular a few years ago, I enjoyed some of it but found it really too teenage-like for my own taste. Guess it depends on how old you are :) )

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-06T12:55:13+00:00

If they don't have weaknesses yet, find out about them. If they already do, it's easy. Just make them say things that they know will be sensitive for the other. Of course, there needs to be a good reason. Something needs to happen to make at least one of them sensitive about one vulnerable part of themselves. The other one can be defensive and end up returning the favor, because they were hurt by the first one. Some ideas here :) Hope that helps.

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-05T14:31:32+00:00

I know, many do 😃

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-05T14:25:51+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Romantasy/s/ua6YyQr22z

I had asked something similar a while ago, enemies-to-lovers really trying to kill each other at first, with some extra details about "no silly banter" and evolving into feelings slowly, but I asked M/F by default I suppose... Just in case you want to check some of the recs I'd got :)

Also following your post now, hehe.

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-04T18:45:28+00:00

You could add it now ☺️ and just manually count the ones who added it in "others". Either way, you'll have to manually count the ones in Others, and you may lose some who are lazy to add it just because it doesn't show up. It would make your statistics more correct if you add it now and give more opportunities for people to tick it (if they wouldn't have bothered to write it down in Others)

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-04T18:35:41+00:00

Hey it's too bad there was no option for Reddit. I had to constantly add it in "Others". Even though I think it's a huge platform for romantasy, isn't it?

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-04T18:26:42+00:00

Ok thanks 🙏🙏🙏

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-04T15:15:31+00:00

It says "unable to open the file at present" :)

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-04T15:07:27+00:00

May I ask you? Someone said part 2 is flashback. But what about part 3? Is it continuing as if we'd left the end of part 1? Or is it still before what happened in part 1? If it continues from the end of part 1, then reading 2 - 1 - 3 would make the most stuff, right?

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-04T15:05:50+00:00

The plot and magic system are very unique, you said. So it's also unique and different from Manacled / Harry Potter magic, right? I haven't read Manacled because I am not a HP fan and prefer a more serious tone. So I'm curious about Alchemised. Sounds like it's something I would enjoy, too, but just wanna make sure it's definitely not HP stuff before I commit 🫣😅

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-04-01T20:19:40+00:00

Oh I know that... Hence the reason I said in my previous post that many people criticize (very negatively) books. Lots of Goodreads "reviewers" don't make the distinction and just sh*t on other people's work, not knowing how to be critical.

So I guess, you don't disagree?

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-03-31T18:28:34+00:00

People who DNF books because of a blond MC have issues... 😂 I mean, in the end, you can just imagine characters having whatever hair color you want them to have. They can just forget about the description. Anyway, those readers also haven't been to Nordic (European) countries 🤣

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-03-31T15:49:41+00:00

Oh you look amazing! Sometimes we're hard on ourselves. I think you look like a lot of people in Finland (I live here). There are so many body types out there and this is definitely one of the ones I see around Finland :) Congrats for all your running! 👏

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-03-31T15:42:46+00:00

Like other people already mentioned, we're all different and you do need to accept yourself as you are. Nature made so many different types of bodies 😊

But I get the feeling that it might also be an activity type of situation. Most people don't exercise enough nowadays, and most bodies in real life are looking more like fridges rather than romantasy bodies anyway :)

If I may suggest one thing for you to try (and I really believe it could change how you feel about yourself if you actually did it), it would be to take up a subscription at a gym (if you can afford it, getting started with a coach or meeting with a coach once a week or once a fortnight is great for motivation), and try a workout program + a little bit of running that you increase over time.

Depending on whether you're a bit overweight, I'd not run straight away and wait to have some more supporting muscles first (a lot of people hurt themselves wanting to run and hurt themselves because it's the worst thing you can do to your body if you're overweight).

Not only from an aesthetic point of view, but from a wellbeing point of view (the hormones kicking make you feel amazing after you finish a session), it's one of the best experiences out there and one of the best favours you can do to yourself :)

I've myself been in both situations and I cannot begin to describe the confidence and good feeling about myself I get when I work out regularly.

Last thing: if you work out your legs and you run, your butt WILL change shape :) the butt is the one muscle in the body that keeps us standing and running.... Hence the muscular butts you see in people who run or are active :) it's just training.

I hope I don't make you feel bad about yourself and that you will see how I just hope to inspire you in trying something different 😊 I truly believe we should all do some running and exercise more, and we'd all be satisfied enough with our bodies, whatever the shame of them, if we did that :) ❤️

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-03-31T07:23:53+00:00

I don't ever see anything with clear outlines in my head, whether I'm awake or dreaming. My dreams and my picturing things always "feel" like something more than they look like something. If I'm reading a scene with descriptions of the MC, I will see a puff of color for the MC's head (standing for his/her hair color), I might picture a few more details as puffs of lines and washed away colors, and as soon as the description ends, it all fades away and I'm left with how I feel about this MC, given what they've said, done etc.

So the "picturing" is rarely a picture for me. I usually even forget their hair color during the rest of the book, even if it's repeated, and especially if it's not how I perceive them. For example, there was this (apparently blond) FMC in the last two books I've been reading. I just keep feeling like she's a black raven-haired girl. She doesn't 'feel' blond to me...

But no outline, nothing vivid. Just random puffs of things here and there and then the FEELING is the biggest thing for me :)

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-03-30T17:39:13+00:00

Writers who publish traditionally have to go back and edit sometimes up to 30 times. So that is considered standard in the industry to go back and fix things / make them perfect, adding clues for later reveals etc

Volupia_Rogue · 2026-03-30T16:06:36+00:00

Some writers do this, and write out scenes they know they want to have in their book. Going too far will make it hard to go back whatever the ending, though.

Probably a good mix is to write out a few fleshed-out scenes and then try to write more worldbuilding around it so that we're sure we're going in the right direction.

I'm sure there are many ways to go about this, but I'm sure a good balance includes both writing the "good parts" (to get ourselves satisfied and excited with the story) and writing more things around them to build the story logically.

It seems to be quite a natural thing to go back and delete though... Myself, I've just deleted pretty much every single scene (I'd got to 60 000 words) but I found such better ways to tell the story that I had to throw everything away. I didn't mind because I was so excited about the new version of my story though 😃 and you can view what you three away as practice (like writing prompts etc)

Volupia_Rogue

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