In a post on the SFWA website, Claire Davon says it’s ok to incorporate a bit of romance in your SF&F story.
Davon shares a number of non-traditional romances in SF&F, including that between the dragons and riders in Dragonflight; Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; Sam and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings; Enkidu and Gilgamesh in the epic poem; and Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. “Romance always has a place even in the most absurd of the Piers Anthony Xanth stories,” she adds. “It’s in Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber, and Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea Trilogy. With his incredible American Gods, Neil Gaiman sprinkles many kinds of love through the book, from Shadow and Laura’s doomed story to the bond between a son and his parents.”
Love resonates, even if readers don’t always notice this element in SF&F. “It is the fulcrum around which so many plot points pivot,” Davon writes. “It decides people’s actions and propels their character forward.”
