What I Wish I’d Known is a regular series where we ask some of our favourite people in the book industry to reflect on their careers. In this instalment, writers share some of the unexpected and useful things they’ve learned along the way about the globally trending romantasy genre.

Top left to right: Lyndall Clipstone, Sophie Clark, Madeline Te Whiu, Vanessa Len, Alison Croggon, Lynette Noni. Bottom left to right: Kimberley Starr, Keshe Chow, Kate Forsyth, Lili Wilkinson and Melina Marchetta.
Keshe Chow, The Girl with No Reflection
When I was writing my debut novel in 2021, I wish I had known how much romantasy as a genre would take off around the world. Not that I’m surprised, of course—I’ve always loved reading it, even before it was officially recognised as a genre. It’s the perfect combination of the escapism of fantasy, along with the relatability of romantic relationships and all the joy and messiness they entail.
I think romance-heavy books can often be looked down on as shallow or frivolous, but I don’t believe they should be! Love is such a universal concept; romance taps into the very essence of what makes us human.
Sophie Clark, Cruel is the Light
Romantasy is a subgenre that causes fights on the internet. Is it romantic fantasy or fantasy romance? And does that distinction matter? To me, romantasy allows fantasy and romance to be equally important. Not only will the fantasy world impose itself on the romance, but the romance must impose itself on the world in turn. Romantasy should give readers nothing less than a love story that changes the course of history.
In my novel, the story is lovingly wrapped around a romance that brings the world to its knees. Romantasy teaches us that two people madly in love are so powerful that their choice to be together can change history. Without world-altering stakes, you might have a fantasy romance in which romance genre conventions dominate. Without the world-altering stakes, you might have fantasy with a romantic subplot that is treated as secondary to the unfolding story. Most key is the ineffable way the love story and the high-stakes fantasy world intersect—driving the story and making it possible.
Lyndall Clipstone, Unholy Terrors
My favourite type of books to read—and to write—have always been intimate and atmospheric character studies. I love the way romantasy creates a space for these types of narratives, where the angst and ache of reuniting with your first love—or falling for the monster you’d sworn to kill—are the stakes which drive the story.
When I first began as an author, I faced many discouraging comments that no one would want to publish ‘quiet’ books like the ones I wrote. It feels gratifying to know this isn’t the case and to have connected with a community of readers and writers who adore these romance-infused stories as much as I do.
Alison Croggon, The Gift
No shade on romantasy, but the fact is that I don’t really write it. The Books of Pellinor are more a feminist take on traditional epic fantasy, and romance plays a very small part in them—or as much as it plays in any epic fantasy, where it’s always a component. In the 1990s, I remember being peeved because my books, like those of many other women fantasy writers at the time, were dismissed by fantasy bros as romancey-soft-focus-YA when they were absolutely full-on epic fantasies, complete with heroic war scenes. I researched all the classical war tactics, guys! It is fair to say, though, that they were also very much about love (as well as poetry and ecocide, which they were also about). But I wanted to focus on all kinds of love, not just romantic love. The love between friends or siblings, or between mentor and student, or parent and child, or the love of place, can be every bit as profound and important and complex as romantic love.
Kate Forsyth, Psykhe
I have just got back from Glasgow where more than 9,000 speculative fiction fans came together for the 82nd World Science Fiction convention. Everyone was talking about romantasy, the hottest trend in publishing. According to Bloomberg, ‘Dragons and Sex are now a $610 million business’, driven by the hunger for books by authors such as Sarah J Maas (who has sold 38+ million copies) and Rebecca Yarrow (whose novel Iron Flame became Waterstones’ highest-selling pre-order title).
Romantasy is, of course, a portmanteau word formed by the amalgamation of romance and fantasy. It means books which conjoin the beloved tropes of both genres. The mashup is not new, not by any means. I’ve been reading and writing them for decades. My first published novel, Dragonclaw (published in the US as The Witches of Eileanan), has many romantasy tropes—dragons, identical twins separated at birth, a love triangle, an epic quest, and, of course, the obligatory happily ever after. So, too, does my most recent novel, Psykhe, which combines forbidden love with feminist witchy vibes and a dangerous journey to the underworld to face the queen of the dead. I just wish I’d thought to coin the term earlier!
Vanessa Len, Only a Monster
When I began writing the first novel in my Only a Monster series, I chose the classic structure of fantasy: the hero’s journey. The protagonist learns that she is a monster, and she needs to fight against a monster slayer in order to save her family. There is also a significant romantic subplot (between monster and monster-slayer), and I soon discovered that satisfying the conventions of the romance would be very challenging within the hero’s journey structure. The book ‘wanted’ to be about the fantasy plot, and I had to work very hard to make the romance feel significant enough to the plot that it deserved to be there. In the end, I did that by overlaying significant beats of the romance with milestones of the hero’s journey.
When you choose a structure (like a hero’s journey or a romance), you’ve chosen your primary genre, and the story will ‘want’ to fall within that genre. Romantasy is a new term that is still being defined by readers, but consensus seems to be strongly converging on the romance structure as a defining element of the genre. So, if you aspire to write a romantasy book, you’ll want to structure your book around the romance.
Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock
My favourite novel of all time is The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. It teased me into believing I could write a fantasy. I love so many aspects of the genre, but mostly how epic everything can be. Dialogue. Emotion. Sentiment. Modern-day dialogue and texting have robbed us of great expressions of faith and love and bravery. At the core of my trilogy are always the romantic leads, such as Finnikin and Evanjalin, but I make sure that I set up secondary characters: fathers and sons, a community of people in hiding, women drawn together to hatch a daring plan to protect their young girls. Because when you separate your lovers, you want to sustain the interest of the reader with equally complex relationships.
My rule was to keep the novel grounded to a world I knew well. There isn’t big magic, but there are curses and whatnot. When you grow up in the Sicilian culture, it’s not strange to hear about the evil eye or someone’s grandmother who can remove curses. Ultimately, what I wish I’d known earlier is that it’s okay to switch genres as a writer. Don’t we do the same as readers?
Lynette Noni, The Prison Healer
My answer is actually a present tense what I wish I knew, since I would love to better understand the definition of romantasy! What is it, exactly? Is it fantasy romance? Is it romantic fantasy? Is it a fantasy story that includes some romance, or a romance story that includes some fantasy? And is that ‘some’ a little or a lot? Because these are all very different things! So when someone uses the word ‘romantasy’, there’s always some ambiguity as to what, exactly, they mean.
My Prison Healer series is classified as YA fantasy, but I often have readers calling it romantasy because of the romantic subplots. I’m not against the term, but I do fear it offers false advertising for what many people expect in a romantasy—namely, that it should have slightly older-than-teenage characters and feature spicy scenes. So the catch-22 of my books being called romantasy is that readers who very specifically want adult and/or spicy content are inevitably disappointed. I know other YA authors are finding this an increasing issue as well, so it would be helpful to have a more universal definition of the term. But that said, at the end of the day, it’s great that readers are loving both fantasy and romance—in whatever way they’re combined!
Kimberley Starr, The Book of Whispers
I didn’t know about romantasy when I started writing The Book of Whispers. It’s the only one of my novels that fits this genre. Most of my novels have been crime fiction, but I happily move between genres according to the story I want to tell. I’m very proud of this book, published eight years ago after winning the Text Prize (thanks, Text!) and I’m excited to be asked about it now.
The novel is named after a mystical book that only (my hero) Luca can open and only (my heroine) Suzan can read, so right from the start, I wanted it to be about what brings people together in spite of all the troubles that tear us apart. As a genre, I suspect people really are looking for something to take them out of the grim (dull!) reality we inhabited a few years ago. What could be more different from cloistered pandemic living than a precarious existence on the road in a fantasy world, with devastating battles and everlasting love promised from chapter to chapter? As a writer, I especially enjoyed the research this novel needed. I describe the world of this text as the First Crusade plus demons. To research it, I went to Italy, Turkey and Jerusalem. It saddens me that in the real world, people in some of these places are troubled by evils that humans invent for ourselves—at least in fiction, we know the demons will be defeated and love will win.
Madeline Te Whiu, The Assassin Thief
I wish I’d known how amazing the community is! I put off starting social media pages, newsletters and a website for so long (imposter syndrome, anyone?). Now, a few years later, I have surrounded myself with a beautiful support network of fellow authors and readers, and I love it!
I also wish I had better understood an author’s ability to slip between genres (especially sub-genres) when I first started writing. I am a romantasy author, yes, but also a dark fantasy/new adult fantasy author, and threading all of these together to the joy—and sometimes heartbreak—of my readers has been such an amazing experience.
Lili Wilkinson, A Hunger of Thorns
To me, romantasy is a romance novel with a fantasy setting. I’m more of a fantasy-with-romantic-subplot writer, but I enjoy reading both. I’m fairly new to writing fantasy, and the thing that has delighted me the most is how enthusiastic the readers are. They show up in such numbers, with such enthusiasm, curiosity and creativity—it’s an absolute privilege to be a part of the community as both a reader and a writer.
I love the creative freedom of writing fantasy—the ability to explore big ideas that reflect our world without being burdened by the often contradictory minutiae of reality. For me, the best fantasy is grounded in genuine characters with complex relationships—and a little spice never hurts!