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What is the HEA? feat. Shelly Jay Shore
52 Plays28 days ago
In the second episode of The Write Way of Life’s ~Romance Season~, host’s Karis Rogerson and A.D Jolietta spoke with USA Today bestselling writer Shelly Jay Shore, author of Rules for Ghosting, about the romance genre's all important HEA (Happily Ever After) – specifically discussing what it is, what it isn’t, and who deserves a happily ever after in stories.
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Transcript
Introduction & Theme: Happily Ever Afters
00:00:27
Speaker
hello Hello, lovely listeners to The Right Way of Life. This is your host, A.D. Joletta. My co-host, Karis Rogerson, is taking much-deserved week off, so you're just going to get me for this lovely intro to our second episode.
00:00:43
Speaker
um So it is Sunday, September 14th, 2025. This episode is about HEAs, happily ever afters in romance, and we have a fantastic author that we're speaking to about that very thing.
00:01:00
Speaker
um um just wanna add that during this discussion, which we recorded a few weeks ago, um we're talking about writing as a political statement, and that writing is political.
00:01:13
Speaker
um And unfortunately or fortunately, i think that that is still a timely message today. um So to keep this short and sweet, what am I reading or what have I read?
Book Recommendations from A.D. Joletta
00:01:25
Speaker
um i just finished finally V.E. Schwab's Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. highly, highly recommend. um it It was just an absolutely breathtaking, fantastic story about truly three toxic lesbian vampires in various time periods. And I cried, I laughed.
00:01:44
Speaker
I mean, I am just in awe of V.E. Schwab, just masterclass in writing and in storytelling. um I also devoured an indie fantasy called When the Dawn Comes by Ray Lavelyn.
00:01:57
Speaker
I found this on TikTok and absolutely loved it. was 725 pages and I breezed through it. Haven't done that in a long while. So I wanted to shout that book out. um What am I writing?
00:02:08
Speaker
I sent off the rom-com to some beta readers. I finished act two of a fun alternative history play that I've been working on since 2019. I don't know why suddenly I had the inspiration to finally figure out how I was going to finish this story, but I did.
00:02:24
Speaker
Something was who was in the water last week. um And I'm still drafting some other romantic fantasies that I'll probably mention at some point down the road with this podcast.
Guest Introduction: Shelly J. Shore
00:02:36
Speaker
But we'll see. The world's a bit asunder, as is my personal life. so So very excited for you to listen to this convo, though, with our dear friend Shelly, who I did want to shout out, just announced a new book, which we did slightly tease in this episode, but we didn't give it. We didn't tell you what it was.
00:02:55
Speaker
um But I wanted to let you know that she just announced a new book called American Golem, which Shelly writes, this road trip book will remind you that this country is vast and queer and beautiful and so much more than the people in power want you to believe it to be.
00:03:10
Speaker
And with that, I'm happy to introduce Shelly J. Shore. She is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. She writes for anxious queer millennials, sufferers of eldest daughter syndrome, recovering summer camp counselors, and any anyone struggling with the enormity of being a person trying to make the world kinder, softer, and more tender.
00:03:29
Speaker
Her debut novel, Rules for Ghosting, was a USA Today bestseller and was named one of the New York Times Book Review's Top Romances of 2024.
00:03:40
Speaker
All right. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Karis Rogerson. i am here, you know, metaphorically with Addie and the one and only Shelly J. Shore.
00:03:52
Speaker
Hello, Shelly. How are you? and I'm good. How are you? Oh, I am living my medium life, you know, like it's it's not the best it could be, but it's also not the worst.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:11
Speaker
so I mean, that's kind of how we're all doing, isn't it? like Yeah. Some days it's like things are actively worse and some days they're just neutral. Yeah.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah. it's It's just little bits at a time. Yeah. But I am so excited that we're chatting with you because i am... over the moon stoked for this romance season romance is don't tell the other genres but romance is my favorite um yeah no they don't need to know um they will know now if they're listening i don't know why i'm personifying the genres that's just what we do here
00:04:52
Speaker
um so shelly is here to talk to us about one of the like main um necessities of a romance novel right we're talking about the hea and so shelly i would love it if you could tell us what is the hea as in like what does the acronym mean but also like what is it you know metaphysically Yeah, metaphysically.
What Are HEAs in Romance Novels?
00:05:16
Speaker
um So the HEA stands for happily ever after. um In the genre, you will also sometimes see ah like HFN, happy for now, um right? So there's a lot of talk about, you know, what those two things mean and how they're different.
00:05:34
Speaker
But in general, it's the idea that your protagonists, you know, two or more in the romance genre are ending the story um together and looking towards the future in a way that is satisfactory and meaningful for both characters.
00:05:55
Speaker
So... Love that. oh It's not necessarily, you know, an epilogue where everybody is straight married with a bunch of babies. um e Not to name names.
00:06:08
Speaker
um But, you know, it's, is you know, maybe they're they're embarking on a new journey together. Maybe they're embarking on a new stage of life together. Maybe they're just agreeing that, know,
00:06:21
Speaker
They're going to continue on as they have been in a way that is working for everyone involved. But you you end the book as a reader being like, good.
00:06:35
Speaker
This is... I'm not depressed by this ending. That is what look for in a romance. Yeah. yeah And i um I just read, like finished last night, I think, um Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes, which is like that, like the 2016, like super short beat sheet, not book for writing romance. And I think it got me really thinking more intentionally about things that I was doing maybe instinctively or it wasn't thinking about. And one of them was specifically like,
00:07:08
Speaker
the characters and their hea matching like having some relevance to who they are at the start of the novel and like having some meaning for their journey right like you can have a character who starts off and is like i love love but i don't want kids and the whole book they're like i'm not gonna have kids and then if the epilogue is like and i have seven kids and they never had that like change of mind over the course of the novel it's gonna be like well that doesn't why like why is that hea for you because you said that's not hea so which i pick on kids because it's very common to pick on the kids in the epilogue i'm not saying there's anything wrong with having seven kids if that's what you want i'm just saying it's not everyone's hea exactly yeah 100 percent
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah. So let's chat through maybe some like different ways that it can look. I know we just talked about how it's not ah not always, you know, marriage and kids. It's not even always like we're living in the same, like moving in together or whatever. It's just kind of like What does it look like? What are some quote unquote like non-traditional ways it can look?
Non-Traditional Romance Endings
00:08:23
Speaker
um And like and then we can also talk more about like an HFN and like when that would come into play. Yeah, i I mean, so it's hard to do this without giving like really specific examples and spoiling books, right?
00:08:36
Speaker
um Fair. But, you know, I think if we are looking at, you know, if the if you think of the traditional happily ever after as, you know, settling down from marriage and babies, um you know, the sort of non-traditional or alternate happily ever afters can be things like uh you know we would have been long distance but now we are making plans to you know live in the same place um or you know i thought i was gonna spend this whole book trying to figure out how to uh
00:09:21
Speaker
you know, maintain my royal or noble title. And actually the right thing for me to do is to abdicate this title and, you know, go live with my person in in a meadow in a meadow or just like not in my crumbling noble castle ah over. Right. Or I'm going to go, um,
00:09:47
Speaker
You know, I've been running this like newspaper and printing press all by myself for all of this time. And my ah lover has been trying to help me, but I've been refusing to accept help.
00:10:01
Speaker
And what I'm going to do is step back from this particular role and accept help in it so that I can focus on this other thing that's important to me and to us as people in a relationship together. so there's all different things, all sorts of different ways that that can look. And I think, Karis, something you said that's really important is that the happily ever after or happily for now needs to align with the individual character journeys, right? I think that something that's really important is you look at where
00:10:42
Speaker
your character and their love interest or love interests are at the beginning of the story what their wounds are what they're struggling with what their sort of fundamental misbeliefs about the world are and whatever that happily ever after happily for now looks like needs to be believable not believable in a okay, everything happened perfectly, right? Because it never does.
00:11:11
Speaker
But also believable in a sense that this makes sense for the character, but also their problems haven't been magically solved. Right? yeah There's not, like, a magical healing orgasm that you have on page that suddenly heals your mental health or, like, gives you a full experience.
00:11:36
Speaker
Right? Like, yeah, I mean, if only. Yeah. Right? But I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with, you know, when they have misconceptions about the genre. That like, oh, the whole ethos of romance is that love will fix you and love will solve all of your problems. And it's like, no.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah. To me, something beautiful about romance is that it's like, um Again, quoting Gwen Hayes in Romancing the Beat, she says the theme of all romances are love conquers all. And I'm thinking about that and I was like, I actually like that because it's not saying love solves all. It's not saying love soothes everything. It's just saying like it is able to conquer whatever obstacles you put in its place.
00:12:17
Speaker
And you are able to then like, god this is to be so savvy. Hand in hand with love and your partner, you can also conquer those obstacles. You know, like Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think what it is is like, you know, it's not the idea that love fixes everything, but that the presence of the love story has left the characters in a better place than they would have been without it.
00:12:51
Speaker
Right. There's that idea of like the log was there and it didn't matter. Right. That's the sort of, know, dramas, but Those are like the bummer books, right? Like, and well love was there and yet everything has gone to shit.
00:13:07
Speaker
Like, in the romance genre, the love being there made some kind of concrete difference in the character's ability to manage both the external events happening in the plot, but also the internal journey they're having with their within their own story arc.
00:13:26
Speaker
And because of that, they end in a better place than they would have been otherwise. Yes.
HEAs as Political Statements
00:13:33
Speaker
Yes. I love that. And I think one thing that I firmly believe is that like reading, writing, romance, like it's all political. And it is not the only political thing you can do. like It's not like, oh if you read romance, like you know wash your hands of doing anything else political because you're good. It's more like...
00:13:52
Speaker
Choices that authors make, choices that readers make, the very existence of an HEA is a political statement. It is a statement of like community, like coming together in partnership, we can overcome. And I think that's really powerful. I mean, not to bring up why everyone's in a medium headspace these days, but like, especially with Literally everything that is happening in the US and abroad, the shit show that is 2025, like, it's really important to see those stories and to remember to, um, like,
00:14:32
Speaker
especially in America, like we're very, like the society is like the rugged individual, right? It's like you and your, your dog and the wilderness and like, you're going to conquer. Yeah. And it's like, well, actually, well, no, because what? And also like you, you need people, you need support and you need a community. And I love, um, one thing that I really love about ah so many romances is so many of them also have the found family.
00:14:56
Speaker
element of like part of that is like yeah i mean obviously you've got three best friends you all get your novel there's a series for you but also it's like yeah you it love romantic love isn't the only thing that that builds into your hea it can also be like you find your people your broader people um so that's my little cute little soapbox that i wanted to get on Yeah, I mean, so it I'm glad you brought up the idea of this sort of like happily ever after as as political, right? Because nothing happens in a vacuum. um And there's a lot of conversation in book spaces about romance as eschatism versus romance as idealism versus romance as, you know, a way of engaging with political
00:15:43
Speaker
systems and inequalities and all that fun stuff. You know, there's a lot of questions of like, can you write and ethical billionaire romance when there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire?
00:15:57
Speaker
And you'll get into those arguments of you are the kind of person who gets into arguments on the internet. um Or if you're like me and your toxic trait is that you just love reading other people having those arguments.
00:16:12
Speaker
um But, you know you know, people are like, well, romance is escapism. Like, I don't have to believe it's a good thing in order to write it. And it's like, I don't know. Like, I don't want to read a cop romance. Ew, no.
00:16:28
Speaker
Unless it ends with your cop character deciding they're not go be a cop anymore. Like, that's a happily ever after that I can get behind. Like, yeah, you know, but it's if the billionaire romance ends with your character still a billionaire.
00:16:48
Speaker
Like for me as a reader, I'm like, this isn't a happily ever after I can get behind because this guy's got to be a terrible person somehow. Like there's something to be said for like billionaires aren't actually that sexy.
00:16:59
Speaker
No, there's no such thing as a sexy billionaire.
00:17:04
Speaker
sorry and like and but like ethical billionaire non-existent sexy billionaire also no sorry taylor i love you and i'm so happy for you but like lose some money or like do something with it anyway don't come for me internet i see i might have to cut that out i'm i'm really concerned about the swifties well i am a swifty is the thing but also no one should be a billionaire because you can't rationally get like there's just no way to get that much money anyway that's a different podcast we i'd love to that's ellen dawson's rebel ever after podcast yeah i know i was thinking about that one i've been thinking about that one yeah
00:17:46
Speaker
I'd love to pivot. Speaking of ah toxic conversations about romance, um or not necessarily toxic, but hot topics. um ah Shelley, I would love to give you the floor to talk about um like why is the H.E.A.
00:18:00
Speaker
or ata necessary to romance novels? Not just like the expected because it's a genre convention, but like why is it so fundamental to romance novels? Because i I see so many times that folks try to say that, well, it can be a romance book.
00:18:13
Speaker
And then the person dies at the end.
00:18:18
Speaker
Unless you feel differently. No, I mean, that's not a romance. ah that That's a romantic story, right? It's a story with significant romantic elements.
00:18:33
Speaker
But I think if you're going to write within... I think marketing something as a romance without a happily ever after is like marketing something as a fantasy with no element of magic.
00:18:52
Speaker
Like you it is it's a fundamental requirement of the genre. Right. Because like there's a component of, oh, go ahead.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah. No, I mean, i think I think that's what it is. Like it's, it's I think the reason that people say, you know, it's a romance, but they die at the end, right? Is is because they want the marketing that comes with, and the built in, what they see is a built in readership.
00:19:29
Speaker
of marketing something as romance. um And we're seeing this a lot, honestly, now with like romanticcy, where things are being marketed as romanticcy and comped to major romanticcy novels because they're really on trend right now.
00:19:42
Speaker
And then you read them and I'm like, and and it's like, this is not,
00:19:48
Speaker
It's not a romance. This is a fantasy novel that happens to have two people who are into each other. like they're the Like, the romantic aspect is in no way essential to the story that's being told.
00:20:03
Speaker
um I'm not naming games, but this like this is something that I've now encountered several times where I'm like... And I'm not someone who seeks out romanticity. Like I'm just someone who reads books.
00:20:14
Speaker
um But I do like look at the cover jacket, you know, copy. And it's like, you know, for fans of, and it'll name, you know, like whatever. And then you read it and you're like, don't think that's correct.
00:20:30
Speaker
So I think what it is is like,
00:20:34
Speaker
The question becomes, is it a misunderstanding of genre conventions? Is it intentional marketing? trying to capitalize on readership or trends or, you know, social media momentum, whatever it is?
00:20:53
Speaker
um Or is it, you know, authorial insecurity of wanting to say, like, you know, I write X, Y, and Z, and I don't write Z, Y, and X, and But, you know, trying to hit that middle ground, right? There are people who will want to get into the romance space because they think they're going to get a lot of readers that way, but they don't want to say they write romance because then people will dismiss them as a romance writer.
00:21:23
Speaker
So then the question is like, well what would this book look like if you didn't kill off the characters at the end? And why you feel like you need to write? Like, I think people like, you know, nobody is saying like Romeo and Juliet is a romance, right?
00:21:35
Speaker
I mean, people are saying that, but they're wrong. yeah I was going to say, Threads is definitely saying that. Let me rephrase. People say that, and they're wrong. Yes. Yeah. ah Yeah, and I think it's so... like the There are some people who are very like against an
Why Are HEAs Essential in Romance?
00:21:51
Speaker
HEA. I mean, not naming names again, but there are authors who have said, like well, that's a...
00:21:57
Speaker
um a spoiler i don't want to spoil my books by telling you they're gonna end up together and it's like well no you're misunderstanding the function of the hea in the genre right right like it's not just oh you know i don't want to there's a lot to be said for like the ability to go through hard events in a book not limited to the third act breakup but sometimes the third act breakup but like there are other traumas and difficulties that romance characters go through and knowing like but it's gonna be okay like there's hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel like i personally as a little little depresso girly who like half the time in my tunnel i'm like there's no light oh um
00:22:44
Speaker
Don't know why I made fun of myself. It's like truly devastating, but whatever. But like reading romances is a wonderful way to be like, oh my God, you're right. There is light. Like I can't see it in my life, but this reminds me.
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah. I think it was also ah difference between a spoiler and an expectation, right? So in romance, there is an expectation of a happily ever after or happily for now.
00:23:12
Speaker
But what that looks like and how that gets there is is what's up in the air, right? Like you don't know what the happily ever is going to look like.
00:23:25
Speaker
You don't know what kind of compromises are going to be made. You don't know what kind of things are going to change for those characters. You don't know what they're going to go through or what they're going to sacrifice or what they're going to gain.
00:23:36
Speaker
And that's why... people still read things, right? Like when we talk about the way our brains are wired for stories and we talk about this idea, you know, there's that that concept, like there's seven plots and whatever it is, you know, and it's just like we're recycling the same story and we're recycling the same structure.
00:23:59
Speaker
But what wires our brains is that we want to see what's going to be different this time. Right. So you can have like how many novels start with, you know, a noble who has been away returns home that things are different than the way that they left.
00:24:27
Speaker
There's probably a hundred of them. And even if they start the same way, that branches off into a million different directions. I think one of the, one of the sort of fundamental things I hear a lot is that there are two ways to start a story. It's a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town, right? Those are the, and like everything starts there and then branches.
00:24:49
Speaker
Um, which I find is largely true. um and But what you do with that branches off into this like crazy root system that just goes and goes and goes in branches and branches and branches and branches and into infinite possibilities. So you can say that we're going to start from...
00:25:14
Speaker
one of these two paths and the end point is going to be some kind of happily ever after happily for now and but the the journey that we travel to get there has so many options for how it can branch off that it remains a unique reading experience And the element of intrigue remains. i don't know how many times I'll start a new romance novel and be like, whoa, he needs to get the inheritance or he's going to lose his home, but she needs to get to buy his home or she's going to lose her family. How are they ever going to make it come together? And like, I know they're going to.
00:26:01
Speaker
But I don't know what what twists and turns the author is going to put. I don't know what compromises they're going to have. I don't know the details. And that's where it's like, I keep reading because I'm like, I got to know how. Yeah, exactly.
00:26:13
Speaker
But like, are there any like, and you don't have to give any details, but like standout epilogues from romance novels you read where you're like, this, this is it. um Yeah, I mean, I think a book I read very recently was a Gentleman's Gentleman by TJ Alexander.
00:26:31
Speaker
um There are a couple twists in that book that I predicted and was delighted and see them happen and then was further delighted to see um what happened next.
00:26:43
Speaker
I'm trying to think of books with epilogues. um I think the, ah but I just finished um Shade Spells with Strangers by... um Sarah Wallace and S.O. Callahan, which also did some fun stuff in terms of characters making compromises and characters finding a way to sort of align their different needs and societal structures.
00:27:14
Speaker
um And that had a fun epilogue as well. um Yeah, I mean, just, I like it when the I like it when the happily ever after that you think is going to happen, like the shape that it's going to take,
00:27:28
Speaker
that you expect it to take is not the way it happens. um And I've noticed on my end of like the books I happen to read, I've noticed a pretty strong trend in books published in last, I would say three-ish years.
00:27:45
Speaker
of a lot more, I'm going to give up this societal or rank or power. Like I'm going to give up some kind of power because A, it's the right thing to do to not have this power. And B, because I want to be with this person who has helped me realize that actually I don't need this particular power or status symbol in order to thrive as a person like a lot of a lot of maybe I don't need my noble title maybe I don't need my family's money maybe I don't need to be a cop like all you know and I think that's when we get back to how is romance political and how are you know how is a happily ever ever after ending um
00:28:30
Speaker
um you know how how are those endings um Giving you some kind of insight into what the author is trying to impart onto you about what they believe about the world and what they believe is right or just and not just dick.
Evolution of Romance Novels
00:28:54
Speaker
In our first episode, which was just like kind of an overview of like what is romance with ah Jen Prokop. ah Jen and I talked a bit about things like romance reflecting, not just impacting, but also like reflecting the politics and the the ethos of the of the day of society. And it it's so interesting to think of like, I can think of romances that I would have read maybe five, 10 years ago, where it's like the the happily ever after is getting romance.
00:29:24
Speaker
your your crown again or it's getting your family's wealth and so the idea of it flipping now is it's it's giving socialism it's giving it's giving we're changing our minds like um socialism affectionate um so um and i just think that's so interesting to like have been reading romance now for long enough me personally that like I can see trends shaping over time and I can see like oh wow like yeah I understand why there's so many bakers I don't know like in romance because everyone went through a sourdough phase in 2020 and now the books are coming out you know like micro and macro scales for real for all yeah um if you were given a soapbox
00:30:17
Speaker
and yeah and And a microphone, which is essentially what we've done here. I was going to say, I'm like, which you have done. Yes, go on Yeah, exactly. and And told like, pick one topic about romance or like more specifically about the H.A. and like, just go off on it.
00:30:32
Speaker
Do you have something? Would you like to go off on a soapbox for a second? Or do you feel like you've done that enough? I think I might have done that enough. I mean, i don't think cops and billionaires deserve happily ever afters.
00:30:45
Speaker
That's my soapbox. um quote of the episode right there sorry um uh yeah um that's that's my soapbox is yeah I don't want those people to be happy I want them to stop doing what they're doing and causing harm to the world um and it's like reading those romances it it kind of it reinforces the idea of like you should be rewarded for for doing this work or being a billionaire and um i do think that that's probably why so many people idolize seeing people like billionaires because we've been reading these romances for so long and like in the books they're always great guys but that's not actually how they are necessarily allegedly whatever in reality I'm not naming names but whatever just covering my ass
00:31:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's like we with like do we need like we don't need more slave romances. We don't need more Nazi romances. We don't need more, like, you know, person falls in love with their re oppressor
00:31:57
Speaker
stuff. We don't. We don't. I don't understand why people are still writing it. I don't understand why people are still reading it. It just, it blows my mind. um Yeah.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah. Like, I don't think it's a censorship point of view. I'm like, write whatever you want, but i don't get it. Yeah. And it it makes me think of like, Again, it's like romance is political. Who you put in the story, who you let tell the story, shapes it readers and it shapes your view of the world. But also it's like who you're who you're saying deserves...
00:32:34
Speaker
to be rewarded or or happy or whatever and it's like well no i'm sorry well i'm not sorry nazis don't actually deserve to be forgiven and redeemed and given a happily ever after like they deserve the nuremberg trials but probably worse yeah i mean it's like you know not to be abolitionist on maine but it's it's let's you know it's a sense of like
00:33:02
Speaker
When there are so many stories that could be told, where does the drive to keep telling stories about people who are actively invested in systems that perpetuate incredible harm, where does the drive to keep attempting redemption for those characters, where does that come from?
00:33:29
Speaker
What does it tell us about the world that we live in and the, then you know, the values of the authors, but also like the needs of readers, right? Because people are are people reading those books because they want to have hope that people change their minds and change who they are.
00:33:52
Speaker
or are they pursuing those stories because they actually think that those are characters like those people are doing the right things and those systems are just right the impulses come from places yeah or is it because consciously or not one recognizes like i benefit from this system staying as it is even though it is an unjust system and i am benefiting from it and so it is i am writing these stories that reinforce the system
00:34:24
Speaker
Whether to be like, yes, go system, or just because that is unconsciously like the natural bias. But like, <unk> I've been thinking about this because I saw something recently that was like, um work to undo systems that are unjust, even if they benefit you. And it is true that there are those, like privilege is a word for a reason, like it has a meaning. And there are those who benefit from unjust systems. Yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
And there's so much value in being like, okay, sure. Like maybe, i don't know. I was thinking about it in terms of like my life and like what systems, where do I benefit? And like, should I like thinking more um consciously about like, are those systems like hurting others and how can I help tear them down? And I think one way is like making sure that the stories that I write don't,
00:35:14
Speaker
prop up these systems and yeah that was random off the cuff there's also i think an element of individual wish fulfillment versus understanding how things operate within the system right there is I can understand the wish fulfillment of wanting to read, you know, a story about a struggling college student who marries a rich guy or dates a rich guy. And now all of her, you know, financial insecurity
00:35:49
Speaker
is evaporates right because she has her needs met i can understand on an individual level you know a character wanting to be with someone who she perceives as you know enforcing a system of justice that will bring someone who harmed her to you know get their quote-unquote just desserts um you know in a kind of carceral way um And I think where the conversation happens in romance spaces and online spaces, and I think where people get very defensive, is in this space of
00:36:29
Speaker
is my, in like, people don't like the idea that their individual wish fulfillment is part of a broader system.
00:36:40
Speaker
And I don't think there's a fix for that. I think it's just, right? it's It's kind of like when you tell someone, it's like, this isn't super feminist of you. And people get like so defensive, like they're telling you a bad feminist, but it's like, you're not a bad feminist.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's just like your actions exist within context. Right. And I think it's like. I think it's OK to say like.
00:37:07
Speaker
It's not progressive to write a novel about, you know,
00:37:16
Speaker
Elon Musk coming after right it's not progressive yeah but also not all romance authors set out to be progressive there is a huge conservative romance industry and a huge conservative audience for romance novels right and i think that really what we're seeing kind kind of
00:37:38
Speaker
b split happening e-romance readership of these ah people who are sort of seeking out really diverse, progressive, innovative stories and people who are in their comfort zone and see those progressive stories as deeply challenging to their worldview and what they believe the genre, quote unquote, should be.
00:38:02
Speaker
maybe that's myself no I love that um it's it's like it's it's the reading of like do you want to stay in your comfort zone or do you want to be forced to expand and to change and to grow and sometimes you have to be uncomfortable in order to make your life and the world's life everyone's lives better um but I see I also see what you mean about like the split feels like it's it's getting like deeper and deeper every day almost with like i'm obviously not gonna pick up a romance by someone who's like you know homophobic they're also not gonna pick up my romance because not only is does it have subliminal messaging hopefully it's also like two women falling in love and and getting ah pastor in trouble for being a dick
00:38:49
Speaker
um you know like they're not gonna like that and so they they're never gonna pick up on my like subliminal messaging the like which is and i think part of that is like that's kind of how i came around from my conservative like evangelical upbringing was like reading books i mean part of it was you know simon versus the homo sapiens agenda which is not subliminal but there are others where it's like oh i'm reading this book and there's like a side character who's gay or who's you know muslim or something and it's like oh i'm learning that you know i'm learning to expand my views um which again sorry i keep going on these tangents where i'm like my brain is like firing on all sudden cylinders and it's very excited not on all that
00:39:31
Speaker
i Maybe to pivot to to a fun question.
Favorite Romance Characters & Ships
00:39:34
Speaker
um Not that this previous discussion wasn't necessary and also fun. No, I'm having a ball. We're living. oh Yeah, we're living. We're living. um But I am curious, who is your favorite romance like hero or heroine or even like your favorite romance ship? like who's your Who's your top?
00:39:55
Speaker
God, would you ask me to pick a favorite child? You can pick up to three or five. I'm a big fan of Will Darling from KJ Charles' um Will Darling Adventures trilogy,
00:40:13
Speaker
um which is a sort of action romance, spies and secret societies situation. um Love it.
00:40:26
Speaker
uh set just after world war one um and will is a former trench raider who inherits a uh used and antiquitarian bookstore and then through a series of shenanigans gets wrapped up in in in all sorts of nonsense um Love that. Love him. um And his love interest, Kim, is just the light of a mess of a human being. he's just a cucumber with anxiety and and and a lot of issues.
00:41:04
Speaker
and ah and And they're adorable. um they They lie to each other a lot. But in good ways. I mean, not in good ways. Don't lie to your partner. Also, if the lies are a thought device, it's very important.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:23
Speaker
Let me see. oh my goodness.
00:41:27
Speaker
I'm trying to think of like favorites as opposed to just like things I read recently that enjoyed.
00:41:41
Speaker
like Theo and Kit from The Pairing by Casey McQuiston like I just love a couple of bisexual disasters. Love a couple of like bloody horny people who just keep misunderstanding each other and adoring each other and having like really messy relationships about it just big big favorites there um
00:42:14
Speaker
And oh my goodness. I'm like, I'm, I'm struggling because I'm like, I just love everybody. love, love so much.
Final Thoughts & Follow Us
00:42:25
Speaker
But let's ask the next question, which is for you to recommend some books that you've read. Romances that you've read and loved recently. So I can do that. all similar Okay. Recent loves.
00:42:35
Speaker
Um, I'm in the middle of the French letters series by Felicia Davin, which is a very like epistolary, you know, diaries and letters and notes and excerpts of things um in a sort of historical fantasy situation where it's all very it's it's low stakes in that it's like all the stakes are personal right i think in fantasy often the stakes are very like global and high powery and these are like very personal stakes um
00:43:14
Speaker
but those are great um and they are interconnected but can be read individually big fan those nice um i already talked about a gentleman's gentleman um by tj alexander which is um also historical uh transgender earl who has to get married in order to preserve his inheritance and um has been very much recluse and then has to go to london for the season in order to find a wife um which he does not want because he's not into women and finds himself like he needs to keep up with appearances so he has to get a ballot and then oh no he's hot nonsense ensues what you gonna do when the ballot is hot
00:44:08
Speaker
I mean, generally, in in romance, you know. Just speak the valet. Yeah, that's what you're going to do. Mostly the bones. Mostly you sleep with them.
00:44:23
Speaker
i Winging It With You by Chip Pons came out pretty recently, which is just a very fun, you know,
00:44:35
Speaker
uh strangers of convenience who end up on a reality show together um in a fake relationship it combines my love of fake dating tropes with my equally giant love of reality television um very nice very fun um and then on a kind of different shift like uh i recently reread stars in your eyes by case and calendar which is um you know ah much more serious approach to romance and I think is also a really good example of like what the happily for now looks like right it's a really it's a not to spoil it but it's a book that has characters going through some really really heavy stuff and if we go back to that idea of like you know the love was there but is it enough and that book is a really great example of like what does enough look like
00:45:33
Speaker
um and i don't want to say but it's a fantastic but mind the trigger warnings but it is a fantastic read um about two actors and who are cast in the same movie together and what happens between them that's really good awesome thank you um before we wrap up final question can you just tell us where we can find you on the internet and like what's coming up for you Yeah, um I am on and Instagram and on Blue Sky on at Shelly J. Shore.
00:46:10
Speaker
ah one word, E in Shelly. um And what's coming up for me? I am going to be in Boston in October doing a ah panel on paranormal romance.
00:46:26
Speaker
um incredible that's gonna be fun and i i have things that I can't share yet but I am looking forward to sharing more things soon so if you like books about messy bisexuals with anxiety being messy bisexuals with anxiety um follow me on social for some news that might be interesting to you soon oh I'm excited i don't know if I'm allowed to say that. I'm like just picturing somebody with sniper rifle.
00:47:01
Speaker
like Well, they can't hear you. h That's fine. I'm going to get him. We'll find out.
00:47:09
Speaker
all right. Well, thank you so much, Shelly. This was very fun. Thank you for having me. This was lots of fun. And there you have it, folks. That's the HEA.
00:47:20
Speaker
i I will say I didn't expect the conversation to turn so much into like the politics of it all, but I love that it did. um i think that there's so much that you miss in talking about romance when you don't consider and things like the implications of every decision you're making. And that's true for all writing, not just romance novels. I think um intentionality is something I'm chasing in my writing process and stories and something that I'm seeing come up often as we do this podcast.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I also think it's, you know, we're talking about HEAs, right? Like, what does happy look like? And what I loved about the conversation was it's like, what does happy look like for the characters? And what does happy look like for the audience? And so I think that that is a necessary political aspect of it, which is like, like Shelley said, like we all said, like, I don't want a happy ending for a billionaire.
00:48:11
Speaker
So that matters in terms of how I'm writing a story and what that person's HEA is. obviously that means that the love interest should not be a billionaire because I'm never going to want them to have a happily ever after if you extrude the politics from that I mean I do have a billionaire romance comedy that I'm gonna write that's gonna be really good because they're not gonna be a billionaire by the end of it um I'm not gonna I'm not gonna share the premise because this is the internet thieves abound just kidding all of our listeners are perfect and lovely love you love you
00:48:48
Speaker
I love how that exactly together and completely unplanned. That was so silly of us. I loved it.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, I really, i don't know. i just really appreciated this conversation. When I was initially, like when we were breaking down episodes for this season and we decided to do separate episodes for HEA and for um next week's topic, which spoiler is the central love story in a romance.
00:49:12
Speaker
um Those are like the two I would say the two like key markers of a romance. And at first I was like, well will we have enough to talk about with each of them with breaking them apart? And I think one thing that I've learned doing this podcast is you can talk for a long time about any element of craft. You just got to keep like drilling down.
00:49:31
Speaker
Drill, baby, drill. Sorry. Thank you.
00:49:39
Speaker
I'm from Alaska. That word is just ingrained in my brain. oh Yeah. Yeah. No, but no, you're right you're right. Like there's always an angle to take with any sort of craft element and and there's always there's always ah new avenues to look at. And especially I think it, you know, and that's why I love the guests that we have on because they have their own unique perspective and they come at this craft perspective in a way that like you and I weren't anticipating, but I think yeah provided a really necessary and fantastic and and and and fun conversation.
00:50:09
Speaker
I do think we could do like with our lineup of guests, we could just have each of them come and talk about one topic and it would be like, oh, we should do that for a season. um Then it would be like each episode would be different and unique because there are so many unique ways to write and to think about writing.
00:50:26
Speaker
And one thing that I think like I've been thinking about as I um a couple days ago got notes back on a revision that I did for my novel, my romance novel. And I've been considering things like intentionality and like choices and like The difference between, i think where my book is at right now is like it's a fun romp and like it makes sense and people like it and they feel the emotions, but I'm not sure it's got that staying power that you really only get by diving deep into characters and deep into their motivations and like tying all of the threads like so neatly together. I wish people could see what I'm doing with my hands because I think it's great.
00:51:05
Speaker
Oh, we're recording video. I'll post this. I spoke too soon. um Yeah, but I, and so I just think, God, I don't know. This whole experience has been so fun.
00:51:19
Speaker
Last season was amazing. This season, we've already had some really wonderful conversations. And it's just like making my brain light up in all those exciting places. Same. Same, same, same.
00:51:31
Speaker
Thank you so much, Shelly, for coming on the Right Way of Life podcast. Everyone, um do us a favor. Go buy Rules for Ghosting, which is Shelly's debut. It is a gorgeous, beautiful novel that talks about grief and family and ghosts.
00:51:48
Speaker
And it's very Jewish, very trans, very sweet and sexy. um Sometimes I laughed aloud, obnoxiously, and sometimes I cried. And like, what else do you want out of a book?
00:52:01
Speaker
um follow Shelly on socials just they are amazing we love Shelly we love Shelly so much buy the book buy two book buy 17 copies buy a book for every one of your family members this Christmas absolutely not or not this Hanukkah oh yeah or you know just for Friday yeah it doesn't have to be for a holiday um yeah so that's all we've got um go ahead and follow us on instagram we are at the right way of life podcast cat or pod one of the two will pop up um let us know what you thought drop us a comment on spotify leave us a rating and a review on apple podcast let us know what you're thinking and we're so excited to be back in it for this season hell yeah thanks everyone bye hell yeah brother
00:52:54
Speaker
Bye.