A Guide to Romance Novel Terminology

There are a lot of terms, acronyms and abbreviations in the world of reading and writing romance, so I’ve decided to put together a little guide to romance novel terminology to help you with some basic, intermediate and advanced level terms. These will cover the things you are most likely to come across when reading reviews to reading about authors writing books. Ready? Here we go!

Basic

Book Boyfriend: Your fictional significant other.

HEA: Happily Ever After. In the wonderful world of romance novels, you are almost always guaranteed a happy ending which is why we read these lovely books in the first place.

HFN: Happy For Now. Not as great as HEA but it’ll do. Most books have HEA’s however.

H/h: Sort of outdated for Hero and heroine. The male and female protagonists. A quick shorthand way of speaking of the male and female main characters. A better way to refer to them is FMC (female main character) and MMC (male main character) or just MC, protagonists.

TBR: To Be Read. The ever expanding real or electronic list/pile of books that you want to read.

DNF: Did Not Finish. Life is too precious for you to waste your time finishing that book. If you don’t like it, mark it as DNF and move on! I used to finish everything. It was painful. Now I have a DNF category on Goodreads and I move on with my day.

Wallbanger; A book that is so terrible that you feel the need to throw it across the room and smack it into a wall. I did this with “Me Before You”. Warning: Do NOT do this with an e-reader.

Bodice Ripper: An old school romance novel with one of those Fabio covers. Not usually very up-to-date in terms of consent, racism, homophobia, etc.

Intermediate

Here we’re moving on in our guide to romance novel terminology to the next level.

Alpha: Usually the male protagonist in some romance novels who is characterized by being possessive, controlling, extremely competent and ambitious. (Can also be female protagonist)

Alphahole: An Alpha who has crossed into toxic masculinity.

Cinnamon Roll Hero: A hero who is warm, sweet and soft and the answer to toxic masculinity (see Ren in “Always Only You”). These kinds of heroes are appearing more frequently in romance novels and I personally couldn’t be happier. *Olivia Dade coined this term.

TSTL: Too Stupid To Live. A character who is just d-u-m-b.

Romancelandia: The romance-loving world of the internet and beyond…..ooooooo.

One-Click / Autobuy: Two ways of saying the same thing: You completely trust a particular author to deliver.

Heat/Spice Level: An indicator of how much S-E-X is in the book.

ARC: Advanced Reader Copy / Advance Review Copy: A free book sent to reviewers before books are published in exchange for an honest review.

Advanced

Catnip: A reader’s favorite trope

Trope: A recurrent theme. Example: Friends-to-Lovers, Opposites Attract, One Bed

Forced Proximity: This trope occurs when the couple is forced to spend a lot of time together due to: snowstorm, road trip, etc. (see Kate Canterbary’s “Professional Development“, Penelope Ward and Vi Keeland’s “My Favorite Souvenir”, Lauren Rowe’s “Ball Peen Hammer”).

Enemies To Lovers: Trope in which the MC’s start out hating each other before falling in love. (see Sally Thorne’s “The Hating Game“, LJ Shen’s “Dirty Headlines”).

Friends To Lovers: Trope in which friends become something more. (see R.S. Grey’s “Not So Nice Guy”, Karina Halle’s “The Pact“).

Fake Relationship/Marriage of Convenience: Trope in which the protagonists pretend to be in a relationship but actually fall in love. (see Avery Flynn’s “The Wedding Date Disaster“).

Second Chance Romance: Trope in which the H/h find themselves reunited and given a second chance at love. (see Karla Sorensen’s “The Ex Effect“).

Slow Burn: A romance in which things take a while to get steamy but when they do they are HOT! (see Chloe Liese’s “Only When It’s Us“).

Insta-love/ Insta-lust: Love/lust at first glance

Sweet Romance: A romance with no sex scenes. Opposite of “spicy”. AKA “Closed door” romance.

Extra Credit

Meet Cute: How the main characters first meet, however unlikely.

The Big Mis/ The Big Misunderstanding: That thing that always happens between 70%-88% of the way into your romance novel that could be cleared up with a good talk.

Black Moment: Happens near the end of the book when everything has suddenly gone horribly wrong.

Grovel / Grand Gesture: This is called for when one of the main characters has done a very terrible thing and needs to DO SOMETHING to win back the heart of their true love.

Indie: An independent author / publisher.

Plot Bunny: A new story in an author’s brain that is NOT the one the author is supposed to be working on. Oops.

Pantser: A type of writer who writes by the seat of their pants, in that they do not plot out their story.

Plotter: A type of writer who plots out the whole story before writing.

WIP: Work In Progress

Here’s an example of an Opposites Attract:

I hope this guide to romance novel terminology helped you a bit. Check out my Favorite Things about Romance Novels.