In fantasy, anything you can possibly imagine can come true.  Pigs can suddenly spring out wings and fly thousands of miles into the air like majestic dragons.  Fire can be created at your very fingertips to burn the enemies surrounding you to a crisp.  Centaurs, half human, half horse creatures, can roam the woods with philosophical minds just like the Ancient Greeks.  Similar to the ideology of the Green Lantern's ring, anything you create in a fantasy book can become a strange but incredibly awesome reality.

  One of the biggest things we want as writers is surprisingly not to ride a unicorn or become a vampire.  Rather it is our wish fulfillment to be with someone.  Through the avatar main character possibly created based on ourselves, we can fall in love with the perfect idea we have for romance.  We can have delightful kisses in the rain, picnics under the sun, and a stunning wedding with thousands of guests attending your union with this representation of the romance you wish to have.  At first glance, it would seem a perfect element to add into any fantasy novel.  Love is a huge part of our society and ingrains itself into many various genres of media.  It is like a drug us humans cannot resist.

  However, romance is far from the most creative aspect of a fantasy novel or really any novel in general.  In fact, due to recent novels like Twilight or Warm Bodies, copycats have turned romances, especially for the main character, into a huge cliché.  Now when you hear the word fantasy, you are going to think of some perfect vampire character sparkling into the sun or love bringing a human back from certain death itself.  As much as romance is craved in real life, having a book devoted to the subject basically puts a nail in the coffin for the fantasy novel you were trying to write.  Not many people will want to read these books, especially critics.  A repeating formula of successful romance is killing the fantasy genre and unless it is toned down, it will only grow as an issue.

  The best way to avoid the cliché is to do one of the two options; include a few romances here and there without it stealing the show or only have the secondary characters commit themselves to love.  It hurts to say this, but romance does not build a story.  What truly is going to build a story are the following; originality, plot, characters, writing style, and moral.