Does my book need a romantic subplot?

Romance isn't concealer, you can't just slap it on your book to make it look good.

Almost every day I see this question being asked within the writing community. There is this stigma that in order for your book to be considered amazing it needs to have adventure, romance, and tragedy. And while those things do make for an amazing book, you don’t need to have all three of those elements in one story. This will probably be the only time I say this, but romance can be a cop-out in some stories. Now let me explain... I have read plenty of books that would have been infinitely better if there was no romantic subplot and the reason is because the author uses the romantic subplot in place of working on actual character development and genuine connections. Instead of giving the character room to grow, an outlet for internal thoughts or feelings, building genuine relationship with others, often times it’s just easier to throw romance into the mix to make your character feel more human. It’s honestly lazy writing in my eyes. Now that’s not to say every story that has romance is using this romance as a plot crutch. There are thousands of stories that have a romantic subplot that make you swoon and root for the characters even more. But that’s because those romances were organically developed and not used as a plot crutch. Instead of just being like, “well you love this person now because I don’t know how to show character development any other way than throwing in a person who loves you even though you are clearly incapable of love right now” the love between characters should be more a result of the time they spent together, the situations they went through, and the fact that their personalities blend in a romantic manner just as they would in a normal real life relationship. So if you are asking yourself if your book needs a romantic subplot, the answer is probably no. Love happens organically and if you try and force your characters to fit into this romantic subplot it’s going to come across as just that - forced.