Tears as leading character in romance dies (5)
I believe the answer is:
rends
'tears' is the definition.
(rending is a kind of tearing)
'leading character in romance dies' is the wordplay.
'leading' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'character' becomes 'r'.
'in romance dies' becomes 'ends' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'r' put next to 'ends' is 'RENDS'.
'as' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rends that I've seen before include "Tears apart" , "Tears asunder" .)