Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

I was turned off romance for years because I’d read too many romances with perfect, White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) characters who never looked anything like me. I got sick of books where the heroes were white men who in reality would be repelled by my caramel brown skin.

What changed things was when I picked up a reprint of an eighties category romance by a New York Times bestselling author. It was a cabin romance with predictable plotting. The characters were beautiful, rich and perfect WASPS. But that book brought me back home to romance because it had everything in it that I loved about the genre–the sexual tension, the dance of luuurve and steamy, much anticipated consummations. It was a familiar, luscious feeling. Romance used to be like chocolate to me and once again I was savoring the taste.

Here’s the deal about romance. When you bite into a chocolate, it darn better taste like chocolate and not like something else. It’s the same with romance. You can’t throw just anything in the pot, stir it up and call it romance. Romance needs necessary ingredients to make it properly delicious.

Romance has people that you care about in a relationship that matters to you. If you have unlikable, unsympathetic characters in a relationship you don’t give a flip about–you may have a compelling novel, but you don’t have a romance.

Romance has sex. The most staid inspirational romance is about establishing a relationship that is going to lead to luscious, hot monkey sex, even if the sex happens to take place outside the covers of the book. There’s sex in romance, whether it’s an implied promise or frequent and graphically described variations. That’s why the controversy over romance sex is sort of silly. It’s as if folks were arguing over sweetener in chocolate. You can eschew sugar in favor of artificial sweetener or honey or use less–but if you’re eating palatable chocolate, it’s going have some sweetness, even if only a hint. If you read romance, it’s going to be about sex. If your characters don’t care about establishing a relationship that will eventually lead to some sort of sex, then you don’t have romance.

Romance has tension and conflict leading to a predictable payoff. The payoff is the consummation of the relationship, with inherent commitment and satisfaction. A romance without a journey to a happily-ever-after ending is no romance.

Reading a romance with the right ingredients got me past what once were deal breakers to me–beautiful, rich (but properly sympathetic) white characters.

Some readers shy away from African American romances because they fear they will contain guilt, misery and race messages that don’t belong in romance. Blacks in romance are deal breakers to them, as I once believed that certain characters were deal breakers for me.

But I’ve realized that deal breakers have nothing to do with the character’s race or culture, or even the setting. Try to get out of your comfort zone and try some of the subgenres. You might discover, as I have, that a great romance is a great romance, period.

Deal breakers are the things that make a romance no longer a romance–some of the necessary ingredients are missing or messed up.

Deal breakers are like anchovies added to chocolate. There’s nothing inherently wrong with anchovies, some people like them a lot. But anchovies don’t work with chocolate. One thing about anchovy romances though, after the first chapter or so, they usually taste fishy and you can avoid them accordingly.

We need to get back to our roots, remembering what romance is and why we love it. Romance isn’t about race or culture or whether there is nasty sex or accurate history or all the other things that romance readers quibble about. We all have preferences, but great romance is about the chocolate lusciousness of the love dance–a dance fundamental to the human condition–all humans, everywhere.

So why not indulge in romance proudly? Why not more romance lovers taking pride in the genre, rather than defending it?

Do you agree with the elements or ingredients I listed that romance needs to be considered romance? How far can the recipe be varied or stretched?

What are your deal breakers, the anchovies that ruin romance for you? Do you avoid any subgenres because of them?

Do you hide your romance addiction and nibble on the literary equivalent of fruit in public?

There are a few “hot topics” that set off heated debate in the romance genre community. I consider myself an observer, a position that allows me great freedom to hear views from both sides. A topic I find interesting is one that will be explored at the upcoming Romance Writer’s of America National Conference. Historical authors Celeste Bradley and Nicole Byrd will be presenting their workshop “It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to”—a debate on the necessity (or not!) of historical accuracy in the romance novel. As one who watches from the sidelines, I won’t be presenting my opinion on the subject here. However, I am deeply interested in learning about your views on the matter.

How do you feel about historical accuracy in the novels you read?

To submit to one particular agent, you must send only the first chapter - they explicitly state that they do not want a prologue included.

Now, to me, that’s like saying anything that happened before the start of the story means nothing. That it can be cut out and lost and the story would be just as good. And maybe, just maybe, they’re right, but what about me?

I want to know. I need to know. If I see a prologue dated six months earlier, I’m practically rubbing my hands in glee because you’re letting me in on a secret.

My name is Stephanie, and I’m addicted to background information for your characters. I’m especially a sucker for it in romance novels.

Maybe it’s because I’m the type of person people tell their secrets to. I’m not just talking about friend’s secrets – I’m talking total strangers, people you meet on line at the bank or waiting in the doctor’s office. People tell me everything, from the inane to the really big, deep dark secret and they always have. I’m not sure why - I don’t ask questions or talk about myself with these strangers. I guess it’s because I’m a good listener.

So, if you write a lot of flashbacks or backstory, I’m really your Best Reader Friend. I will skim over your long pages of descriptions, simply because, no matter how good they are, I can’t picture them. I’m not a visual person, never have been. But I’ll listen to you go on for a few pages about the hero’s background or I’ll let you flashback years earlier to a story that has an impact on the hero’s life today. It’s especially nice if this comes right after an action sequence opener, a spot where I need a mental breather to take in what’s just happened. If I’m going to be really into your story, your characters, I want to know it all – where they came from, why they act the way they act. Hints here and there aren’t going to do it. Tell me why, give it to me straight, sit down, look into my eyes and let me in on some secrets.

For me, the backstory is a huge part of the story, and when you bury it, or make me wait too long for it, I get impatient. I start making up reasons as to why the characters are doing the things they’re doing. I imagine all sorts of reason, and when the reasons turn out to be meh after you made me wait, then I’m upset. But if I know them from the start and you build the character accordingly, you’ve got me because I find people’s backgrounds and pasts fascinating. Where you came from, what you’ve been through make you who you are, even if it’s something excruciatingly simple.

I know the drill – flashbacks and backstory are supposed to be skillfully woven throughout in bits and pieces, and it’s usually best to give exposition through dialogue. But it doesn’t always work for me in bits and pieces or in dialogue form – sometimes I want the whole damned story without someone else’s reaction. I want you to whisper it in my ear, lure me in with the promise that the fact that my soon-to-be-hero had a really, really bad past is going to come into play, and I want it from that character’s internal dialogue. I want the beginning at the beginning. If you can’t start it at the beginning, then go back and give me the rest of the story as soon as humanly possible.

I know the theory that this ‘pull to want to know’ forces you to read the story/watch the movie/stick with the TV series until the end so you can find all the answers to the questions you’re waiting for. But I will stop reading/watching if you don’t give me enough right away. I’m into instant gratification. I might be the exception to the – don’t dump backstory in the first three chapters – rule, but I am here. And I buy a lot of books. I have to count for something, right?

The Romantic Suspense I just started reading gave me a nice three page introduction of the heroine’s character, the reasons she’s in the city she’s in, why she’s doing the job she’s doing and what she wants from life. I’m hooked - I’m in it until the end now. And the information wasn’t earth-shattering or revolutionary - nothing I hadn’t heard or seen before. But now I’m firmly on the character’s side, I can understand her motivations. I want her to succeed. The passages added depth, not drag.

If inner conflict is the demon and external is the dragon, then give me the demons so I can understand why you’re fighting the damned dragons to begin with.*

Now lie on the couch, dear, and tell me your secrets.

*(with respects to the author who labeled these conflicts demons and dragons in the first place– I can’t recall her name.)

I had another post in mind, but I live in southern Maine, where it’s been raining—no exaggeration—for fifteen days straight. What does the weekly forecast call for this holiday weekend and next week: rain. So I preface my mini rant by saying I’m sick of rain and it’s making me–and my two-year-old–CRANKY.

My mini rant:

I’m an active member of an online chick lit loop that I love, love, love. There are over 850 members and no surprise: they don’t bash chick lit! They don’t bash other genres either, as a matter of fact. So not only do I get positive support for the genre in which I write, but I get positive people who write all kinds of women’s fiction.

Last week on the loop, someone linked to Squawk Radio, the blog by several New York Times bestselling romance writers. In response to a post bashing chick lit by Connie Brockway, http://squawkradio.blogspot.com/2005/05/connie-saves-second-day-and-offers.html
a chick lit looper put the word out that someone might want to comment with a chick lit reading list.

Now that’s a positive response, and I don’t necessarily think it’s a waste of good typing. A spirited discussion followed–why this person liked chick lit, why that person hated it, try this book and that, etc.

What I don’t get and this isn’t so much in response to Connie’s post, but to SO many like it: What is REALLY the point? (And I’ll buy “it’s just her opinion–lighten up” over “the interesting discussion is the point, of course!” If you (and note: YOU refers to writers, not readers) don’t like chick lit, if you find the voices like “carnival patter” and the heroines “pathetic” and the books “plotless,” don’t buy another one. But why slam a sub-genre of women’s fiction in a public forum? Why can’t you respect that another author—and another reader—enjoys this type of book even if you don’t? What is with the “putting down” culture of blogs? It’s as though insults and “controversy” and “ooh, I’m gonna piss someone off with this post!” is the point.

I’m not one to stand up in a room of people and announce that I hate something when I know someone sitting next to me may be in love with it. I’d rather hold my opinion than make anyone feel like sh*t. Then again, I hate arguments. I hate confrontation. I’m uncomfortable in any kind of “spirited discussion.” I hate, hate, hate defending my feelings. So again, this might be my “let’s all play nice so I don’t implode” issues.

As a former Harlequin editor and forever romance novel reader, I’m so used to the bashing. In answer to Jennifer’s RTB post from yesterday, my own parents said to 22-year-old me: “You’re going to work at Harlequin? On romance novels? Won’t you be embarrassed to tell people you work there? How will you ever get another job? No other publishing house will take your seriously.” And that was just the home front. The bashing of romance novels came from everywhere. If I called a boyfriend on bad behavior, I heard: “You have unreal expectations of men because you read romance novel for a living!” If I told anyone, anywhere where I worked, I heard: “How can read those books all day every day–and for ten years! Your brain must be mush.” And my personal favorite: “You can’t really like romance novels–you went to college!”

I always had the best comeback: “Have you ever read a romance novel?” The answer was always, “Well, no. I mean, of course not.”

Back to Connie’s post. She has read a chick lit novel. Five or six. That’s certainly better than judging on the covers alone or a general assumption of what Bridget Jones’ Diary is about. She tried them; she didn’t like them. I just wish we–romance authors and chick lit authors–could be supportive of each other’s different voices. When a romance author slams chick lit in general, I think: haven’t we been there/done that ENOUGH?

We’re a product of our environments. Nature vs. nurture is always being cited with regard to this characteristic or that. A visit home put me in contact with several family members and it occurred to me that I might interview them about romance novels in an effort to see if there were any commonalities. So, I asked them a couple of questions… What do you think of romance novels? And why? Here’s what they had to say (their answers have not been revised in any way):

I find them - what’s the word? - boorish and I don’t ever want to read one. It’s personal taste more than anything else. For the little amount of time that I have available to read for entertainment, it would not be my choice. I would choose fantasy.

I like them. Because they’re kind of a way to escape everyday things. Some of the experiences of other people you can relate to because you’ve had similar experiences.

Why bother? Because I’m not interested in reading about other people’s romances.

For the most part, I think they’re really trashy, but there are some that are fine. If they are good interpretations of society, I think they’re very unfortunate, but for the most part, I think they’re poor interpretations of how love is intended to be.

I like romance novels. Because they appeal to my feminine side, and I can have a hope that I can have the same kind of relationship.

If they’re good romance novels, I love them. They’re so much fun. If they’re bad romance novels, they’re bad books and bad books are just a waste of time. They’re good if they’re interesting. I don’t think it’s a bad literature vs. good literature thing.

I definitely like them because they appeal to my feminine side. And they’re just really sweet and I like that.

Relatives not interviewed: The nephew was asleep, but today he read about Samson, which could be a romance story. The SIL was watching American Idol and was not available for comment. Also, one sibling MIA due to work commitments.

A few demographics: I didn’t attribute the answers because I thought that would make a more interesting representation. Among those who supplied them, though, we cover a range from teenagers to age 50-something. We have both genders. Occupations include students, a customer care representative, a pastor, a nurse, and a computer programmer. Educationally, participants span junior high to graduate degrees.

So, this is where I came from, and it seems we have quite diverse opinions about the genre. What do you think your family would say?

Is your TBR pile out of control? Too many books, too little time? My local bookseller and I recently lamented this problem. She mentioned an alternative I had all but forgotten. Audio books. She listens to recorded, preferably unabridged, versions of her favorite romance authors’ stories on her hour commute to and from work.

Now I know audio books exist. Eons ago, I rented a cassette of a Julie Garwood book from my library and listened to it, as my bookseller does, while driving to and fro. I remember enjoying the experience, but it’s not something I kept up with. Maybe it’s because the library had a limited selection of audio books, or because I had to go out of my way to pick it up and return it. More likely, it’s because, if I have a choice, I’d rather read a book than listen to one. That said, my TBR pile is out of control. Though there are stories I’m dying to devour, more than ever, I have less time to read. Inspired by my bookseller, I decided to research audio books.

Apparently, I live in the dark ages. I had no idea that audio books are the fastest growing segment in the publishing industry. Audio books are available on cassette, CD, and can also be downloaded onto your computer or MP3 player. Most conventional libraries offer audio books, but selections are often limited. Internet companies such as audible.com, booksontape.com, and recordedbooks.com offer thousands of titles for purchase or rental. I found the rental aspect intriguing, although from an author’s standpoint, this can’t be good for sales. Or can it? (Another topic to explore.)

Recorded Books Unlimited handles audio book rentals much like Netflix handles film (DVD) rentals. For a monthly fee, you can rent as many audio books as you wish, although you can only have a total of three in your possession at a time. You make your selections on-line and they mail the CD to you as well as a pre-stamped envelope in which to return. Pretty enticing if you’re really into audio books.

Again, I’d rather read than listen, but I do see the allure. You can enjoy the recorded version of an old favorite or the latest release while you’re walking, exercising at the gym, running errands or driving to work. And what about during tasks like laundry and ironing or hobbies such as gardening and painting?

According to industry and news reports, book sales in this country are down. I find this disturbing for many reasons. Perhaps that’s why I was so jazzed to learn about the popularity of audio books. Though people are reading less, they’re still engrossed with the magic of storytelling. They’re still allowing authors, and their characters, to carry them away to a fictional world with words. Though not my medium of choice, I have to consider the power of audio books.

Where do you stand on audio books? Do you love them? Hate them? How do you see them fitting into the future of publishing?

Hubby and I are moving to a new house, and this week we are spending most of our time, when not at work, packing, consolidating, sorting, tossing, and donating. Our goal is to cut our accumulation of stuff by at least a third. Sadly, there are two things that Hubby and I own an astonishing amount of: Old clothes– I think Hubby has tshirts from 1993 – and books. Hubby donated fewer clothes than I did, but he had me beat in the book donation department.

Hubby, who studied economics, political science, and law, has several thousand tons of dusty hardcover books with stunningly interesting titles like “Constitutional Law,” and “Macroeconomics and the Political Landscape.” Going through Hubby’s books took no time at all – boxing them up for donation took longer than actually watching him decide if he wanted to keep them. School books were all to be donated. But he also had a fair amount of fiction – John Grisham, Michael Chabon, and a mess of Clive Cusslers, and all of them were headed for donation.

“Why are you throwing away your Cusslers?”
“I’m not going to read them again.”
“You don’t reread fiction?”
“Never.”

And there is the crux of my problem, and the reason why Hubby had about twice as many “To Be Donated” boxes filled with books than I did. I have so many romance novels and I LOVE to go back and visit with characters again. I don’t care if I know what happens. I don’t care if I know who the villain is, even though the first time I might have read the story I couldn’t tell at all until the very last page. If I love a romance novel, I want to go back and experience that thrill of good storytelling, that clever way of describing the attraction, the words used to describe the first kiss. I like to go back and immerse myself in the book, spend more time with characters I feel like I already know, visit for awhile and save the book to come back to later. Good writing never gets old, even when I know what happens to the hero and the heroine, even when I know how they earn their happily ever after. Choosing which books I would let go of was like erasing the old phone number of my sixth grade best friend who I haven’t spoken to since I was 17. It was hard.

Some of my book decisions were easy: I tossed the ones I never reread into the donation box. But deciding to break up a trilogy or a series, when I liked the first book but found the others lacking? That was difficult. Would I miss seeing the happy characters from book one passing by in later novels?

In the end, I broke up sets of books with recurring characters, keeping only the closest of friends, and only those books I’ve visited with again and again. So far I haven’t missed any of the books I’ve donated to the library, but if I go looking for a book that now resides elsewhere, at least I know I can go visit my old friends at the library. Or buy another copy – but not until after I move!

So how would you sort through your bookshelf, if you wanted to thin out the collection? How hard would it be for you to say goodbye to some books, but not others? And would you end up recollecting those same books at a later date?

Okay, now that we all know I’m still stuck in the 80s music-wise, let’s talk about books.

Books. I love them. I love the smell of a bookstore, the feel of paper in my hands, the excitement of cracking open a new cover for the first time and getting caught up in a brand-new story that hits me with the force of a right hook.

Go on, I think as I open it up. Hit me. Give it your all, I can take the punch.

Some books start out kind of slowly, circling and testing, drawing me in before delivering the knockout blow. And some of them just come out swinging. I don’t have a preference. Variety is fine with me. I just want a story to knock me on my ass.

I’m pretty good at picking winners, too. It’s not often that a book comes home with me (or downloads from my electronic shopping cart, when it comes to e-books) that proves I made a poor choice. And this isn’t because I don’t read many books. I can’t even calculate the number of books I’ve read over the last year, let alone my lifetime. And yet, time and again, I get the body blow I’m looking for. I get a story that packs a wallop.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I keep coming across things that say so many people seem to be so disappointed so often in their reading. Authors complaining that they can’t enjoy it anymore. Readers complaining that books don’t move them. And I wonder, why is their experience so different from mine?

Oh, sure, I’ve picked a dud or two. It happens. But it’s rare. Even my “why not try this author” ventures into the complete unknown have paid off big-time. P.G. Wodehouse. Julia Quinn. Terry Pratchett. Lois McMaster Bujold. L.M. Montgomery. Sharyn McCrumb. All authors read for the first time at random, because I liked the look of a particular book. All of them knocked me flat. And as soon as I staggered back up onto my feet, I ran right out to get more.

Okay, well, what about e-books? Yep, them too. Read Shelby Reed for the first time this weekend. She sucker-punched me. NJ Walters. Diane Whiteside. Cricket Starr. Chris Tanglen. I could go on and on. I have around 20 e-books on my handheld as I type and every one of them was a new to me author. (Until, of course, I grabbed more.) Not one of them failed to move me. Every one of them delivered a story that floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.

I’m sure there are bad books out there. I don’t question that. But where? Because I’m not finding them. I’m not buying them. I’m not reading them. I’m reading books that consistently hit me hard.

Are my standards low? I don’t think so. I find a writer I like and they turn out to be NYT bestsellers, Hugo award winners, Rita winners, EPPIE winners. Not that I knew that when I picked the book. I had no idea. I just liked the story I saw and wanted to read it.

What about the rules? Don’t I find the rules getting in the way of my reading pleasure? Hmm, yeah, the rules. I have one rule: hit me with your best shot. Go on. I can take it.

Wanna know exactly how many 2005 books I’ve read this year?

I can tell you: exactly 6 out of 128 books read since January.

Wanna know whether I’m more into historicals or contemporaries?

I can tell you that, too: last year I read more historicals, but so far this year, I’ve been reading more contemporaries, so it looks like my tastes are shifting.

I can also tell you that I’ve already tried 22 new-to-me authors in 2005 (of which 14 were successes –that is, I graded their books over B-), and the exact reasons why I loved Kathleen Gilles Seidel’s Again, last read in 2001, and even that I’ve read 3 books with heroes named Jared this year, while I read only one in 2004.

My trusty spreadsheet book journal lets me have all kinds of data at my fingertips, useless and otherwise.

I first started keeping my journal back in 2001. I kept wanting to vote in the anual reader poll at All About Romance, but by the end of each year, I could barely remember which books I’d read the month before, let alone when a book I’d read the previous January had been published and whether the hero would qualify as “tortured” or the heroine as “feisty”.

I started simple, just a spreadsheet in which I wrote some basic facts about each book I started (stuff like title, author, year first published, genre and whether it was a reread), plus my grade for it and a couple of short comments about what I’d liked and disliked.

But I’m a geek, so I couldn’t resist playing with it and adding more and more bells and whistles (and filters and dynamic charts).

Among other things, my formerly modest spreadsheet now automatically plots graphs showing percentage of rereads over total reads for each month and calculates the average grade of books read in each genre. And what used to be 2 or 3 line comments have evolved into a blog.

I must confess sometimes it feels like all this stuff I do around the books I read is a little too much. What should be something I do solely for pleasure, sometimes feels a bit like… work, I guess.

Most of the actual basic entry in the spreadsheet is not a problem. It takes no more than a minute, and doesn’t even require me to think very hard. So if any of you are thinking that starting your own reading journal might be a good idea, don’t let me discourage you.

The grade, the comments, and even deciding which genre or subgenre a book belongs in, however, can be a bit harder.

Books that blur genres can give me headaches when it comes to fill in the “Genre” field in my spreadsheet. And at times, I catch myself right in the middle of a book thinking “Wow, I can’t believe the heroine did this! That’s half a grade extra, at least!”, or noting down an impression I want to remember to include in my comments.

But my doubts don’t usually last long. It’s not just that I love being able to refer to my spreadsheets to answer with 100% certainty such burning questions as whether I’ve really been finding fewer and fewer Medievals that interest me every year. I also love the actual process of thinking critically about the book I’ve just finished and sorting out what worked for me and what didn’t.

And of course, my English has gotten better and better since I started writing regularly, so when I find myself spending way too long on my comments, I can always rationalize it as “practise” and not feel like I’m wasting my time!

I’m teaching a course in Gothic literature, and it’s reminded me of a historical perspective on genre fiction, particularly romance.

The Gothic started its life in the late 18th century with a series of popular novels, often written by women. Their readership was largely female. They were the best-sellers of their time, in some cases hugely lucrative to their authors. Their entire purpose, of course, was to arouse emotion in the reader.

Sound familiar?

I’m going to quote two critics, one of the Gothic, one of romantic fiction. You’ll notice a difference in their language style; I wonder if you can notice any difference in their attitude.

[These novels are] liable to produce mischievous effects…some of them frequently create a susceptibility of impression and a premature warmth of tender emotions, which, not to speak of other possible effects, have been known to betray women into a sudden attachment to persons unworthy of their affection, and thus to hurry them into marriages terminating in their unhappiness…

In the US, romance is a multi-million dollar industry, churning out repetitive plots and stereotyped characters, the heroine usually an over-idealised “place-holder” for the reader. The heroine and hero always hate each other at first, but there is always a happy ending. However “feisty” (ghastly word), the heroine always succumbs to an “alpha male”…These books are extremely popular: some readers get through over 100 a year. But they all sell the same myth: that, however strong and spirited she may seem, a woman cannot lead a happy and fulfilled life without a man. Sexism is undoubtedly a problem in the genre…

The first one was written in the Scots Magazine in 1797 by an anonymous critic; the second was a letter to the national British newspaper The Guardian on 16 April, 2005 by Dr MM Gilchrist. The first writer, of course, didn’t have the vocabulary of feminism at his disposal, and would see “sexism” as the right and proper order of things. The second writer would be laughed at for supposing modern women would throw themselves into the first marriage that came along just because they were turned on by sexy books.

But two hundred years and major social movements aside, these two critics are saying exactly the same thing: THESE BOOKS ARE DANGEROUS. They are going to tempt women (who obviously don’t know any better) into lives that are wrong. They are going to excite unacceptable sexual urges. They are going to make women believe in fantasy instead of reality.

Two hundred years later, Gothic novels have become a subject of academic intention, part of the canon of English literature. Guess they weren’t so harmful after all. What about romance?