A recent online discussion has given me a lot of food for thought on the topic of what it means to love romance.
It seems there are those who have the opinion that if you love romance, you must love ALL romances. Anything less is disloyal. To your genre, your fellow authors, even your publishers. Which made me wander off and say, “hmmm.”
I love romances. I’ve been reading them for years, although to be fair my first love will always be science fiction. I was hooked on Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Madeleine L’Engle before I stumbled onto Victoria Holt, the myriad authors of Harlequin Presents, and Barbara Cartland. (Yes, I read many a book with a young, blond, blue-eyed heroine with a heart-shaped face who talked…like…this…and I loved them.)
Which means there’s room in my heart to love more than one genre, room in my bookshelves, although not in my living room now that the bookcases have been fruitful and multiplied, and room on my bedside table, nearly invisible beneath the tower of reading material, for every romance subgenre under the sun and even some non-fiction.
But while I love many books in many genres and subgenres by many authors, I do not love them all. I do not love every book my own publishers produce, let alone every book produced by every publisher on the planet. Why?
Because romance is bigger than me. Publishing is bigger than me. My publishers do not cater solely to my tastes and preferences, and if they did it would be a terrible business decision and a cruel thing to do to all the readers who love books that aren’t my cup of tea. Besides, there’s a limit to how many books I can read, let alone buy.
This doesn’t make me disloyal to the genre, my fellow authors, or my publishers. This makes me one individual. The beauty of this genre is in the diversity, if you ask me. There is something for everybody in romance. You can find settings from historical to contemporary to futuristic. You can find fantasy settings and romance in a small town. You can find sweet, dark, light, angsty, laugh-out-loud funny, action-packed, over the top or understated, sex scenes with more props than a movie set or sex scenes that employ the literary equivalent of panning the camera off to show the waves crashing on the shore.
No one reader is going to love ALL of those books. No one reader will find every book by any publisher to their taste. No one reader will even find all the books in their favorite subgenre or category line to their taste, or rate them all good enough for a spot on the Keeper Shelf which is threatening to collapse from the weight of the great books published in months and years past.
I love this genre. But that doesn’t mean I can or should love every book in every subgenre and I don’t expect it to be true of any other reader and lover of romance fiction, either.
Romance is big. Publishing is big. The world is a big place and one of the wonderful things about books is that reading one can make our world a little bit bigger by enlarging our point of view or frame of reference.
I don’t want to see romance grow smaller to suit only me and my tastes. I value the breadth and depth of the diversity romance fiction has to offer.
And one is not obliged to “love” every single book a favourite author produces either.
by Bernita May 9th, 2007 at 7:22 amOne is not even obliged to TRY every single book a favorite author produces. I have every paranormal ever penned by a certain author. She also writes historicals, which I haven’t touched. Now, I presume those other books are written with the same wry humor and may even be action-packed and chair-melting HAWT, but to me, historical = bleh, so I’ll pass.
Romance novels are as diverse as the women who read them. I don’t expect every woman to share my taste in reading material any more than I expect every woman to decorate her house the same way or cook the same way or be attracted to the same men. I think the romance genre does just fine with “something for everybody,” and aspiring to “everything for everybody” is just ridiculous.
by Kerry Allen May 9th, 2007 at 10:36 amI like to write romances, but I honestly think I read more fantasy than any other fiction type these days. Of course, there’s romance in them there fantasies!
I will never (okay, never say never) love the “Greek tycoon” or “secret baby” type books, never have. But I am glad someone does and enjoys them…
by Ciar Cullen May 9th, 2007 at 11:50 amheh heh, Ciar, more Greek tycoons for me.
Kerry, you’re right, something for everybody works just fine.
Bernita, there are authors I love but I’ve skipped a book or two because of subject matter I knew would bother me.
I’ll try to check back in later, got up this morning to a red light on the DSL and I’m checking in from a free wireless cafe. So if I don’t respond, that would be why!
by Charlene Teglia May 9th, 2007 at 12:09 pmI have every paranormal ever penned by a certain author. She also writes historicals, which I haven’t touched . . . to me, historical = bleh, so I’ll pass.
LOL! And to me, paranormal = bleh, so I pass on the ones Kerry snaps up. Which pretty much proves Charlene’s point.
by Kalen Hughes May 9th, 2007 at 12:11 pmKalen, between you and Kerry you’ve got both sides covered.
Internet is back up and running, woohoo!
by Charlene Teglia May 9th, 2007 at 1:30 pm[...] Charlene Teglia says “I can Love Romance without Loving ALL Romances.” You go, Charlene! [...]
by Wednesday Web Wanderer « Milady Insanity May 9th, 2007 at 1:31 pm[...] I’m at RTB today, stop by! [...]
by Writers Blog » Blog Archive » Website progress and RTB day May 9th, 2007 at 1:34 pmLet me get this straight. Someone thinks that if I don’t love any book that has “romance” on the spine, or I’m supposing at least keep my mouth shut about it, I’m disloyal??
Excuse me, but screw that. I will defend romance as a genre, and the right of anyone to write, publish and read any romance they can think of, but I don’t have to LOVE anything. It’s a little characteristic called free will.
by Robyn May 9th, 2007 at 4:12 pmRobyn, I think this kind of thinking comes from the idea that romance is the red-headed stepchild of publishing and needs defending, so we should all stick together for the greater good. But really, when you consider that romance is 50% of all mass market paperbacks, anybody who thinks about it logically for a few minutes will see that nobody can love all those books, that even the most devoted reader is bound to loathe some of them. Not even Harriet Klausner can love that many books, although she tries.
by Charlene Teglia May 9th, 2007 at 5:10 pmI wholeheartedly agree! Good post.
by Kristen Painter May 9th, 2007 at 6:28 pmI don’t love all romances, and I don’t love all the books I do read, but you won’t see me trashing those books I don’t like on my blog or anywhere else. But I will shout to the rafters about books I do love.
by Vivi Anna May 9th, 2007 at 7:48 pmThanks, Kristen! Hooray for the smorgasboard of reading that is romance.
by Charlene Teglia May 9th, 2007 at 8:04 pmVivi, I rave about all the good books I’m reading, and I don’t rant about books I don’t like…because if it’s not to my taste, chances are I never picked it up to begin with. Or if I did, I didn’t read very far into it before I said, “Not for me,” put it down, and moved on. I don’t have enough reading time to spend it on a book that isn’t doing it for me.
by Charlene Teglia May 9th, 2007 at 8:06 pm