You are so wise, and everything you say really is good, sound advice. I always listen when I know someone knows what the heck they’re talking about.

Your comment on erotica is an awakening for me: I had said I thought there were no rules, but what I really meant was (and you pointed this out), it seems to be an extremely challenging genre to attempt. I really respect anyone who takes on the challenge; sadly, I honestly don’t think I have enough material from my own experience to even throw my hat in the ring (grins!). Seriously, erotica is a complex topic today: I’m waaaaaaay behind the times, I am sure. I haven’t read much of the genre: in comparison, I like the het and romance. Actually, I am crazy about the romance genre. The possibilities seems endless. Doesn’t it seem ironic to you that person who has endless synopses stored up to write romance doesn’t even have one idea for an erotica novel. You’ve definitely educated me a bit and, in addition, piqued my curiousity.

Is there a seminal novel (other than M. Bovary–just kiddin’) in the erotica genre that you recommend I read?

Epiphany: I just realized, Angie, that the reason I get turned off with many romance novels is that the flirting with erotica in many of the more hackneyed works, the “and she felt his throbbing member,” is a cheat. It’s not really erotic, nor is it romance, but some hybrid attempt at titillation that doesn’t work. Does this make sense?

I’m on a role, here.

Alexa

Anyway, I remember when I started writing, I had very strong ideas of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, and I resented anyone who told me I should follow the rules. I did a lot of writing which was completely unsaleable (to say nothing of various school papers which were marked down for one technicality or another) but the result was that I did a lot of boundary-pushing, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning for myself what works and what doesn’t.

I did have to learn the rules eventually — you can’t break a rule effectively until you know what it is, why it is, how it works and what it’s trying to accomplish — but I don’t consider my wild and unfettered thrashing around to be at all wasted. Looking back, I probably could have benefitted from someone who was willing to sit me down and explain some of the whys and hows of those rules; my teachers were more of the “Because it is” school of pedagogy, which didn’t go over too well with me, to say nothing of not actually teaching much of use. But I made it back on track anyway, despite my long and wandering detour through the underbrush, and I have a lot of experiences that people who followed the signs down the paved path are lacking.

I won’t say it’s made me a better writer than other people, but it’s made me my own writer, which I find satisfying.

If you don’t care for the rules, don’t follow them. Do your own thing, and find your own satisfaction in writing what you want to write. Learn by experiment for a while, rather than by studying How-To-Write books, or lists of DOs and DON’Ts. If you’re the kind of writer who feels confined by rules and boundaries, then you can probably benefit from a period of unfettered creativity. Most likely it’ll take you longer to get published going that route, but hacking your own path with a machete and compass has its satisfactions, and will give you some new and different skills, experiences and points of view.

About Erotica, it does have rules, but they’re different from the rules of romance, and they’re not as strict. (Frankly, I don’t know any genre where the rules are as strict as they are in Romance, on the het side. Maybe Mystery…?) The fences are set farther out, and there’s more elbow room. You’d need to do some research and find out what the rules are, but if it’s mainly the HEA that’s bugging you, Erotica might work for you.

Angie

That’s definitely one of my major issues with it too, assuming we’re talking about the same writer. Or even if we aren’t.

I think that’s part of the problem about cutting all your guys from the same pattern, though. Since they all strive for the same goals, value the same achievements, favor the same characteristics, it’s tough to explain how each guy in his own book is the biggest/baddest/best. Especially when you go on for like 15+ books.

In contrast, I think Jo Beverley does a great job with her long-running Company of Rogues series. The guys are all friends, but they’re different, so it doesn’t matter that they’re not all dukes or princes, or that one has more political influence than all the others, or that one is sneakier, or that one is a better soldier-type, or whatever. Her guys are individuals and they all stand out in their own way, by their own standards. She can keep writing Rogues books forever (and I hope she does!) without having to create more and more ridiculously overpowered uber-dudes.

Angie

I am so sure I know the author and series you are speaking of. And I made the mistake of reading her first through 14th book in a 6 month period. I didn’t notice the same ‘growth’ in the heroine until later in the series, but I certainly noticed the men were all stamped from the same mold fairly quickly.

However, I enjoy the stories, they move really quickly, and I like learning how she’s working out her larger story arc.

The thing that I think this author did wrong right from the beginning though was to make each hero bigger and badder than the one before.

It can work for maybe three consecutive stories, but after that, I wind up doing a lot of mental eye rolling because that 4th guy can’t really be the baddest ass-kicker around, that title belongs to hero number 2. Oh hold on, hero number 10 is the most ass-kickingest ass-kicker on the whole continent? But… what if hero number 8 visits? Who’s gonna win that throw down? http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif

In writing her heroes as the all-knowing, all-powerful protector of their heroines, she hasn’t given them the necessary flaws that keep them relatable and allow them room to grow within the relationship.

But, you know, I’m gonna keep reading her. I enjoy that series way more than I enjoy her other series. It’s her cash cow, and I keep returning for the milk.

If you’re a writer, the trick is to be creative in your folding, spindling and mutilating of the genre requirements so you’re doing something new and different (and not just one kind of new and different either, but something different for each book) without fatally breaking the rules such that you can’t get published at all.

The writer I was talking about had something fairly new and different, and some nice worldbuilding details and all, but she took that new-and-different and turned it into a rubber stamp. She was making a ton of money at it, and still is for all I know, but that might be the problem — maybe she (or her agent or publisher) are afraid that if she stops stamping out those identical cookies, they’ll lose some significant chunk of the fans and their income. Like I said to Susan above, the Golden Handcuffs can really stink. :/

Angie

Part of what I like is variety, so I usually try not to read similar authors or plots right after one after to avoid that disappointment. I often consider it my own fault when I oversaturate with one type of reading. But as you point out, it’s a genre, and one I like–it’s pointless to try to entirely avoid similarities.

Willaful — in my case, I was enjoying the sameness until the other day. [wry smile] I think if my only complaint had been that the books were all alike, I could do that too; spacing them out to one every couple of years or so would’ve worked fine. Not liking what she’s doing anymore, though, means that just spacing it out probably won’t work.

It’s like, I love See’s milk chocolate Bordeaux. If my husband gives me a pound or two of them once every year or two, that works fine. By the time I’m done with the box, I’m ready to leave them alone for a while. I strongly dislike marshmallow, though, so if he gave me marshmallow cremes, there’s no interval long enough to make me look forward to getting them. [shudder] Luckily he knows better than to get me anything with marshmallow. ;D

Leah — I agree that “doormat” is a pretty good word there. :/ I’ve seen writers do a good job with that sort of female, and create the story such that there was a point where the man needed the woman’s quiet, emotional strength and would’ve been in a bad way without her there to support him. AND the male character acknowledged his own need, and how she’d helped him.

Too often, though, what the woman seems to “learn” over the course of the story is that she needs to give up her own plans and goals, and surrender her desire to be self-reliant, and completely lean on the man and trust him to take care of her in all ways. While he learns, I don’t know, something about how you have to be firm and persistent with a fiesty woman or some similar piece of whatever, which makes me want to smack both the guy and the writer who created him. Noting of course that even a few of these are “too often” in my view.

Kat — it can be hard to let go of an old favorite, definitely. [nod] I fell out of love with Johanna Lindsay that way, slowly over time, wishing over the course of ten or so books that she’d learn, grow, do something new. She never did, though, and after I finally steeled myself to not buy her next book (which was somewhere in the eighties) I never went back. She might well have learned some new tricks by now (I think she’s still writing) but unless someone whose opinion I trust completely recommends some of her newer work, I won’t try it again.

Qupid — I still mean to see Australia, mainly because I’m a Hugh Jackman fan. The reviews were disheartening, but we’ll get it from Netflix and if it does turn out to be a disappointment, at least we won’t be out $20 in movie tickets.

And yes, I’m sure the difference is me. [nod] The author certainly hasn’t changed any since her previous book, or even since the first few my mom lent me. And yes again, there are definitely enough good books out there to keep me busy, and then some!

Angie