I decided to look at the New York Times’ coverage of romance for some answers. (FWIW, I did the same search on USA today and found basically the same coverage). I have no big thesis, just a lot of quotes and random observations.
I enjoyed this little trip through time. I hope you do too.
A 1982 article on the genre’s growth, and on the Romantic Times and RWA conferences, is very respectful and neutral on readers. (OT: This article raises questions about the commonly accepted notion that romance coverage is improving all the time.)
In this article, the journalist speaks for readers, for example:
Now there’s something for every kind of reader, from the teen-ager to the woman who uses a walker, from the high-school dropout to the Ph.D. Both Harlequin and Silhouette are starting lines to provide longer reads and a more sophisticated treatment of sexual encounters.
In a 1987 review of the documentary on the romance industry Where the Heart Roams, Vincent Canby refers to romance novels as “paperback junk”. To our great misfortune, and his, Mr. Canby speaks if not for, at least about, us:
Mr. Cicsery doesn’t make fun of the women – he doesn’t have to. That’s the sad part. It’s ineffable because the sight of so many people devoting themselves so earnestly to such easily parodied wish-fulfillment leaves one nearly speechless.
This review hands down the nastiest thing I have ever read about the genre. Don’t click on the link unless you want to get annoyed.
A 1996 article in the NYT (in the NY Region section, not in books) entitled “Swooning Women, Bare Chested Men: A Magazine for Romance Novels and the Women Who Love Them“. It profiles Romantic Times founder (and Fabio discoverer) Kathryn Falk.
Others who speak for readers in this article are an Avon editor (who says romance readers are “voracious”, a word used in nearly every article I read for this blog entry. I’m thinking there’s some unconscious association there with “sexually insatiable”), the CEO of Kensington, two RWA communications directors (one former and one then current):
”One faction would like romance to be respected as women’s fiction,” said Maria Ferrer, former communications director for Romance Writers of America, an organization of 8,000 writers and aspiring writers.
The other faction?
”Well, they have the bodice-ripping covers, the Fabio covers, the pageants for cover models.”
In other words, they have Ms. Falk: a discoverer of the model Fabio, founder of male cover-model beauty pageants, in which muscular men pose in abbreviated Viking or pirate or cowboy costumes in front of hundreds of hooting women. ”I hate to use the word degrading, but it’s all I can think of right now,” said Catherine Carpenter, communications director for the writers’ group.
[OT, but Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes make the exact same "2 camps" comment in a 2009 article in USA today on the Princeton Romance Conference]
Here’s another interesting quote:
”The writing in some will knock your socks off,” said Helen Holzer, who reviews romances for The Atlanta Constitution, one of several mainstream publications now reviewing romance fiction.
[Note: It doesn't appear to me that they ever reviewed much romance. And the AJC fired its book review editor in 2007.]
In a 1999 article covering that year’s RWA entitles “Romance Novelists: Profits without Honor“, readers are not represented except through authors and editors, but it is another example of a respectful article (with the exception of the use of the word “cattiness” to describe the air of desperation among aspiring authors at RWA.)
There was even one seminar called ”Defending the Genre,” in which the novelist Valerie Taylor listed the most frequently heard insults of the genre: it’s anti-feminist, it presents too many woman as needing to escape abusive relationships, all the books are the same, it’s just pornography for women, it’s unrealistic, it’s fluff, and it can’t be serious if half the population doesn’t care about it. She offered advice on how to respond. For instance, for insulters who read literary fiction, she advised her listeners, ”Give them well-written books that deal with slightly darker things.”
The overall point was that the romance genre is large and various, its pulpiness and sugar-coating offered in a range of doses, its plots and settings vastly differentiable, its sentences not necessarily execrable. Not unlike, say, science fiction, horror fiction or mysteries, all of which have well-known practitioners whose work is often treated with seriousness by readers and reviewers
A bit OT, but I found Jennifer Crusie’s remarks so interesting I had to include them:
Genre fiction, she said, is defined by reader expectations.
”In literary fiction, the expectation is for the language,” she said, ”but if you are a genre reader you will put up with a lot of bad writing if you are interested in the plot and the characters. The primary thing I have to accomplish on the page is character, and I will sacrifice language for it.”
Another difference is that ”literary fiction looks ahead” and ”genre fiction tells us what everyone was thinking five minutes ago. We’re reactive. We don’t challenge as much. In my last book, I challenged the assumption that a woman should lead her life for the expectations of other people. Well, that’s kind of a ‘duh.’ ”
Ms. Crusie does despair that commerce drives romance writers to minimize their artistic impulses. What, after all, to make of a seminar that urges writers to deepen their characterizations by learning more about the eight female archetypes? (For the uninformed, they are: the nurturer, the crusader, the librarian, the waif, the free spirit, the spunky kid, the survivor and the boss.)
In an August 2001 article called, “Forecasts of an E-Book Era Were, It Seems, Premature“, romance is again linked to the ebook revolution:
Janice Goodfellow, a 47-year-old former office manager who lives in rural Michigan, usually devours about a half-dozen paperback thrillers and romance novels a week. But her home is about 15 miles from the nearest bookstore, in Novi, Mich. She heard about electronic books from a romance readers Web site. So on a snowy winter’s night a year ago she tried downloading a novel from a site, and she liked it.
“I’m lazy and sometimes I don’t want to drive,” Ms. Goodfellow said. In the last year, she has read about 20 electronic books sitting at her desktop computer. “I’d buy all my books this way if they were available from major publishers and they weren’t expensive.”
But Ms. Goodfellow has not yet bought any from the major publishers because they usually charge more than $15 ? generally asking more for the electronic book than the paperback.
Instead, she buys her electronic novels from a tiny start-up called Hard Shell Word Factory for about $3 to $6 each. She buys them for the same reasons she usually buys paperbacks instead of hardcovers: they are cheap, she can buy several at once, and she can throw them away when she is done. “Even if you buy a novel you are not loving, it is just three bucks,” she said.
In yet another RWA article, this one from 2003, several readers are quoted. Some examples:
”[Suzanne Brockmann] is a wonderful author,” said Danielle Hessel, a keeper at the Bronx Zoo who lives in Westchester. ”She does a lot of research, and it shows.”
Jill Land, who lives in Manhattan, pronounced Ms. Brockmann ”awesome” and blushed when asked about the sex scenes in her novels. ”She had a really outrageous one in her second book,” Ms. Land whispered. ”It had to do with chocolate and handcuffs.”
Tatia Totorica, a calculus teacher and mother of three from Boise, Idaho, bought 12 books to add to her collection, already over 1,000. ”My husband doesn’t like them,” Ms. Totorica said, ”but he’s supportive.”
”Harvard’s Education,” which follows the lives of an African-American couple, helped earn Ms. Brockmann a loyal black following. ”I couldn’t believe she wasn’t black,” said Lynette Holder, an African-American lab technologist from Brooklyn, who stood in line for nearly an hour to meet Ms. Brockmann.
In a 2004 article that predicts a “slow death” for Harlequin and romance in general (ROTFLMAO!), “‘Sorry, Harlequin,’ She Sighed Tenderly, ‘I’m Reading Something Else‘”.
Many readers say they are seldom wed to a single genre or publisher. Anne Curtis, a Manhattan resident who said she had been reading romance fiction for more than 20 years, looks for a new book not on the Harlequin racks but throughout the romance shelves.
”Sometimes it can be a mystery, others a straight romance,” she said, but the story is always more important than the publisher. When she chooses an author, she said, it is often a former Harlequin author, like Janet Dailey or Nora Roberts.
Here’s an article on ebooks in the technology/books section from the ancient days of 2004, which highlights the importance of romance readers to the then emerging technology:
Both Cargill and Compson represent another surprising shift in the e-book market. Retailers say that the market, which used to be dominated by computer-savvy male readers of science fiction, has expanded in the past year or two to include a growing number of female readers. And while science fiction remains a top seller, female romance readers now compose one of the fastest-growing markets for digital books, perhaps because many are voracious readers who race through all the sequels in a series.
One such reader is Rebecca Kroll of Scotch Plains, N.J., a live-in caretaker for an autistic teenager, who says she burns through three or four books a day and purchases 50 to 100 a week, an expensive habit that she says costs her up to $400 weekly. ”Storage is a big issue with me,” Kroll says. Before she discovered e-books a little over a year ago, 12,000 books crammed her apartment from floor to ceiling, leaving her desperate for more shelf space. Although Kroll says she was initially ill at ease with computers, she now does most of her reading on a laptop and stores thousands of romance and science fiction fantasy novels on two computer disks. Another advantage of the laptop, she says, is that it permits her to listen to e-books that are formatted with a text-to-speech option while she’s cooking or knitting.
Kroll also likes the relative anonymity of purchasing e-books from Web sites that specialize in female-oriented erotica, some of them available only in electronic form. ”It’s a lot nicer, especially if you’re embarrassed to go into a bookstore,” she says.
In a 2004 article in the Circuits section, a librarian is quoted on the subject of digitizing the collection.
E-books’ short history has already begun to yield some lessons. At the Cleveland Public Library, Patricia Lowrey, head of technical services, thought technical manuals and business guides would be in greatest demand.
“We were dead wrong on that,” Ms. Lowrey said. “There are a lot of closet romance readers in cyberspace.”
A 2004 article on ebooks called An Idea Whose Time Has Come Back:
When heading for the doctor’s office, Janet Cargill, a 75-year-old retiree in Westbrook, Me., loads several romance novels into her hand-held Garmin G.P.S., or global positioning system, which she also relies on to give her voice-activated driving directions.
In her 2005 Op-Ed with which I am sure most readers are familiar, Mary Bly (Eloisa James) speaks for readers, both criticizing them for eschewing literary fiction, and defending their reading tastes via defending the genre.
In a 2007 story on the Harleqin/NASCAR teamup in the Books section (imagine that!) , reps from Borders, Harlequin, and Kensington, as well as a PR guy from NASCAR, speak for readers. (Perhaps not shockingly, Kate Duffy from Kensington — who passed away this year — was skeptical of the venture, while the HQN and NASCAR folks were very optimistic).
This 2007 article in the Your Money section on how to make a bestseller is the first time I see bloggers mentioned:
The hunt for the key has been much more extensive in other industries, which have made a point of using new technology to gain a better understanding of their customers. Television stations have created online forums for viewers and may use the information there to make programming decisions. Game developers solicit input from users through virtual communities over the Internet. Airlines and hotels have developed increasingly sophisticated databases of customers.
Publishers, by contrast, put up Web sites where, in some cases, readers can sign up for announcements of new titles. But information rarely flows the other way — from readers back to the editors.
“We need much more of a direct relationship with our readers,” said Susan Rabiner, an agent and a former editorial director. Bloggers have a much more interactive relationship with their readers than publishers do, she said. “Before Amazon, we didn’t even know what people thought of the books,” she said.
Although the romance industry is often criticized for not paying better attention to readers on issues such as cover art and diversity, apparently we’d be even worse off with other publishers, who do even less market research:
An exception is the consumer research gathered by the Romance Writers of America, a writers’ association that publishes a regular market study of romance readers. It reports survey information on, for example, demographics, what respondents are reading, where they are getting the books and how often, and what kind of covers attract them. Romance authors and publicists use the information to create promotional campaigns.
Bloggers and academics are the two big additions to the group of those who speak for readers in the past 3 years, although bloggers tend to speak more authoritatively and directly for readers than academics. So, for example, on the slew of articles over the past 18 months on romance novels as recession proof, you have comments like this one:
“Given the general dismay and gloominess,” said … an avid romance reader who runs a book blog under the pseudonym Jane Litte at dearauthor.com, “reading something like a romance with a happy ending is really kind of a relief.”
Litte’s comment is alongside the usual crew: book buyers, publishers, librarians, etc.
And, what’s this? Someone actually passed by an opportunity to use the word “voracious”??? Yup, this is from the article author: “Romance readers have always tended to buy in much higher volumes than people who read other genres like literary fiction.”
[OT, I felt very conflicted about the spate of articles on romance being "recession proof." They often included claims to the effect that people read more romances when times are bad. I never felt I was given any evidence for that claim, and it fed into the idea that people only read romance for escape -- like, if your life was going well, you wouldn't be reading this shit.]
There are two broad categories of academic participation in romance news articles: (1) the social scientist trying to figure out why women read them, and, (2) a newer phenomenon, the literature professor talking about romance novels as … wait for it … literature. Coverage of the Princeton Romance Conference earlier this year featured the latter group, whereas the this week’s LA Times article on m/m romance featured the former.
This bit is typical for the LA Times piece:
Why are straight women turned on by watching two men having sex?
“Why not?” counters UC Santa Barbara’s Professor Constance Penley. “That’s really the question. Would you ask men why are they so turned on by two women together? We take it for granted that guys love their girl-on-girl. Why shouldn’t women have an appreciation for guy-on-guy? It is as deep-seated a fantasy as the male fantasy of putting two women together.”
Here’s a New York Post article with another blogger, Sarah Wendell, who did a lot of press promoting her book (co-authored with Candy Tan), Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches Guide to Romance novels
It’s not your Aunt Suzie who can’t miss “her stories.” These are smart – and often feminist – women. Like superfan Wendell, who is emceeing the next Lady Jane’s Salon on April 6 at Madame X.
“There’s always a rock-hard chest,” she concedes. “These men are manly. And there are times when the heroine might throb. And, you know, heat will flood. Things like that.”
Here’s Alison Kelley, Executive Director of RWA:
According to Allison Kelley, executive director of Romance Writers of America, “If you ask readers of romance why they read it, they all say the happy ending.”
Thanks probably to a number of things — the popularity of their blogs, Litte’s special knowledge of epublishing, Wendell and Tan’s book coming out in 2009 — they have done the lion’s share of readers speaking for readers in the past year or so. There are a few really good things about this. The first is that the major news outlets are writing about romance at other times of the year than when a big romance conference is held. Conference attendees provided the bulk of reader perspective prior to the late 1990s The second is that, like any true fan, they know what they are talking about. The third is that they are unlike the stereotypical image of the romance reader.
Just recently, a CNN.com story on vampire romance included a quote from Sandy Coleman of AAR:
Coleman said there is no longer a stigma about being a romance fan. Her site has been online for 11 years and has about 360,000 visitors a month, she said.
The site is often a place where intelligent women come to discuss their favorite romance novels, Coleman said.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about when it comes to reading romance anymore,” Coleman said.
I was glad to see Coleman quoted, and would like to see even more bloggers in the mix, as well as different readers, not just the gals at the RT convention, and not just the bloggers, but all kinds. I don’t agree with Coleman 100% (I still think there is a stigma, although it is lessening), or Wendell (her recent Huff Post article defending the genre, while terrific in other respects, included a line “Books that rest the conflict of the relationship upon sexual congress are not romance” with which I disagree, and I already gave an example of a Litte quote about romance and recession I don’t endorse. But it’s our differences that give lie to the stereotypes and I’m glad for them, because they give us so much to talk about here in Romanceland.
I looked to see who was speaking for other genres, such as sci fi and mystery, and I found basically nothing, which reflects, I think the different kind of coverage those genres get, and the sense that romance is the most market driven and least “literature-like” of the genres. In some ways, I think even asking one person for a quote about “what romance readers want” is slightly problematic as it reflects the idea, on some level, that we are all alike, and it also tends to feed into the notion that NOT reading romance is the default normal position, such that reading it needs “explanation”. The readers quoted above from the conventions were speaking for themselves only (although the journalists probably meant them to represent other readers, so maybe there’s no getting around the problem). I would just love it if a journalist would quote an opposing reader viewpoint — to get that diversity within the article itself.
More and more, I see recognition that the genre itself is diverse, and, although a bit more slowly, the same recognition that its readership is similarly diverse.
Whew this is a long post. I’d better stop now. Hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour!
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#1 by Magdalen on December 18, 2009 - 5:42 pm
Wow — what a great haul. Thanks for doing all that work.
I’m reminded of something I read once about Family Circle magazine. (Or a similar magazine, e.g., Women’s Day.) The question arose of why there’s often a luscious cake or confection on the cover (with the implication the recipe was in the magazine) when obesity is such a problem for so many of their readers, and readers’ families. The editor admitted that when they did a study — the same magazine with two covers, a floral arrangement on one and a cake on the other — the food covers always outsold the less fattening floral covers.
Is that why Fabio (whom I don’t find attractive) had to be on so many covers? And because more readers buy the book with the muscle-bound model on the cover, does that really suggest that there are two camps?
I worry about this, mostly because there may be two camps — or more than two — with the larger camp(s) composed of those readers who want quick reads, escapist stories, tacky covers, and thinly veiled sex-as-romance. Someone’s buying those books. And possibly not buying authors like Lynn Kerstan (just to name one) who was two books through a trilogy when the publisher pulled the plug. What? Some of her words were too long?
I really don’t want to be in the minority on this one. I want to think all romance readers are as smart, funny, educated, and discerning as everyone reading this blog. And as the woman who writes it, of course.
#2 by AnimeJune on December 18, 2009 - 5:43 pm
I’m honestly saddened the most by Jennifer Crusie’s comments about genre expectations. I know they’re interesting, and in many cases true, but not for me – I, for one, prefer excellent, creative, and lyrical language in my romances. While certain writers can carry me away even if they use conventional language (Lisa Kleypas), I nearly always prefer romance writers who experiment and craft with language as well as character – Julie Anne Long, Courtney Milan, Laura Kinsale.
However – lyrical prose in romance is in the definite minority. Am I expecting too much of romance? Need I look to literary fiction? I admit I sometimes feel this way when I read yet another romance that reads just like every other, or when I find myself disliking a novel with a generally good story because the writing is blunt, unimaginative, hyperbolic, or passive (such as Nalini Singh).
#3 by AQ on December 18, 2009 - 5:46 pm
Wow. Great post. I need to read it again and click through the links.
Thanks!
#4 by Ann Somerville on December 18, 2009 - 5:54 pm
Grrrr. That sums up why that article pissed me off so much. ‘Fake’ lesbian porn is the ultimate objectification. Almost all the m/m I’ve read – even the rubbish – is nothing of the sort. It might not have much else to recommend it, but even the worst m/m pretends to have some interest in the characters as *people*, which porn just doesn’t.
If you’re frustrated at who speaks for romance readers, spare a thought for gay romance readers and writers like me. Every time m/m is mentioned, the same names (ex-Torquere alumni) and same attitudes are trotted out, and they never, ever touch on why I read it or write it. It’s always about the titillation, the sniggering, the alleged transgressiveness of it all – in fact, all the reasons I feel *guilty* for being involved in the genre at all. I’ve yet to see a single article about m/m that didn’t leave me ashamed and squirming with embarrassment.
We need an equivalent of your blog or DA for m/m to have it written and taken seriously. Unfortunately, with the state of the genre right now, as I’ve publicly stated many times, no one will ever do so. [/rant]
#5 by Jessica on December 18, 2009 - 5:58 pm
@AnimeJune: Yeah, re: the Crusie comment… I had a reaction of “a ha!!” followed immediately by “oh no…”.
@Magdalen: Huh. I had never thought of the “cover camps” as being reflective of “content camps”. Interesting… I think many of us are in both camps depending on which day it is.
‘
#6 by Jessica on December 18, 2009 - 6:02 pm
@Ann Somerville: “If you’re frustrated at who speaks for romance readers,”
I am actually not frustrated, just interested. I see the evolution as positive over time.
there’s a lot to say about the LA times article. But I’ll just say here that I had never thought about having a big m/m blog with a more serious bent. Someone should start one…
and I hadn’t noticed until you commented that when I searched the NYT for “romance” I never got an m/m article. So thanks for that reminder that some subgenres have almost no one to speak for them.
#7 by limecello on December 18, 2009 - 6:06 pm
Gah – I know this is important but… cannot read it. The first few blips were ok, then worse and worse. One of the things sister said last time she visited and walked into my room was “Good Lord – you have more trashy romances than a New Jersey housewife!”
… and we all know how NJ is often the butt of jokes. Le sigh. I’ve become so tired of trying to defend myself – or just dealing with the blatant disdain I’ve given up. [Probably not the way to go about it, but one battle at a time.] Am still on the hunt to finding a book to make sister read. She liked “Bet Me” but now disparages it. Of course.
#8 by George Csicsery on December 18, 2009 - 6:35 pm
There was mention of Vincent Canby’s review of my 1987 film WHERE THE HEART ROAMS in the NYT. For anyone interested, the film is available on Netflix, or Amazon, or from Facets MultiMedia in DVD. For More about WHERE THE HEART ROAMS, see:
http://www.zalafilms.com/films/wheretheheartroams.html
#9 by katiebabs on December 18, 2009 - 7:25 pm
What a great round up of links! I think the future of bloggers is strong and will explode even more in the next coming years.
I also noticed that there are only a handful of bloggers, such as you Jessica, that is mainly dedicated to the romance genre.
Can’t wait to see what the future holds
#10 by Carolyn Crane on December 18, 2009 - 7:39 pm
This is an awesome piece of work! I really appreciate your putting this together and creating a whole picture-it’s helpful and interesting.
Also, I love that you challenge the recession proof thing – I always vaguely felt like I ought to be glad for those stories, because they showed how many people love romances, but you’re totally right about it making it seem like people just read them when their lives are crap. Yeah, the whole escapist notion…what is it?
Please read Vincent Canby’s analysis of my latest project here.
#11 by BevBB on December 18, 2009 - 8:47 pm
Can I just say that I hate you, Jessica?
Talk about bringing back some bad memories interspersed with some good ones true, but wow. Holy you now what. That was almost cathargic. I think I shall go lie down now and eat a bon-bon to recover. o.O
To be honest, I’m not even sure I know what a bon-bon is but I figure that’s still better than reliving some of those discussions.
Like female archetypes. Head desk.
#12 by Collette on December 18, 2009 - 10:46 pm
Thanks for this post. You’ve pulled together an interesting retrospective. I agree that although some perceptions about romance readers have changed, far more haven’t. When people ask me what I read and I tell them that I primarily read romance, I invariably get incredulous looks. Someone even once suggested that I was too smart for that. Really? That’s all you’ve got? (And no, I didn’t punch them although I did devise all sorts of delicious torture in my smart little head.)
I do get tired of defending romance books and suggesting that people read a few books of my suggestion before judging the whole genre. Can’t judge a book and all that. So far, no one has taken me up on it.
#13 by KristieJ on December 18, 2009 - 10:56 pm
Thanks for bring all these articles together. The one I couldn’t get into – had to sign up and I didn’t want to do that, but since it was the inflammatory one – that’s fine with me *g*.
It’s interesting about the two camps as I feel that there really is one – the camp who want romance to be taken seriously as a viable reading genre and the other camp who go gag a over taut muscles and six pack abs.
#14 by Janine on December 18, 2009 - 11:46 pm
@AnimeJune: Gotta say I agree with you about craftsmanship. I once did an opinion piece at Dear Author about my craving for lyrical language.
@BevBB: A bon bon is a chocolate truffle.
#15 by Tumperkin on December 19, 2009 - 5:02 am
Great post.
But can I ask a question? who are we speaking to? I don’t personally feel that there’s anyone I feel I want to convince about the worth of romance novels. I’m not evangelical about romance in the sense of urging my friends to try it. I don’t have a professional interest in raising its profile like, say Wendy SL. I like being part of this community – that gives me, I suppose, all the acknowledgement I need of the worth of my reading material and the opportunity to discuss it with others.
But then I’m not *out* as a voracious romance reader at work or indeed beyond my immediate family (and I’m certainly not out as an aspiring author to anyone in RL other than my husband) so maybe that reflects my views.
#16 by SarahT on December 19, 2009 - 7:26 am
Great post, Jessica.
Reading through your post, two things struck me. Firstly, the perception of romance readers hasn’t changed over the years, despite some recent positive media coverage. Secondly, it seems the media used to ask a wider range of romance readers for their opinions and now it has narrowed to just a couple of bloggers.
In the title of your post, you asked who spoke for romance readers. Speaking as one romance reader among many, I would say no one speaks FOR me, nor do I speak FOR anyone else.
As for Tumperkin’s excellent comment:
The sales of romance novels should speak for themselves. Romance is the most popular genre of fiction. I no longer care what anyone thinks of my choice of reading material. While I’m happy to recommend a good book to a friend, I’m not looking to “convert” anyone to the joys of romance.
In my not so humble opinion, some romance readers are overly sensitive and defensive. So what if others make fun of romance? Why do you care what they think? If they’re too prejudiced to give romance an honest try, that’s their problem.
Pingback: Blog Hopping: Demon Porn, Pondering, and Who Speaks for Romance?
#17 by Jessica on December 19, 2009 - 8:03 am
I’m not interested in defending the genre in this post. I should have resisted sticking in all those quotations: I could have written the same post without a single one, but I got carried away.
I’m more interested in the question of who represents us to mainstream media than in the question of how they do, and how that representation has changed over time (to include bloggers and literary scholars).
Let me boil it down to two points:
A. Millions of people read romance, and occasionally mainstream media will cover this.
Who does the NYT think it is appropriate to ask about romance readers?:
1. Publishers, booksellers, editors, authors
2. Librarians
3. Romance conference attendees
4. Random readers
5. Romance Bloggers
6. Academics: social scientists and literary scholars
B. My “research” (hah) suggests that mainstream media either doesn’t write articles about other genres per se, or doesn’t ask anyone to speak for readers in other genres. This may be because (a) it actually reviews the books in other genres, and writes about them as literature (in which case it doesn’t need to get the voice of readers: the reviewer is the reader), and/or (b) it doesn’t assume that readers of other genres are alike enough that one person can speak for them.
For me this was more a question of the structure of representation than the content.
#18 by SarahT on December 19, 2009 - 8:30 am
Sorry, Jessica. My use of “you” in my comment was directed at readers in general, not you in particular.
Great points.
In response to (a): given that reviews of romance novels are more or less restricted to Romantic Times and a few online venues, I’m surprised that the mainstream media is prepared to devote any coverage to romance novels.
Regarding (b): I think the media’s assumption that romance readers are a homogenous unit is analogous with the belief that all romance readers are uneducated and of low intelligence. If we’re too stupid to think, we’re incapable of forming an opinion which might not correspond to that of a fellow reader.
#19 by Jessica on December 19, 2009 - 9:10 am
Well, hellooooooooooo Google Alerts! I usually delete comments like this, but I find it pretty amusing that you would actually publicize your documentary, summarized by Vincent Canby thusly:
“”Where the Heart Roams” is as much about barren lives as it is about living happily ever after, but Mr. Csicsery, using terrific restraint, never overstates the obvious. It can’t have been easy.”
on a website devoted to respectful, appreciative, and quasi-scholarly discussion of romance novels and the people who read them.
A film that states the “obvious” truth that romance readers lead “barren lives”?
Pass.
#20 by Magdalen on December 19, 2009 - 9:49 am
It’s hard to shrug off the negative reputation that romance fiction — and romance readers — have when people behave as they do in Limecello’s and Collette’s anecdotes. My sympathies are with the romance reader there: Why does what I read suggest to anyone anything about my intellect, discriminating taste, or preference for chocolate truffles?
Just the fact there is so much media coverage suggests to me either the New York Times et al. think “Wow, with so much money being spent on romances, we should cover this” or “Our readers, of course, don’t read romances, but they may know someone who does, and wonder what the deal is, so we should cover this.” Again, I’m reminded of the Jonathan Franzen debacle where he didn’t want Oprah to pimp his book, but it was okay for the readers of The New Yorker to get the word. (Clearly numbers wasn’t his thing.)
Well, we all think we’re smart. We think a lot of the books we read are smart (and, by definition, all the books we love!). It’s upsetting when our friends, our favorite books, our favorite authors, and we ourselves get dissed by the mainstream media.
I wish more people would take Collette up on her suggestion that they read a couple romances before they make assumptions about the genre. But people *think* they know what they’ll find. And chances are, they’ll find it — no matter what book you hand them.
#21 by BevBB on December 19, 2009 - 9:52 am
@Janine:
Okay, then maybe I could eat a few of those.
Truth is, though, that I can only do so much dark chocolate at a time before it’s migraine city so so much for that stereotype. Ahem.
I think it’s quite possible that those other popular genres have spoken for themselves quite a bit over the years through magazines and journals in the pre-Internet years which may be where you’re being stymied in your research. Seems like romance readers as a community, fandom, whatever didn’t find their collective voice until the advent of the Internet.
#22 by dick on December 19, 2009 - 10:53 am
When I first stumbled upon AAR– having always thought that “because I want to” was sufficient response to anyone who asked why I read what I read–one of the things I noticed was the “circle the wagons” attitude of many readers: Any comment about the shortcomings of romance was heatedly attacked. Before reading romance, I thought it was all “dreck” too. Once exposed to it, though, I found I enjoyed reading romance as much as any other of the genres and I enjoy it as much as “literature.” I was, in fact, startled at the verbal sophistication of many of the books and how many of the authors are wordsmiths of great skill. When faced with derogatory comments, I respond as did to my children when they refused to eat a vegetable–only after you’ve taken a bite, chewed it, and swallowed it, will I listen to your refusal.
But, having written all that, I’m still of the opinion that, because of the “sameness”–especially, the HEA–of romance, it will probably never give a reader anything but enjoyment. in contrast to “literature,” which offers, IMO, something beyond that. I’ll still continue to read it though, for joy in any form is a sufficient reason for reading whatever it is that supplies it.
But I neither need nor want someone to speak for me. I don’t give diddly squat what others think of my choice of reading.
#23 by Jessica on December 19, 2009 - 12:11 pm
It’s interesting to square this sentiment with the fact that posts like this one are frequent in the blogosphere, and that they generate more hits, comments, retweets etc. than almost any other kind of post.
#24 by Ann Somerville on December 19, 2009 - 3:58 pm
@Jessica: You see the same phenomenon in fanfiction, where everyone declares it’s legal and healthy and natural, (which I believe it is) and every five minutes, someone has to post in their Livejournal something to that effect
The thing is, there’s a reason Romance readers are defensive, and outsiders are sneery – there’s a lot of shit published, and it conforms exactly to the stereotypes which readers loudly protest do not make up the entirety of the genre. It doesn’t – but it still makes up a large percentage of it, and a newbie coming to the genre is more likely to strike lead than gold. The antidote is not more defensive articles, but blogs where the intelligent, well-written novels are promoted, discussed, and even dissected. Treat the good stuff like good literature, in fact, and alert people to the fact that they don’t have to lower their intellectual standards to enjoy Romance.
Or just get used to the fact that outsiders will always sneer and ignore it. You can’t have it both ways.
#25 by Robin on December 19, 2009 - 7:03 pm
Sometimes I just wish people weren’t so intent on “defending” the genre to the “outside world,” because so few of them really speak for me. Some of these quotes you’ve compiled just frustrate the hell out of me.
#26 by Laura Vivanco on December 19, 2009 - 7:12 pm
I think there’s a difference between being “defensive” and being irritated. I get irritated when people get their facts wrong, particularly if it’s a subject I know a lot about. It’s rather like seeing a spelling mistake in a book. It annoys me and I wish it could be put right.
When I say that some people get their facts “wrong” I’m not thinking of people who’ve read romances and disliked them. Reading preferences are shaped by personal tastes and personal ideologies and if, for example, someone believes marriage is oppressive to women, I would find it understandable if they found most romances unappealing. I’m thinking of people who make sweeping generalisations about a huge genre. So, to carry on with the same imaginary person as I created for my last example, if that person went on to say that all romances end in marriage between the hero and heroine and thus promote heteronormative, patriarchal norms, I would be irritated because clearly this person would have their facts wrong: not all romances end in marriage, and not all romances involve heterosexual couples. I would also be annoyed if someone made equally sweeping generalisations about the genre’s huge international readership and/or tried to speak for all of us.
#27 by Jessica on December 19, 2009 - 7:32 pm
Many of the quotations in this post have absolutely nothing to do with defending the genre. None of the quotes from the ebook articles, for example, are about defending the genre. Neither are the recession quotes. Nor is the quote from the Your money article on how to write a bestseller.
#28 by AQ on December 19, 2009 - 8:42 pm
@dick:
That’s wonderful!
And here’s where you lose me. If you’d said it will probably never give me anything but enjoyment, I would have gladly embrace your comment but instead your comment includes a judgment of romance that I receive as “romance is lesser” not just to you but to every reader. That moves the comment beyond speaking for only yourself.
It becomes rather like the sweeping generalization that LauraV discusses in comment #26 and then ends up feeling like (to me) a tiny dig: a compliment wrapped around an insult.
What Ann said!
@Jessica:
I suspect it’s similar to how they write other stories. Who does the reporter know, who do they have access to, who gives a spectacular quote or which blogs (in the case of Smart Bitch, Dear Author & AAR) have large audiences. They talk to whoever can give information on the topic they wish to write about or who can give an human interest angle.
I’m not so sure. I think perhaps the coverage is different. Science Fiction, Mystery, etc. those labels move beyond books. The writers orgs for mystery and science fiction/fantasy, horror cover screenwriting & plays. For science fiction, article can cover the technology, futuristic settings, etc. Romance is different but I’d have to think longer to get at the heart of what I mean here.
I suspect (a) is probably true but I’d want to compile the data to see how reality conforms to hypothethis.
(b) doesn’t feel quite right to me. If I had to GUESS, I’d say that they have no basis of understanding for the genre except for what they’ve heard about the genre or read via other articles. And that they need a hook for the paper’s current audience to entice them to read the article.
I agree with Tumperkin: there’s also a (c) who are they speaking to? and perhaps (d) what is their intent of their articles?
All: Giving the breadth of the genre, number of releases, international audience, etc. If you had the opportunity to write an article in a publication like the NY Times or The New Yorker (any “dream” publication), what approach would you take? what do you think you’d include? keep in mind you have a word count limit
I ask because sometimes taking the opposite approach can give us unexpected answers.
#29 by BevBB on December 19, 2009 - 10:51 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
I don’t know. Sometimes, I think it’s simply a matter of standing one’s ground to keep those “mistakes” from being accepted as the norm. Oh, sure there are emotions like irritation involved but it still boils to the fact that there are times when one just has to speak up.
One of my earliest memories of the online romance community was a rather fascinating exchange between myself and another romance reader. Not someone from outside the genre but another romance reader, mind you.
Basically, I had made it know that there was this romance that wasn’t to my personal tastes for a very specific reason and that I wasn’t about to finish it at all. Or probably read anything else by the author. This other reader promptly spoke up and informed me that I shouldn’t let that stop me from reading that book or any other because to not do so would be limiting my horizons.
The odd thing was, she wasn’t defending the book or the author. This was not a fan girl reaction at all. She was essentially giving me a lecture on what I should be reading or not — for my own betterment apparently. It was purely academic in her eyes and a very specific criticism of my personal reading choice. I know this because she said I needed to broaden my reading from just reading romances.
Based solely on the fact that I had said I didn’t want to finish one single book!
Put it this way, yes, I spoke up for myself and in the process defended the genre. I told her in no uncertain terms that she had no idea what I did or did not read or why but if i wanted to read only romances for the rest of my life it was my choice and that there were a lot worse things i could be reading than just romances.
And to get over herself.
Of course I said it a little nicer than that. Barely.
The reason I bring this up is that over the years I’ve found that I get a lot more upset with people who read romances and then attempt to, how shall I say this nicely, change both it and its readers into something different than what they are than I shall ever be over the ones from outside the genre who’ve never even read one of the books.
I can understand, accept and even downright ignore a level of ignorance and, yes, even arrogance from those “outsiders” because they probably honestly don’t know any better. I find it very difficult to tolerate the same lack of respect for personal choice from people who say they read romance on a regular basis.
It’s even more annoying to see it occur between readers of differents sub-genres within romance… and I have observed that happening quite a bit over the years.
#30 by Robin on December 20, 2009 - 12:03 am
@Jessica: Yeah, I realize they don’t all fall into that category. I wasn’t trying to characterize the whole of the collection. But I was struck particularly (like a slap across the face) with some of the people quoted who are claiming to speak from inside the genre to those outside about “all” readers — and who are, IMO, trying to legitimate or defend the genre.
#31 by Laura Vivanco on December 20, 2009 - 6:49 am
I pretty much only read romances, and that’s been the case for several years now (although admittedly for the purposes of that statement I am mentally classifying as “romance” quite a lot of works that only have a smallish romantic strand that ends happily).
That woman’s attitude makes me wonder if she’s speaking on the basis of the “mind candy” metaphor. There are some people who like reading romances, but who still think of them as something light and fluffy to eat (or perhaps something rich and decadent, but still sugary). They seem to have the sense that romance is a kind of dessert course, or perhaps a box of chocolates, or a candy-floss stall. So obviously, since eating only those foods would not make for a balanced diet, they think anyone who only reads romance must supplement their reading with some truly “meaty” books, perhaps a bit of starchy non-fiction, and also a few vegetables (i.e. works of “Great Literature” that are seen as “improving” but somehow not really something you’d read for pleasure).
I’m not saying that they’ve thought the analogy through, or that they’re always conscious of the way they’re categorising the genre, but the food metaphors come up so often when describing it, and one so often gets the sense that Great Literature is “Good for You,” that this hypothesis is the only way I can make sense of the comments of people like this woman.
#32 by BevBB on December 20, 2009 - 9:48 am
That sounds about right and I say that because the entire incident started when I shared that it was a particular scene in the beginning of the book that ruined reading it for me. I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to ever be able to bring myself to even like the characters or get into the story. So why keep trying? And that’s what set her off. It was like it was an affront to her that anyone would let one scene keep them from reading a book.
Apparently readers have to be tougher than that. o.O
And over a romance of all things. Which always made me wonder if she wasn’t truly a fan of the author and somehow hiding it but I couldn’t pin it down if she was. There’s also a flip side that there are some authors within the genre that are considered sufficiently literary that they get defended on those grounds by some. So, it did cross my mind that maybe I’d stepped on a “how dare you not read her because she’s one of our best” toe there because the author in question might’ve qualified. Again, nothing in particular to pin down.
Of course, not that it would’ve bothered me one way or another because, well, you know, I don’t always agree that the titles you academic types think are the “best” really are the greatest examples of the genre by a long shot but that’s neither here not there.
What I tried to gently ;-p explain to her is that I’d been a romance reader for a very long time even then and pretty much knew instinctly when they were or weren’t going to work for me. I think that actually upset her even more. So, I honestly have no idea what mindset she was coming from considering she was a romance reader herself. I still see her name pop up on occassion on various forums so I have no reason to doubt that she really is a romance reader either.
#33 by Jessica on December 20, 2009 - 9:59 am
@Robin: What did you think of the Crusie quotation? I had a long talk the other night with a scholar who specializes in Minerva press (1790-1820) and it’s amazing how so many of the same issues (it’s not art because it is consumer sensitive/cheap/etc.) were there.
@Laura Vivanco: I like the food analogy very much.
@AQ: What a great question. I think I would like to see a better balance between treating romance as a pop culture item and as fiction. So, I’d like to see more reviews in mainstream press, more literary criticism, etc.
And in the articles that do treat the genre as a monolithic pop culture phenomenon, I would like more voices coming from knowledgeable places, rather than, say, academics who study sexuality but know nothing about romance, or journalists whose “knowledge” of romance amounts to a set of cliches.
The default position on romance reminds me very much of the default position on women in western philosophy: “here is something odd that needs explaining or figuring out.”
#34 by dick on December 20, 2009 - 10:31 am
at AQ
In contrasting the romance genre to “literature,” I make neither an insult nor a compliment but a judgment. To say that bread will never be cake neither insults bread nor compliments cake–nor vice versa.
#35 by dick on December 20, 2009 - 10:52 am
@Jessica
I’m not up on blogdom; other than AAR, this is the first I’ve visited. Thus, I’m uncertain what you intended to convey by post #23. Would you mind elucidating?
#36 by Laura Vivanco on December 20, 2009 - 10:54 am
But not all “academic types” agree about which romances are “the greatest examples of the genre.” For example, I’ve read some Mary Burchell romances which I think are outstanding, but I’m not sure how many people in the online romance community have even read them, never mind consider them to be among the “best” in the genre.
But it might, perhaps, feel like an insult if the baker had intended to make bread and was then told that what she’d really made was cake. And I notice that we’re back to the food metaphor.
#37 by Laura Vivanco on December 20, 2009 - 11:17 am
I’ve been thinking about the quotes from Crusie and I think it’s probably important to note that in the article the first statement of hers that’s reported is this one:
It’s not till the second page that we get to this:
Since she’s already said that 75% of literary fiction is “junk” I don’t think she’s saying that the language in romance is badly written, or that all the language in literary fiction is good. What it sounds like to me is a statement about the relative priority given to characterisation, plot, and language in these two different kinds of writing. In literary fiction, according to Crusie, both the authors and the readers give priority to language, which probably means she thinks that they may sacrifice plot and characterisation. As for language and genre fiction, I think there are quite a lot of genre fiction authors (and I think Crusie is one of them) who’ve written that sometimes you need to “sacrifice your darlings” and I think by that they mean that there are sentences or paragraphs which may themselves be beautiful, but which don’t move the plot of the characterisation forward, and so they would sacrifice them. I think that’s what Crusie’s getting at here.
Regarding this: “Ms. Crusie does despair that commerce drives romance writers to minimize their artistic impulses,” it’s something she’s written about in more detail in one of her essays, in which she wishes that neither publishers, editors nor authors of romance would treat them as “soup” because
#38 by AQ on December 20, 2009 - 11:20 am
@dick:
It’s not the contrast between romance genre and literature. If that’s you believe, it’s perfectly valid and reasonable. Rational even. Everyone can have a good time arguing the merits of romance vs. literature.
The phrasing is what’s at issue for me.
You don’t see this wording such as this as a sweeping generalization and a judgment of romance and what the reader will find?
To you romance offers sameness, especially the HEA
To you romance doesn’t offer anything more than enjoyment
To you literature offers something more
Many readers may disagree with you.
You qualify your statement by bracketing it with my opinion but why then offer your opinion on what you believe a reader will encounter. Why not stay just with what your experience?
To ME your post appears to be very complimentary on the surface but it’s those little qualifications that negate the compliment and turn it into something disrespectful. And I personally find little digs to be much more insidious that flat out derogatory commentary.
#39 by BevBB on December 20, 2009 - 12:24 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
Oh, I understand what you’re saying, Laura, but there is an aspect to academic study of romances that’s always bothered me and that’s that romance is a popular fiction genre and yet it seems to me that everyone keeps wanting to find the best literary examples within it’s ranks to represent it to outsiders. That just seems backwards to me.
Why not choose the most proven popular examples and by that I don’t necessarily mean individual books?
And, no, I do not mean bodice rippers or the J.R. Wards and any of those of flash in the pan ilk. I mean someone like Krentz, Roberts and other proven masters of the genre with long careers that show they can deliver the goods to readers solidly and consistently across more than one sub-genre. Why do I never hear of anyone studying these author’s substantial bodies of work?
Or is this something that only happens when they die?
#40 by Laura Vivanco on December 20, 2009 - 12:45 pm
First of all, there really aren’t a lot of romance scholars yet, so it’s not surprising that many authors haven’t yet attracted any scholarly attention. But An Goris is writing her PhD on Nora Roberts. In her book Pamela Regis has a chapter each on Janet Dailey, Jayne Ann Krentz and Nora Roberts.
If you’re going to spend months writing an essay, or years writing an academic book or a PhD thesis, you probably need and want to choose an author/authors who provides you with a lot of material to work on. Regardless of the size of an author’s oeuvre and her/his reputation or success, there’s got to be something which sparks and sustains an academic’s interest, and it can be a very individual matter. Looking outside romance for a moment, we can see that some people are Bronte scholars, while others are Austen scholars, yet others specialise in Tolstoy and some prefer to work on much lesser known authors.
Getting back to romance and romance scholarship, some people might prefer to study individual novels closely, others might like looking at larger trends in the whole genre, others might look at the economics behind the romance publishing industry, and some people might specialise in particular sub-genres. There are lots of other approaches which might appeal to particular scholars and their individual interests will no doubt shape the selection of texts they choose to study.
#41 by Jessica on December 20, 2009 - 1:23 pm
@Laura Vivanco: Thanks, Laura, I had forgotten the context of the quotation after having read so many articles in a short amount of time. I find the “reader expectation” bit very interesting in this genre, so I was keen to hear what Crusie had to say about them.
@dick: Oh, just that there is a lot of interest in the issue of how romance is viewed by non romance readers, even, I think among people who say they have no interest. I think if someone truly has no interest in a topic, they won’t click on it, they won’t read the post, and they certainly won’t make comments on it. Maybe aren’t “worried” or :concerned” but they are interested for sure.
#42 by Lynn Spencer on December 20, 2009 - 1:54 pm
>>More and more, I see recognition that the genre itself is diverse, and, although a bit more slowly, the same recognition that its readership is similarly diverse.
So true! I’d love to see more coverage that doesn’t assume any one reader or publisher can speak for all fans of the genre.
Thanks for posting all these links. It’s an interesting historical perspective!
#43 by BevBB on December 20, 2009 - 6:14 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
Thanks, that’s very interesting and good to know. You know what I find even more fascinating from strickly a reader, fan or collecting standpoint, though, is the lack of reader companions and/or compendiums about the genre and more specifically individual authors within romance.
I currently have in my possession at least five or six compendiums of on various topics. Two related to Agatha Christie, one more scholarly in tone that I use as a reference all the time and one a just for fun “bedside” book. Then there’s two more I just recently picked up about mysteries in general and a couple of others related to the Star Trek universe.
What I’m getting at is that it’s not like there haven’t been top-selling romance authors with relatively enormous backlists who are both still living or even more significant already dead. And we’re not talking about author’s who have been forgotten either. The closest I’ve ever heard of a companion like this being worked on within the genre was one created for Nora Roberts several years ago – The Official Nora Roberts Companion.
It’s truly odd when the publishers aren’t tapping more into the enormous market potential of such a popular fan concept and the only reader’s companions available are found online on dedicated reader/fan sites – you know the places where readers do speak for themselves.
#44 by Laura Vivanco on December 20, 2009 - 7:01 pm
There have been quite a few books published about Georgette Heyer and her books: a biography (and there’s another biography which should be out relatively soon), a bibliography, and two guides to Heyer’s Regency England as well as a book which gathers together some of her short stories and essays as well as reviews and articles about her novels.
#45 by Laura Vivanco on December 20, 2009 - 7:26 pm
I’ve remembered another example: The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider’s Guide and this month saw the publication of
Ardeur: Unauthorized Essays on Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series. Both of those series seem to have started as romances, even if now many people feel they’ve changed into something a bit different. There’s also Perfectly Plum: Unauthorized Essays on the Life, Loves, and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter, and again the series on which that’s based might or might not count as romance since it seems to have an ongoing central love triangle.
I’ve just come across Nora Roberts: A Reader’s Checklist and Reference Guide and it’s a different book from The Official Nora Roberts Companion.
I wasn’t sure if you would count the Smart Bitches’ Beyond Heaving Bosoms “reader companion [...] about the genre,” but I would.
#46 by BevBB on December 20, 2009 - 9:59 pm
I figured if anyone would have something it would be Heyer but I haven’t yet researched yet to see if there’s anything out there approaching a true reader’s companion on her. I’ll check out some of those links.
As to those others, the BDB, Hamilton’s and the stuff about Plum, they wouldn’t be what I’d be looking for if I went looking for a companion on a romance author.
It is interesting that there’s been another one done on Roberts, though. That’s encouraging.
As to Beyond Heaving Bosoms, to me it’s not so much a reader companion as simply a great and enlightening book on what the genre is about. It tries to make itself look and feel like a companion but it’s really not. For one thing, the chapters are way too long and as snarky and funny as they are as writers, they dig way too deeply into the subject matter while the book ends up way too short. Which is not a bad thing but that’s not the purpose of a companion.
A true companion either focuses on an individual author or product (like a TV series) and therefore the individual works (title/episodes) with just enough attention given to each to let the reader know what they need to know about each. Or it focuses on an entire genre/sub-genre of the same and gives an overall picture in short but precise articles (each usually written by different people) that can be read in very brief sittings. That’s why many of them are called bedside, bathtub and armchair guides. On top of all that and to help illustrate the companion, bits and pieces of background information (about the author’s life, behind the scenes going on, whatever is appropriate) are tossed in here and there to complete the total picture.
One should never be able to sit down and read a companion like one would a book. It’s a reference source that should always offer up something new each time it’s opened by a fan or a collector.
#47 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 3:41 am
So it’s a bit like an encyclopedia or dictionary?
#48 by BevBB on December 21, 2009 - 9:33 am
Oh, definitely an encyclopedia. In fact, the question reminded me that I also have a couple of comic related books that fall into this category and one of them is the fairly hefty The DC Comics Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to the Characters of the DC Universe. The name is a dead giveaway to how it’s organized which is explained in the introduction:
And that’s pretty typical of the type of layouts that can be found throughout these types of books with alterations for particular subject matter (books, episodes, or characters, etc.) or tone (more serious vs. humorous and light-hearted) or context in time (historical eras vs. current publications).
The reason I believe it’s important to bring books like these up is that when we ask the questions “Who speaks for the romance reader? And what do they say about us?” and we look around and realize that other genres have an abundance of these books primarily targeted at a fan audience but romance has almost none then to me it points out a big and noticeable discrepancy. These are the types of books that speak for the fans by speaking directly to them about the thing they love – one fan to another. The books themselves then become huge sources of information about the genre and in an indirect way about the fans for others to use. These are the books that truly become collectors items of historical value for academics in the future.
It almost makes one wonder if we’re either ashamed or afraid to hold that mirror up.
#49 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 10:02 am
I think I’d need to see a lot more evidence before I’d feel confident that was the reason for the lack of the kind of companion books we’re discussing.
It seems to me, just looking at the examples we’ve mentioned so far, that something a lot of these books have in common is that they’re based on series. It seems to me that it’s more likely readers would appreciate a guide to a long-running and complex series than they would to an individual novel which is short. Books in some other genres seem to be longer, on average (I’m thinking of hefty fantasy tomes, for example) than romance, and comics and TV series can run for years. That gives lots of time and space for the writers to build up such complicated worlds that it’s hard for fans to to keep track of all the details, which probably means they’re more likely to feel in need of a Companion volume. Two of the books on Heyer sort of support this hypothesis, because although Heyer’s novels are mostly stand-alone, the majority of them are set in the Regency period, and readers seem to have appreciated guides to Heyer’s Regency World.
I’ve found a couple more examples, again based on authors who are best known for their series:
and here’s another:
Neither of those authors would strictly speaking be called “romance” authors, and I know Gabaldon’s actually rejected that label, but both Dunnett and Gabaldon have significant followings among romance readers.
I’ve also remembered another biography: Tim Heald’s biography of Barbara Cartland.
And although she’s not exactly a romance author (since her books are more often described as “sagas”), there are quite a lot of biographies of Catherine Cookson:
#50 by dick on December 21, 2009 - 11:30 am
@AQ
But the very phrase you object to is the basis for the judgment. The basic recipe for romance doesn’t change much from book to book and the HEA is required–at least in regard to the romance portion of the novel. It is those very things, in my judgment, which keep romance from having the same force as most of those novels considered great “literature,” which has very few restrictions.
#51 by dick on December 21, 2009 - 11:40 am
@Laura Vivanco
It is, I think, the kinship of the romance formula to a recipe which makes food analogies so tempting, and probably so apt. That bread is bread and cake is cake neither insults nor compliments, regardless of the intent of the baker.
#52 by dick on December 21, 2009 - 11:46 am
@bb
I agree. At the same time–and I’ve argued this with you before, I think–what do you think academic attention to one of the more highly regarded of Garwood’s medievals or Quick’s historicals would tell us about the novel or the genre?
#53 by dick on December 21, 2009 - 11:58 am
@Jessica
Thanks. You’re right, of course. Readers of anything are usually interested in what other readers of the same thing are talking about, even if they’re talking about the attitudes of non-readers.
#54 by dick on December 21, 2009 - 12:06 pm
@Laura Vivanco again
Do you agree with Crusie’s comment that you can’t criticize a book on the basis of genre? How can one divorce a book from it’s defining elements?
#55 by BevBB on December 21, 2009 - 12:37 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
Hmmm, I’m not sure but I think you might be missing the point a tad bit there, Laura. Of course, these books, whether they’re called companions, compendiums or encyclopedias are about a relatively large body of collected work. Therefore, individual books are out and any author who does a fairly long-running series might merit one.
OTOH, an individual author with an extremely large backlist fits the bill, too, which is why there are so many books of this nature about authors such as Agatha Christie in the mystery genre. In romance the reason I mention Krentz or Roberts so often is the simple fact that they both do have enormous backlists, which fall across several sub-genres. And they are not alone, living or dead, by any means.
Also, don’t think that because so many of these type of books are found in genres like comics and science fiction/fantasy, that it’s all about filling out the background on the universe behind the series. That’s part of it, sure. But the Christie companions spend as much time talking about what’s known about her life and how if affected her writing as they do the world within the books, simply focusing more on those things that might be more of interest to fans than say pure academics.
Dick, why should I even attempt to answer that about any individual book when you’ve already decided that there’s not anything to study in them? Figure it out for yourself first.
I will, however, say to you essentially the same thing I just told Laura, and that it’s not so much about what individual books can tell us but about what the collected work of someone like Krentz or Roberts – who are considered to be current popular masters of the genre – could and would. Masters who manage to break many of the stereotypes associated with romance novels while at the same time appearing to conform to them enough to please their legions of fans – because that’s what masters do.
Which is why I always find it interesting that instead of focusing on the composite picture they paint of the genre through their life’s work that literally spans decades, people always seem to turn to individual books to try to convert the unbelievers.
Odd that.
#56 by Maili on December 21, 2009 - 12:48 pm
@BevBB:
Off my head, I can think of five.
The one I remember the most is “Lovelines: the Romance Reader’s Guide to Printed Pleasures” by Rosemary Guiley. It’s an oversized book that has almost everything, from a selection of romance novels (including milestone romance novels) to profiles of best-known authors (Deveraux, Nora Roberts, JAK, Cartland, Brooke Hastings, Heyer, etc.), and from the history of the genre to how the publishing works (including profiles of cover artists and the process of creating a cover, which was the main reason why I bought a copy) and a spotlight on the Romantic Times. There was an article on television adaptations of category romances and on well-known couples throughout history as well, if I remember right.
Of course, Kathryn Falk of the Romantic Times has written and published a couple of guides for readers. I think one is called Romance’s Leading Ladies (profiles of romance authors) and the other is Romance Reader’s Guide.
And there is one guide to the genre of traditional Regency category romances. I can’t remember who wrote this one. Same for a romance reader’s guide to Gothic Romances (including romantic suspense).
Lastly, a reader’s guide to Speculative Romance (paranormal, supernatural, time travel, etc.). Author of this one used a critical approach, interesting enough. I don’t have this book any more, but if I remember right, it’s a self-published book that contains a list of key titles (with a brief synopsis and review each), profiles of three authors, and a couple of essays on the genre. One of those essays was interesting – it explored a question why the world-building wasn’t necessary for most romance readers.
But yeah, there have been readers’ companions to the romance genre and its sub-genres, but most were the promotion type, e.g. no critical approach. It’s usually a font of information, a bilbiography with an editorial note or two, or the “romance is awesome!” stance.
The Speculative Romance book is the only one I’d define as a true readers’ companion book.
Edited: I do recommend Love Lines for the sake of reading experience, so if you find a copy, get it.
#57 by AQ on December 21, 2009 - 1:06 pm
@Jessica:
But if I were an editor at one of these venues and I said that I was willing give you 2,000 words to write a “romance” article for my readership, what would you pitch to me?
details I want details…and because I don’t know where I work could you tell me which publications its pitched at?
BevBB, LauraV, Maili, I’m fascinated by your conversation.
#58 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 1:08 pm
If the baker says that something is “bread” and you say “Baker, you are wrong, that is clearly cake” then there are only a few possibilities:
(a) someone is wrong
(b) someone is lying
(c) the division between “bread” and “cake” isn’t as obvious as might be thought.
I rather like option (c) and I would suggest that you can have genre fiction (cake) which shares many of the properties of literary fiction (bread) and so you can find romances which are like sweet breads, sultana loaves and banana bread. These are both bread and cake inasmuch as they are both sweet enough due to the happy ending of the love story (one of the defining features of “cake”) and are shaped like bread, are called “bread” and are mainly made out of flour which makes them sustaining, and often good to chew on, just like bread.
Incidentally
All of which can be taken as proof that bread and cake can be easily confused, and that alleging that someone said one rather than the other can be deeply damaging to their reputation.
Yes, I agree that it’s a bit pointless to criticise a book on the basis of its genre. That would be akin to criticising a sonnet because it’s not a prose novel. Or criticising a haiku because it’s not a sonnet. Or criticising a work of magical realism for not being a work of non-magical realism. But it’s important to note that the same basic story can be told in lots of different ways. For example, the story of Romeo and Juliet can be told as drama (by Shakespeare), as a musical (West Side Story) and as a YA fantasy (Diana Wynne Jones’s The Magicians of Caprona – where it doesn’t end in the usual way) and the story of the Odyssey has been told as epic poetry by Homer, and as a novel by James Joyce.
Sometimes the distinctions between different forms is less clear cut than that between a novel and a sonnet. There isn’t a very precise way to distinguish between a short story and a novella, for example, and many texts cross genre boundaries or mix elements from more than one genre. I think this is particularly true of the novel, because the form of the novel is so much more flexible than that of the sonnet or the haiku. It’s also important to remember that genre definitions may not be the same all around the world. So in the UK, as the RNA observe,
In the RNA’s kitchen, it seems, nobody’s busy trying to decide exactly which books are bread and which are cake. As long as it’s got a hint of sugar (or at very least a bit of fruit) in with the flour, they’ll be making and selling it.
#59 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 1:23 pm
The main reason I can think of for using individual books to change people’s minds is that someone can read one book, really like it, and decide that perhaps it would be worth seeking out more that are like it. I doubt a “composite picture [...] of the genre” would elicit the same emotional response in most people. It’s possibly not dissimilar to the way that newspapers and charities focus on “human interest stories”: they think that readers will respond to those more than to detailed facts about particular problems.
Given that most of us read one book at a time, if you’re going to present evidence in the form of books, you have to decide which examples you would like the “unbelievers” to read first. I think it makes sense to try to start with ones which will challenge their prejudices and preconceptions, because otherwise they may well just read the first one you give them and then say “See, it’s so predictable/badly written/full of sex, just like I said, so I don’t need to bother reading any others.”
#60 by BevBB on December 21, 2009 - 1:52 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
What you’re saying is true on an individual reader-to-reader basis, Laura, but does it still hold true when we’re talking about a classroom basis and we’re trying to show a broad impression of the genre overall?
See, that’s what gets me. I understand about passing an individual book along to another individual. That’s about taste issues almost always. But then I listen to academics online talk about picking and choosing books for their classes that they claim represent the genre and I literally sometimes think, “Well, if those had been the first romances I’d been exposed to, I’m not sure what I’d've thought either.”
That’s where and when I can’t help thinking about the need for companion books about people like Krentz and Roberts. Books that show how they started out in category but went beyond that all the way to their books being considered straight fiction – and yet are still loyal to that early contemporary audience of romance readers. They’ve also branched out to explore sub-genres of romance, heck, in some ways they were pioneers of doing just that.
Thanks for the titles, Maili. I’ll look them up. I still find it fascinating that it seems like all of them are about either the genre as a whole or a slice of it considering just how large this genre is. Cause and effect?
I mean I can certainly understand waiting until an author is dead to do some of this, just from the standpoint of gathering historical facts about them. But, and here’s the thing that really gets me about the lack of these in romance, when the number of books in an individual author’s backlist approaches the level where one basically needs a database to keep track of both them and information about them–isn’t it time to start thinking about the need for reader companions on just those authors alone?
#61 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 2:55 pm
Ah, well, since very few people have as yet tried teaching genre romance in the classroom, you’d need to ask Eric Selinger, Sarah Frantz, Sandra Schwab and Jessica the answer to that one. Not everyone is “trying to show a broad impression of the genre overall.” I suspect that, as usual, it depends what you’re trying to teach. If you’re teaching a course on ethics in fiction, your approach is obviously going to have to be different from if you’re teaching about “the romance genre” and if you’re teaching about the history of women’s fiction in English literature, then your focus is going to be different again.
But certainly when I was being taught literature at university, I didn’t tend to get handed the complete works of every author in the genres/periods we were studying (at least, not unless that author had written a very small number of works). Usually, the lecturers picked out just a handful of works and got us to study those in more detail.
Might it not depend on how the texts were taught? In any case, the genre is so big that I suspect that no guide (and no course) is going to be able to please everyone.
#62 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 2:59 pm
Thanks for that list, Maili. I couldn’t track all of them down, but I’ve added the ones I could find to the list of Guides to the Genre at the Romance Wiki.
#63 by Maili on December 21, 2009 - 3:56 pm
@Laura V
Thank you for the link!
Blue Diamond Publications is the one I struggled to remember but gave up when I wrote that response above. Their books were bibliographies, which were annually updated? I think they used to have a web site, too.
I feel rather mortified that I read almost all books (and pamphlets) listed on the main page. Gah.
There was a quarterly magazine/journal (or rather, a zine) that I should highlight – it was crammed with articles by readers about various issues of the romance genre and a short essay about a favourite romance novel. It ended some time between 1999 and 2000. It was one of the best around. Think of Dear Author and similar, but in the zine format.
It was published by two or three readers in Texas. I can’t even remember the name of the zine. 50pp in A5 b/w format with a badly photocopied cover of the featured book as a cover.
One of their best writers was Teresa or Theresa something. She had an interest in exploring the differences between epic romances and historical romances. She also wrote a fantastic article about domestic violence in real life and in romantic fiction, as a response to the case of a real-life romance author who was shot dead by her husband. I can’t remember the author’s name now. Nancy something?
Huh. Nancy Richards-Akers – thanks to Google that turned up a result: Fatal Romance: A True Story of Obsession and Murder (St. Martin’s True Crime Library) by Lisa Pulitzer.
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Romance-Obsession-Martins-Library/dp/0312975805
Sorry for such a long ramble. I’d give anything to have all issues of that zine bound as a book. I threw mine away during a house move. *headdesk*
#64 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 5:27 pm
Was the magazine called Romance Forever Magazine? I’ve just come across a mention of it and added it to the list at the Romance Wiki.
There was an article about the murder of Nancy Richards-Akers in Salon in 1999. That’s in the Romance Wiki list of articles about romance in the media. I’m going to have to double-check that all the articles cited by Jessica are on the list, but I haven’t quite worked up the energy to do it yet
There were so many of them!
#65 by Lynn Spencer on December 21, 2009 - 5:42 pm
>>In the RNA’s kitchen, it seems, nobody’s busy trying to decide exactly which books are bread and which are cake. As long as it’s got a hint of sugar (or at very least a bit of fruit) in with the flour, they’ll be making and selling it.
@Laura Vivanco – The more I read, the more I rather like this outlook. I love romance, and as with any genre, I enjoy seeing what creative minds can do with it. The narrower the rules defining the genre, the fewer our choices will become. Personally, I like everything from category romances to the literary/romantic fiction (bread and cake, to use your analogy) mixtures so long as they are written well.
When I saw your comment, I immediately thought of what I saw on Twitter recently about Julia Spencer-Fleming and the controversy over some romance readers not accepting her work. Her books aren’t technically genre romance, but there is definitely a wonderful love story developing through the series(obviously, I’m not one of those who reject these books). Probably not what one would consider genre romance, but there’s definitely elements of a romance mixed in there even though it’s one that does push the envelope to the point that some readers don’t feel comfortable accepting it as “romantic” at all.
#66 by Maili on December 21, 2009 - 7:02 pm
@Laura V
According to Google results, Romance Forever magazine was for aspiring authors. I think I still have an old AOL account so I’ll have a look to see if the subscription details are still there. If so, I’ll email you the details.
Also, after reading that Salon article, I believe I misremembered. It wasn’t Nancy Richards-Akers. I googled to track down the name and it was a reproduction of a RWA press release in a blog post by Monica Jackson that cleared up my lousy memory:
“Pamela Macaluso, a California romance author, was killed by her husband in March of 1997; and Ann Wassall, also of California, was shot and killed by her husband in December of 1996.
Richards-Akers and the two previous victims were all members of Romance Writers of America (RWA), the national nonprofit writers’ association for the authors who write romantic fiction. In the case of all three murders, the husbands committed suicide after taking the lives of their wives.”
Taken from http://monicajackson.com/domesticviolence/dvRWApr.htm
I was thinking of Pamela Macaluso. Apologies.
#67 by Maili on December 21, 2009 - 7:52 pm
Sorry for hogging this thread, but this is the last one, I promise. The AOL account is surprisingly still active.
I found references to quite a few romance magazines/newsletters (I’ll Take Romance!; A Little Romance; The Medieval Times; RomANTICS; Take My Heart; Romantic Hearts; Intrinsic Romance; Wings of Love; Lover’s Knot; Manderley; The Paperback Forum; Affaire de Coeur; The Literary Times; The Reader’s Voice; Rendezvous; The Romance Reader’s Corner; Love Words; Heartland, Woman’s World(?), and The Gothic Journal).
Where at Romance Wiki a list of romantic fiction magazines that I can compare this list with?
This snippet, forwarded by a mailing list, made me laugh so hard:
“In the 30 August 1993 issue of the magazine FIRST FOR WOMEN, there is an article “Charles and Di… How Will it End?” The magazine asked six of the world’s best-known authors to write a final chapter to the “Chuck and Di” story. Those authors are Nora Roberts, Belva Plain, Beatrice Small, Judith McNaught, Kathleen Morgan and Barbara Taylor Bradford.”
#68 by Laura Vivanco on December 21, 2009 - 8:32 pm
They seem to each have their own pages, and then because of the tags they have attached, they appear together on this page.
It’s really not very difficult to add to the Romance Wiki, and the idea is that all of us can add to it, so if you were in the mood you could add new pages for any magazines which aren’t listed there.
#69 by Jill D. on December 21, 2009 - 10:03 pm
Wow – Okay I didn’t read through everything but I stopped after the Jennifer Crusie comments. Girl – where do you find the time?
Anyhoo… I don’t really ever expect the masses to GET romance. No amount of positive publicity will ever be able to erase the branded images of “man-titty” on book covers. I understand that – and honestly that’s okay. It’s my little secret that there truly is wonderful literature to be had. I’ll point it out to those who are more open-minded and to others I will express “never judge a book by it’s cover”. It has helped to shut up the most disparaging of opinions.
#70 by BevBB on December 22, 2009 - 9:14 am
@Laura Vivanco:
Yes, but I’m not talking about pleasing everyone and I’m not even truly talking about what instructors do or don’t, should or shouldn’t teach in the classes. I’m more addressing the question asked here of “who speaks for romance readers?” in the sense of wondering what references instructors do have that actually speak in the reader/fan/collectors voices outside of those texts that always seem to psychoanalyze/study us as romance readers more than the books? Or that are purely truly literary studies of individual books/authors?
Wouldn’t permanent, off-line references about the complete backlists of longstanding, popular authors who stood the test of time within the genre that readers were known to use speak volumes both about the genre and its readers?
#71 by Laura Vivanco on December 22, 2009 - 10:14 am
I see what you mean, but in that case you’re probably going to be moving out of (or towards the edges of) English and moving towards other subject areas. The studies there have been of readers aren’t, as you say, studies of the books: “Radway’s provocative approach combines reader-response criticism with anthropology and feminist psychology.”
I don’t think the courses offered so far by Eric Selinger, Sally Goade, Sarah Frantz, Sandra Schwab and Jessica have had as their focus the study of readers (though obviously they may have included some discussion about readers).
Since I don’t study romance fans and their collections, or romance readers generally, these are not areas I know much about but I do know there’s at least one sociologist working on romance and she’s been interviewing romance readers. Librarians, of course, tend to be interested in library patrons, and some have been looking into how/if libraries build their collections of romances and how librarians think about romance readers. I’m thinking in particular of Adkins, Esser and Velazquez (quoted here) and thanks to Google I’ve just found this and this.
#72 by dick on December 22, 2009 - 11:48 am
@Laura Vivanco
I actually didn’t intend to compare. I was merely pointing out that saying something is one thing and another another does not insult nor compliment either of the things. I should probably have chosen “cars” and “bicycles” I suppose. Regardless, the point of logic is the same: We can disagree about what class a particular thing falls into, but to so classify neither insults nor compliments.
But to pick up the food analogy, whether cake or bread, the final product results from a recipe. Can it reasonably be argued that genre fiction is not formulaic?
Re the Crusie comment: When I used the word “criticize” in my question I wasn’t thinking of the word in a pejorative sense, but to mean examine analytically. In that sense of criticize, genre can’t be ignored, for as you comment, to criticize a novel merely because it isn’t a sonnet would be absurd. At the same time, one can’t ignore the recipe for a sonnet when examining it critically. Isn’t that equally true for a romance novel?
#73 by BevBB on December 22, 2009 - 12:39 pm
Actually, I’m not sure that you do see what I mean but maybe that’s because I’m expressing it badly. Frankly, I could care less what any academic in any discipline thinks about romance readers.
Except.
And this is a very large exception which to me circles back around to the question Jessica asks in this post – who speaks for romance readers in all these discussion, the one in the media included? People who have analyzed them and come to their own conclusions or information about the work of our most tried and true authors?
When we can only find one current popular romance author who’s had a reader’s companion done on them – or on any part of their work when several of them have enormous backlists and/or long-running series – where do we expect the media or anyone else to get their information? We talk and gripe about the media’s misinformation about the genre yet ignore the fact that other genres have book after book after book on the works of their top authors for people to go to for research. Yes, those books are geared to fans but that’s the point, isn’t it? Matters not that they may or may not use them before they start interviewing anyone. It matters whether the books exist to point them towards. When other popular genres abound with these types of books and romance has so few when it’s the largest genre of all, there’s something truly odd going on.
The other thing is that most people would probably assume that the reason these books don’t already exist in great numbers is that romance readers wouldn’t or don’t buy them. Which might’ve been somewhat true in the past. However, that was then and this is now when this genre is currently flooded with books and story universes that crossover into all types of genres that have readerships who do expect companion books and tie-ins of all types – mystery, science fiction and fantasy to name a few.
And while websites are great as quick resources, the fans of those other genres are notorious collectors. Period.
#74 by BevBB on December 22, 2009 - 12:47 pm
@dick:
No more than one can ignore the standards of anything when judging them, whether we’re talking about dogs, cats, cows … or cakes at the fair. But you know what, Dick, in order for someone to be a judge, don’t they first have to know the standards of the class being judged and be able to distinguish between the relative qualities of each of the entries?
Somehow or another, I would think that would require some study of the points of the individual entries by the one sitting as judge, just for comparison purposes, you understand.
#75 by AQ on December 22, 2009 - 1:44 pm
BevBB,
I’ve been thinking about your points. What I’m equating this to are the manuals that come with my role playing video games.
So I started thinking about different series that I heard about or read.
The Psy Changeling series: It would be interesting to have a companion guide to the world of the Psy vs. Changelings vs. Humans. Little facts and figures. The characters, their occupations, etc. Like a Harry Potter guidebook only smaller.
Or a book on Eve Dallas (I know not really romance). But there’s all kinds of stuff to grab from the series from its futuristic view of the world, law enforcement, power to the toys they play with, to the community Eve exists in. How that futuristic view has changed over the last twenty years vs. real life technology. I can take or leave the books depending on MY mood but I’d absolutely love to play in and explore the world Nora created. (ETA: The characters. When I’m in the mood for this series, the characters are what pull me in so I want character bios and tips and tricks and fun stuff PLUS some of the ethical issues her stories address)
Off the top of my head, for the worldbuilding cross-over appeal: Sherilyn Kenyon, Gina Showalter, Linnea Sinclair, Cheyenne McCray, etc., etc. etc.
I think Jade Black had a free online e-book about her Trek world that got package with some digital novella in a print release. I never read the companion material though so I don’t know if it’s close enough.
BevBB, do you think there might see some free companion guides handed out by authors at a fan conference such as DragonCon that never make it to the retail shelves?
Am I on the right track? How do you think Marjorie M. Liu’s romance theme game will impact the fan aspect? The electronic gaming industry wants the female gamer so why not build a few gaming worlds based on some of the successful romance series? If that were to happen, I’d think we’d starting seeing companion guides for the game.
#76 by Laura Vivanco on December 22, 2009 - 4:36 pm
The word “formula” tends to have negative connotations in this context because it’s associated with words and phrases like “mass-produced” “churned out” and “all the same.” And I think you’d better not try telling any of the great chefs that what they produce is “formulaic”! They can do things with simple dishes, even with the same ingredients, that lesser chefs cannot achieve.
Even if you’re just looking at the form of romances, there are some which include extended flashbacks, or have chapters which alternate between the past and the present, some which are epistolary, some which include embedded texts, some which observe the unity of time (though not of place). I’m sure there are other variations of form which I’ve forgotten or haven’t come across.
So no, I don’t think they’re “formulaic” in the sense that they’re all basically the same.
#77 by BevBB on December 22, 2009 - 7:30 pm
@AQ:
Bingo. More specifically, the game guides/walkthroughs sold for the various video games would probably be the closest comparison.
Ah, but written by one of those romance authors who I’ve been going on and on about, so I suspect the audience with the romance readership for a companion specific to that world would be quite large.
You mean like at the RWA or RT conferences? I don’t see why not, at least in some shortened preview format. One of the reasons this topic is so struck in my head is that I noticed that Stephanie Laurens literally had a mini-companion on the Cynsters & Bastien Club series in the back of one her latest books – The Untamed Bride. I remember wondering why in the world it was stuck back there and that I needed to check her website to see if there was anything similar there. Then it hit me why they’d done it. That book is the start of a four part mini-series that’s strongly connected to the other two groups.
So, yeah, publishers are thinking along those lines and Laurens and probably Quinn are two others that could definitely be added to the list that need it.
You’re absolutely on the right track as far as I’m concerned. Personally, I think the entire publishing industry is simply waking up to the fact that their largest audience is romance readers – who in turn buy a heck of a lot more than romances, both in terms of books and everything else. They call them revenue streams but what it really means are more tie-ins for us.
Sure some of the tie-ins are going to be bombs, but that’s the way it is in anything. OTOH, as the readership gets younger, publishers better be waking up to the need for tie-ins because that’s what the current generation(s) expect. Heck, I expect it in most other genres nowadays, but the newest ones grew up on them across everything they do.
#78 by Robin on December 23, 2009 - 1:57 am
@Jessica:
You know, I think Crusie’s comments are sort of trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, she talks about how important it is for authors not to lose an investment in the artistry of their work, but on the other she has these somewhat limited criteria for what constitutes genre Romance. And maybe she’s just located at a tension point in the genre — between what readers are perceived to want as opposed to the creative freedom writers are said to thrive on — but I personally see her points (and I’m informally including other things she’s said elsewhere here) as embodying a bit of slippage between the alleged limits of genre and the artistic potential of fiction.
Also, I’ll admit to being somewhat stumped by the distinction she draws between lit fic as forward looking and Romance as reactive. Huh? That didn’t strike me as right from either direction, and so I don’t really know where to go with it.
#79 by Robin on December 23, 2009 - 2:04 am
I don’t remember who brought up the issue of “conversion” upthread, but I just wanted to say that I am evidence of the effectiveness of the one person, one book approach. A dear friend who had read Romance since she was a teen, and who knew well my literary tastes, gave me a list of books and I read them, one by one. She started with books that were closer to the books I already enjoyed, which allowed me to acclimate to the coding in the genre gradually.
And that’s one thing I really understood at the end of my indoctrination; Romance is coded in a way that’s instantly recognizable and comprehensible to its readers. But for those outside the genre, these codes can and do read quite differently, which I think adds to the difficulty of getting a non-Romance reader to appreciate the genre without acclimating to its particular literary paradigm. And it’s why I think the one book, one reader approach can be particularly effective.
Of course, this is also how I started reading SF, although in that case I was TAing a course on the subject and got a crash course from a very engaged, knowledgeable SF scholar.
#80 by Laura Vivanco on December 23, 2009 - 2:58 am
I’m not sure how indoctrinated I’ve been, despite reading romance for so long. Depends what you’re meaning by that, of course. I suppose it might take a while to explain it, but one of these days could you write a post about it for Dear Author? Or have you written one already? I know you’ve mentioned it several times in the past, but I still haven’t got a firm grasp of exactly what you mean by the “code” in which readers need to be “indoctrinated.” Unless you mean the same as Germaine Greer did, but I’m not sure that you do.
#81 by Jessica on December 23, 2009 - 10:30 am
I sort of think everything is coded, although I don’t know if I would use that word. I recently read my first manga, and I know I missed a lot because I cannot “read” how eyes and faces are drawn, or what exclamation points mean, or how to understand why things are broken into different frames.
#82 by dick on December 23, 2009 - 10:50 am
@BB
Your comments are too ad hominem for a response.
#83 by dick on December 23, 2009 - 11:09 am
@Laura Vivanco
I agree that all those differences in presentation may occur in romance novels, but the core recipe must be there or a particular novel falls into a different class.
In my thinking, admitting that the romance genre is formulaic compliments those who write successfully in the genre. It’s far more difficult to work within restrictions than without them.
#84 by AQ on December 23, 2009 - 11:19 am
@Laura Vivanco:
Speaking of food and ingredients. We were, weren’t we? LOL I’m reminded of watching a show called “The Chopping Block.” It was interesting to watch how the chefs took the same core ingredients and created very different dishes. Or even “Top Chef” to watch how the chef approached food from techniques to flavor melding or even just how they talked about it and “sold” it.
Since we’re using the food analogies, maybe books are like these final dishes. Some taste great and you can’t stop eating them. Others you want to savor. Some you just aren’t in the mood for. Others are for special occasions. Some you want to deconstruct to figure out how they did that. And so on.
Genres may be similar to the categories such as American, Greek, Italian, New French Cruisine, etc. Just grouping that set our palate expectations. But there are differences between what that translates into menu items at a different restaurant or meals at home.
#85 by BevBB on December 23, 2009 - 2:03 pm
@Laura Vivanco:
I’m not sure if this answers the question or not and I’m definitely not of the camp that completely believes that the language of romance is female as opposed to male but to me it’s akin to having to shift mental gears when reading or even watching a completely different type of popular fiction. It’s not so much that there’s literally a code there in each one but that there are common terminology and constructs used by each more often than another might.
And the reader/viewer has to get comfortable with those before truly getting into the flow of things for each. If they can’t then they’re never going to feel comfortable with that genre, whatever it is. Once that ability is attained, one might call it being in the mood for that particular genre but it’s still about becoming used to what’s normally there.
#86 by Jessica on December 23, 2009 - 6:33 pm
@dick: I appreciated your first comment, until this bit:
You’ve made the same sort of comment in a few different posts now. It doesn’t have much to do with the post I wrote, and it doesn’t really serve to open conversation about the genre. In fact, it closes it down, unless folks want to be diverted from the post topic into an argument with you about whether your quoted comments are correct.
On this blog, I take romance (the genre, its readers, etc.) seriously as a subject of various kinds of analysis: literary, ethical , feminist, sociological, psychological. It’s a founding assumption of this blog that romance merits critical analysis as much as literature or anything else.
I confess, I find it odd that you would visit a blog whose authors and readers are dedicated to the pursuit of something you find impossible or fruitless. I can’t speculate on your reasons, but I really hope you’ll try to “buy in” to the basic premise of the blog and stay on topic in future comments
#87 by dick on December 25, 2009 - 12:15 pm
@Jessica
I do take the romance genre seriously. That I don’t think it can be critiqued as lit fic can be and that it will never have the impact of lit fic are, I think, positions as critically valid as any others. I haven’t adopted the positions lightly nor without considerable thought. I regret that I didn’t know that opposing positions were unwelcome.
#88 by Robin on December 26, 2009 - 10:42 pm
@Laura Vivanco: I will try to articulate my theories on this in a DA post, because this is an issue I feel pretty strongly about. I do think Jessica’s correct that every genre is coded in some way, and I’m NOT all that interested in thinking about gender coding in the genre language, but I still think that Romance — for a multitude of reasons, some internal to the genre, some external to social conditioning — operates within a particularly distinctive paradigm, to which the reader has to adjust. For those who started reading the genre very early, there may not have been such an obvious shift, but for me, starting late, I was acutely aware of learning the language of the genre over the course of many books, and of the changes that wrought on the way I read the genre.
#89 by Laura Vivanco on December 27, 2009 - 3:54 am
Thanks, Robin. I’m really looking forward to reading that post.