RANT!!! WATCH IT!!!
Okay. I totally do NOT want to seem like a hypocrite here. I do know that all genre writing is equally snubbed by ‘literary’ minds. HOWEVER, I have something against tired plotlines and predictable dialogue of historical romances, better known as ‘boddice rippers.’
I’ve never actually read any because I know exactly how they all go. Exactly like Pride and Prejudice, except that she gets the man in the end. +gags+ Jane Austen has credibility because she CREATED the genre. Everything else just sort of…….copied the success. And it doesn’t help that romance novels are formulaic and INCREDIBLY predictable no matter what sub-genre they are. Even the comedic romances, which are usually better than the ’serious’ ones have a formula they follow.
And whatever happened to the normally proportioned human being? Where is it in this genre? Nowhere. I’ve yet to see a normal-looking person in a romance novel. They are all raving beauties or tall, dark and handsome. It makes me sick. And what if you don’t LIKE them tall, dark and handsome? What if the reader prefers short, bald and ugly? There have to be some! I’d LOVE to read a book about an ugly main character. Actually, I have. It’s called Sir Apropos of Nothing. A FANTASY novel. And one I also recommend, and will detail later on. And, honestly, I can’t think of a single romance novel that’s recommended reading on ANY reading list. They have to make up their own awards just so they’re not totally ignored.
AND! If regular romance wasn’t bad enough, now there’s ‘inspirational romance’ wich is a Christian sub-genre. So basically, the two don’t have sex until AFTER they’re married. +rolls eyes+ Puh-lease. If I wanted to read about two people getting to know each other, I’d read something that had an actual PLOT too. Oi.
Okay. I think I’ve gotten this off my chest now. I’ll go find out some things about Sir Apropos now. ^_^
scooper Said:
on October 5, 2006 at 10:49 am
Okay I get that you don’t like romance novels. What I don’t get is how you know that you don’t like them. You say you’ve never read one so how can you write knowledgably about something you have no personal reference to? What about Westerns and Fantasy novels where the sex is just as graphic as a romance novel? Just a few questions for thought.
snarkhunter Said:
on October 5, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Exactly like Pride and Prejudice, except that she gets the man in the end. +gags+ Jane Austen has credibility because she CREATED the genre.
Uh. No.
1) Lizzie *does* get the guy at the end of P&P, so I don’t know where your “except” is coming from.
2) Jane Austen did not “invent” the genre of romance. Depending on how you choose to define romance, it can go back to the Middle Ages in Europe, or maybe just to the 18th century. Samuel Richardson and Fanny Burney and Ann Radcliffe, to name just three 18th-century novelists, all had elements of what are now considered “bodice rippers” in their novels. (I might agree that Jane Austen is the forerunner of chick lit, but that’s a slightly different discussion.)
3) Do you think Charlotte Bronte is derivative of Austen? Jane Eyre is widely considered to be proto-romance novel. Or is it just the sex? In which case, is D. H. Lawrence a romance novelist?
I’m a reader of romance, fantasy, mystery…well, I have eclectic taste. Let me recast your argument–inaccuracies and all–into a discussion of fantasy, really quickly, okay?
“I don’t get how people can read fantasy. It’s all a derivative of Tolkien. Tolkien invented the genre. It’s all elves and magic and epic battles, and none of that’s realistic. It’s silly! Only kids and immature boys like fantasy novels. Just once I’d like to see a fantasy novel where the hero is a cowardly loser instead of a brave knight. And the writing is terrible. And it’s all attempting to recast history to make it more interesting.”
Obviously, all of that is bullshit. I can go on about the origins of fantasy novels and how Tolkien did NOT invent the genre. I can defend the genre in any number of ways, including finding a cowardly (anti-)hero or two.
And, for the record, I don’t think all of your points are wrong. You’re right–there SHOULD be more average-looking men in romance. Or in fiction in general. And there should be more overweight, unattractive women who aren’t actually sex kittens in disguise, though the genre is improving on that front.
Finally, your argument that romance has no “plot” smacks of the same misogynistic bullshit that people have been spouting about genre fiction or just novels for centuries. Austen has been criticized for only writing about women in a drawing room. Apparently, that’s not important. As Virginia Woolf pointed out, “important” fiction is fiction about war and struggle and strife–largely associated with masculinity and men. “Unimportant” fiction is fiction about the feelings of women (and men, but usually women) who don’t go off to war or engage in exciting escapades. Romance is largely considered to be a woman’s genre, and the broad assumptions made about it (some of which are, I will grant you, supported by the many, many trite, crappy romance novels out there) are too easily applied to all so-called “women’s” fiction. Writing about feelings and people getting to know one another and learning to trust another person–all of that isn’t plot. That’s just silly crap, right?
(And if you want to argue that there are more trite, crappy romance novels out there than there are trite, crappy fantasy novels, well…you might be right. But I bet I could name a handful of trite, crappy fantasy novels that make the whole genre look bad.)
Monica Burns Said:
on October 5, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Hmm, I don’t disagree that there are romance books out there with tired plot lines, but that holds true for all genres. I read all types of genres. I love Frederick Pohl, Asimov, Stephen King, Anne Rice, stories like DaVinci Code, etc., so I’m not uninformed about genres outside of romance. I’ve read a lot of fiction outside of the romance genre (which BTW accounts for about 50% of the fictional market), and I’ve found plenty of tired old plot lines in those books too.
A tired, overused plot line is primarily that way because the author didn’t meet reader expectations in bringing that plotline to life in a different way. There are only X number of plotlines in the universe. They’re used over and over again. The really good books make a reader believe it’s a NEW plot line, even though it’s been rehased, thousands of times.
However, stating that “I’ve never actually read any because I know exactly how they all go. ” would be like me saying I don’t read sci-fi because I’ve seen Star Trek one to many times and all sci-fi has the same old plot lines.
And please, Jane Austen might be idolized by many, but not all romance readers enjoy her work. I don’t. Give me a Bronte novel any day. But then I happen to love Dickens, Dumas and others as well for their rich, indepth characterizations.
Sounds to me like you’re missing out on a lot of good reading. Try asking one of the smart, intelligent, well-educated women you know for a romance book recommendation. Then read it. If you despise it, then fine, but judging books by their covers (which the author has NO control over) is illogical and lacks sound reasoning.
Fantasy for me is a double-edged sword. I’ve read some good books, and some I didn’t like. But I don’t go trashing the genre just because I don’t find it to my liking as much as romance.
Best, Monica
LorelieLong Said:
on October 5, 2006 at 12:27 pm
If I were to recommend some books that could prove you wrong, would you actually read them? Or be happy to continue along with your preconceptions? Please feel free to contact me.
Kat Said:
on October 5, 2006 at 12:59 pm
“Exactly like Pride and Prejudice, except that she gets the man in the end.” Uh, yeah, Lizzie and Darcy do end up together. And I would argue that HE gets the GIRL and not the other way around.
Since you haven’t read any romances lately, you may be surprised to know that many of the most popular romances actually cross other genres. Historicals are not the only types of romances out there. In fact, paranormal romances and romantic suspense are flying off the shelves, so I’ve heard, and many of the bestsellers have been nominated, if not won, awards by sci-fi/fantasy organisations.
Other than boy meets girl, they fall in love, resolve their romantic conflicts, I honestly can’t see how you can accuse romance as a genre to be following a rigid formula. Even those rules can be relaxed (boy meets boy, girl meets two boys, etc.) within certain subgenres. For many readers, the only real “rule” about what they call a romance novel, is that the main characters end up happily together at the end. I don’t think that’s an unrealistic expectation. After all, if I read a mystery, I expect there to be, well, a mystery and for it to be solved at the end. That’s part of the genre’s basic definition. The happy ending is the one predictable outcome and, if written well, you should actually spend at least part of the time wondering how on earth the author is going to achieve that in a believable, character-driven way (as a *good* author should).
You might also be surprised to know that many romance novels don’t describe perfect heros or heroines. I’ve read stories with men in wheelchairs (paralysed BELOW the waist), women who are plus-size, alcoholic, flat-chested, bulimic, anorexic, not to mention people with hideous scars, turbulent pasts, missing limbs, and so on. These qualities didn’t preclude them from having a happy relationship at the end of their stories. Yes, tall, dark and handsome heros still exist but there are plenty of blonde and pale (especially those vampires) heros…and everything in between.
If lack of plot is your main beef, think of Gone With The Wind and change the ending to suit the “formula”. Would it dimish the plot to have Rhett and Scarlett embrace at the end? I doubt it. Would you consider Shakespearean works plotless? And yet many authors delight in reformulating - and at times, subverting - Shakespearean plots into their novels. Some authors ARE Shakespearan scholars (well, at least one that I know of). You probably didn’t notice the romances in your reading lists because they had plots. *grin*
For example, The Princess Bride (movie; I haven’t read the book) undeniably meets the definition of the romance genre, as does Howl’s Moving Castle. In fact, I would argue that the latter is primarily a romance, and uses elements of classic romance plots - beauty and the beast, good girl falls in love with bad boy. Some of my other romance/fantasy/sci-fi cross-overs include The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (a classic), JR Ward’s Dark Brotherhood Series (vampires with some unusual mythology), Wizard’s Ward (historical fantasy, published through Luna, a Harlequin line - you can’t get more romance than that!) and, recently, Slave to Sensation (an unfortunate title but it includes psychics and shapeshifters).
And yes, there are regency romances that incorporate vampires or time-travelers. Ah, those romance authors. What a crazy bunch of women! *lol* (Unfortunately, I haven’t got any exemplary titles to mention, mainly because I don’t generally read this subgenre. I like my regencies frivolous and my vampires devastatingly un-frivolous!)
I’m not trying to change your mind or get you to actually read one but, honestly, many popular romance novels don’t actually resemble what you described in your post. I normally wouldn’t even bother commenting but I read your list of favourite books and some of them are mine, too!
Yes, there are some romance novels which suck…but that’s generally because the writing sucks, not because the genre as a whole is somehow deficient. And sucky writing is a universal crime in a book, no matter which genre it falls into.
gunshyvw Said:
on October 7, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Yes, I knew I’d get in trouble with this. And I was mostly ranting against the ‘bad’ romance. I didn’t mean to get Jane Austen into this (or to prove my ignorance about her writing in the process. I haven’t read P&P since I was in 8th grade, and you don’t want to know how long ago that was.).
I know that most of my arguments are complete bollocks. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and read every Harlequin romance novel I can get my hands on. It’s probably those cheap, crappy romances that I have to shelve every day at the library that have totally turned me off of the genre. I’ve probably read a romance book or two and not even realized it, the Princess Bride being a perfect example. As is Howl’s Moving Castle. Somehow, the romance part of it didn’t register with me.
Maybe it’s not a matter of hating the romance genre, just a matter of me requiring it to be disguised as something completely different. ^_^ After all, I AM a fangirl. I read this stuff, just…without realizing that’s what it is. Perhaps my rant should have been about sucky, craptastic writing instead… ^_^
Monica Burns Said:
on October 10, 2006 at 10:37 pm
But you had the grace to admit that you might have been unfair, and I respect that. You’d be surprised by some of the HQ romances now. BTW, Nora Roberts started out at HQ. *grin* You say you like fantasy, check out some of the paranormal/fantasy review sites for some possible books to check out.
You might find them to your like despite your original post. *smile*
Best, Monica