Over at the BookEnds Blog today, Jessica posted about respect--and the lack thereof--for the romance genre. This comes just after a long discussion on Dorothy-L (or at least I think it was on Dorothy-L--I belong to too many lists, obviously!) about the choices editors and agents make to call something "suspense" or "thriller" vs. "mystery" because mysteries don't sell as well.
But whether they sell or not, people respect mysteries. You don't see people in the mystery aisle at the bookstore who dart out of the aisle once they realize someone's seen them, or turn their back so they won't be recognized. These are things you see when you breeze through/by the romance section.
My current work in progress is a romantic suspense novel. I call it my "smut book" around the house. Not out of a lack of respect, but because the romance is the hardest part for me to write. I can plot the mystery, I can research the international laws and procedures, I can even walk around the house muttering lines of dialogue until they sound natural, but I can't manipulate the romance. The characters have control over that. Referring to the book the way I do is a constant reminder to me not to let my focus on that area of the story slip.
And yet, I do find it harder to tell people I am writing romantic suspense than I did to say I was working on a mystery. Which is ridiculous, given that more than 50% of mass market paperback sales are romance, and that a good portion of the bestseller's list is romance.
So let me tell you an awful secret: not only do I write romance, I read it. Now, I don't read historical romance. I did when I was twelve and thirteen, but after that, my taste for history was too factual--I liked hard history, not historical fiction. Besides, historical romances were the embarrassing one with the bodice-ripper covers.
But romantic suspense, and the new "mystery romance" genre are among my favorite kinds of books to read. Dorchester Publishing's "Making It" line of mystery romances, for example, are perfect beach reading. Lighter, more humorous, more romantic than traditional mysteries, they have enough suspense to keep me intrigued, but not enough to make me nauseous with fear, the way some of my favorite thriller writers do. (I don't like roller coasters--but I do like thrills and chills while my feet are firmly planted!) I just bought Gemma Halliday's latest, Undercover in High Heels, from Amazon, and it occurs to me I don't know where they shelve "mystery romances" at my local Borders. I'll have to take a look.
Because shelving is what it's all about. I know a number of men who read Iris Johansen, who's shelved in the Mystery & Thriller aisle, but who's always written--in my opinion--romantic suspense. Ditto Elizabeth Lowell and Tami Hoag. But offer these men a Sandra Brown book and they'll look at you in horror, though Brown is no less adept at the thriller side of the coin than Lowell or Hoag. And her books, like theirs, consistently hit the bestseller lists. It's just that she's shelved in the romance section.
So I'm going to add something to Elaine's "complete" for my 2008 phrase. I'm going for "complete disclosure." My name is Laura, and I write romantic suspense.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
What Do You Write?
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14 comments:
What a great ending line. I laughed out loud.
Romance is a broad-spectrum genre, like "mystery" - bodice rippers to elegant seductions, where do your stories fit?
There's a dirty little secret in the suspense novels - there's a lot of lust, and often a good dollop of romantic love. (Especially when the female gets killed off.)
In good suspense, sexual attraction can be palpable. It gives something for the hero to lose if he doesn't prevail. Even when it's Moneypenny's unrequited love, or 007's wooing of the gorgeous babe. Lots of these heroes have a soft underbelly that the romance readers identify with.
Still, if it's about love for love's sake, I tend to get queasy. And I can't tolerate a moment of soap operas. Guess I was never slated for a future in romance!
Trying being man and telling someone you have written a romance novel. You get on of two reactions. Snickers, eye rolls and skepticism, or What are you, gay?
My first novel was romance For a while I tried to call it women's fiction. No matter what I called it, it had more problems than dyslexic copy editor.
One of my writing mentors is a New York Times best selling author of primarily historical romances, so I tend to respect the genre and I have even openly read a romance novel in the maintenance shop at work.
But it took me a good while to gain the courage to do so. Sure I take a bit of ribbing, but I just tell the guys to watch out or I'll write a character into my book that bears a striking resemblance to you and I'll make all the women characters ridicule his poor sexual performance and pathetic penis size. That generally shuts 'em up.
Nan -
In high school I liked soaps, but not for the romances. For the ridiculously over the top nastiness. You have to understand...I went to an all-girls' school; soaps were the only place people were nastier to each other than they were in my classes!
Travis -
Just tell them you write romance so you can do "research."
And as for the...er...size comment, my closest friend got me a sweatshirt for xmas that says "be careful or I'll put you in my novel." It's not as detailed as your threat, but it's along the same lines!
I don't read romances, because I'm too busy reading mysteries, but I do edit them, and I have to admit that I enjoy alot of the ones I work on. Like mysteries, they come in a ton of subgenres, and like all books, they run the gamut in quality. I've edited some awful ones, and I've also edited some wonderful ones.
I've never read a romance. What would be the best romance mystery author in your opinion? Would probably read that one.
Alex -
I guess it depends on what kind of romance you would want to read. As other people have said, they come in all different flavors! You can poke around in my LibraryThing library. If you like Romantic Suspense, I really enjoyed Maggie Shayne's The Gingerbread Man.
Laura-
That GM book does sound good and eerie!
Speaking as a male...
At the request of a girlfriend, I tried reading Iris Johansen, I really did. I just couldn't get past some of the contrivances. I did find, however, that I got a kick out of Sandra Brown.
Romance-writer friends say what drives many crazy are the 'rules' romance writers impose upon themselves: the obligatory alternating between female and male PoVs and insistence upon 3rd person at all costs.
At least one publisher will not consider any submission written in first person. And lets face it, not everyone writes well in the PoV of the opposite gender.
I've found Johansen to be very uneven--some of the time I just love her, some of the time I can't finish the book. I tend to like the "Eve Duncan" forensics books better.
Have you read mystery writer Margaret Maron? She's probably my favorite traditional mystery writer and in the later parts of her Deborah Knott series, she alternates between first person for Deborah and third person for male protagonist, Dwight and his cop buddies. It sounds awkward, but (as far as I'm concerned) it works fabulously.
I am having a very hard time writing in third person, myself. I'm used to first person. I didn't choose third because of a publisher (it never even occurred to me that they wouldn't take something in first!), but because I wanted to be able to talk about things that were happening that my protag didn't know about. Now I guess I'm glad I did!
If Alicia Rasley's any indicator (I've taken a couple of her online workshops) romance authors sometimes use 3rd person multiple viewpoint with incredible effectiveness. I'd never thought about how one can write the same scene from two points of view to stir interest and augment conflict. For example, a scene in which a heroine finally decides to trust the hero despite her overly cautious nature; and the hero simultaneously decides that although he'd fallen in love with her, the heroine has been so untrusting he's thoroughly pissed so will go ahead, after all, with his original plan to con her. So with two takes on the same scene, each conveys something (but only to the reader!) that the other has no clue about. It's clever.
For mysteries with a good romance plot, I recommend a bit of time-travel: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers.
For contemporary authors, I recommend the slightly futuristic (mid-21st-century) romantic suspense/mystery novels featuring homicide detective Eve Dallas in the IN DEATH series by Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb. Jayne Ann Krentz is almost always good, whether she's writing contemporaries under that name, historicals as Amanda Quick, or futuristics as Jayne Castle. The balance of romance to suspense & mystery is about 50-50.
Tal -
How could I forget Krentz? Silly me! In the days when I was reading historicals, I adored the stuff she wrote as Amanda Quick, so when I switched to contemporaries/romantic suspense, she's one of the ones I tried right away.
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