Comments on: New Romantica Trends http://stephaniedraven.com/2010/02/28/new-romantica-trends/ Modern Mythology with a Sexy Edge Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:33:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Angie http://stephaniedraven.com/2010/02/28/new-romantica-trends/comment-page-1/#comment-565 Angie Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:32:52 +0000 http://stephaniedraven.com/?p=1446#comment-565 On being subversive, some people can break the rules and get away with it, but on the racks at WalMart, you generally have to be a Big Name already to get away with it. The first thing that comes to my mind is one of Jo Beverly's books, where the couple was having a fight and Lucien smacked Beth. As soon as he did it, he was all, "OMGWTFBBQ!!!" over what he'd done, and I, at least, was pretty sure before too long that he was truly appalled at himself and that he wouldn't do it again. When they went out and met with some of his long-time friends, Beth still with a bruise on her face, all his friends were clearly on Beth's side, and some were pretty mad at him for it, modelling an appropriate (if probably anachronistic) community response to the issue. I thought she handled the whole thing very well, and showed some guts for bringing a serious, real-world issue into a mainstream romance. Susie Midlist would never have gotten away with that, though. My biggest act of subversion so far was writing a paranormal where one of the guys (Kevin) was dead at the beginning, and didn't get better by the end. [wry smile] I thought the ending was properly positive and hopeful, but a few people seem to have disagreed. Messing with the HEA/HFN is one of the things that can still get you into trouble no matter where in the romance-umbrella genre you are. My story was more of a, "Wait a little while, then in the future be happy together FOREVER" and I thought the "forever" part would make up for the wait. Now I know better, LOL! Not that I'd have written it differently, even knowing; it's still my favorite of all my published stories. But I wrote a sequel, showing that during the wait, the guy (Josh, who was still alive) met someone else (Jeff, a nice bisexual widower) and got married, and he and his husband got together with a lesbian couple and had a daughter for all of them to raise, and they had grandkids eventually. The point being, though, that he <i>didn't</i> just sit and pine, looking sadly out the window at the sad clouds and rain for the next forty-some years, which is what would probably have been expected of him if he'd been a she and I'd published this on the mainstream het side. One reader, commenting on the sequel, was all, "But wait, what about Jeff?? And Beth? [Jeff's dead wife] You need to write another sequel -- four-way in heaven!!" [giggling facepalm] Maybe some day. :D Angie On being subversive, some people can break the rules and get away with it, but on the racks at WalMart, you generally have to be a Big Name already to get away with it. The first thing that comes to my mind is one of Jo Beverly’s books, where the couple was having a fight and Lucien smacked Beth. As soon as he did it, he was all, “OMGWTFBBQ!!!” over what he’d done, and I, at least, was pretty sure before too long that he was truly appalled at himself and that he wouldn’t do it again. When they went out and met with some of his long-time friends, Beth still with a bruise on her face, all his friends were clearly on Beth’s side, and some were pretty mad at him for it, modelling an appropriate (if probably anachronistic) community response to the issue. I thought she handled the whole thing very well, and showed some guts for bringing a serious, real-world issue into a mainstream romance. Susie Midlist would never have gotten away with that, though.

My biggest act of subversion so far was writing a paranormal where one of the guys (Kevin) was dead at the beginning, and didn’t get better by the end. [wry smile] I thought the ending was properly positive and hopeful, but a few people seem to have disagreed. Messing with the HEA/HFN is one of the things that can still get you into trouble no matter where in the romance-umbrella genre you are. My story was more of a, “Wait a little while, then in the future be happy together FOREVER” and I thought the “forever” part would make up for the wait. Now I know better, LOL! Not that I’d have written it differently, even knowing; it’s still my favorite of all my published stories.

But I wrote a sequel, showing that during the wait, the guy (Josh, who was still alive) met someone else (Jeff, a nice bisexual widower) and got married, and he and his husband got together with a lesbian couple and had a daughter for all of them to raise, and they had grandkids eventually. The point being, though, that he didn’t just sit and pine, looking sadly out the window at the sad clouds and rain for the next forty-some years, which is what would probably have been expected of him if he’d been a she and I’d published this on the mainstream het side.

One reader, commenting on the sequel, was all, “But wait, what about Jeff?? And Beth? [Jeff's dead wife] You need to write another sequel — four-way in heaven!!” [giggling facepalm]

Maybe some day. :D

Angie

]]> By: Stephanie Draven http://stephaniedraven.com/2010/02/28/new-romantica-trends/comment-page-1/#comment-562 Stephanie Draven Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:43:11 +0000 http://stephaniedraven.com/?p=1446#comment-562 Angie, you make some really good points. I often find myself frustrated by the strictures in mainstream romance and I try to break the rules as often as I can. I'm a subversive. :P Angie, you make some really good points. I often find myself frustrated by the strictures in mainstream romance and I try to break the rules as often as I can. I’m a subversive. :P

]]> By: Angie http://stephaniedraven.com/2010/02/28/new-romantica-trends/comment-page-1/#comment-561 Angie Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:39:55 +0000 http://stephaniedraven.com/?p=1446#comment-561 Same with m/m. [nod] I think it's because the mainstream romance genre has been around long enough, and has been under the internet microscope for long enough, that it's developed a lot of rules and guidelines and exclusions, such that it's actually pretty tough to innovate in any but a few accepted directions. You can come up with a new setting -- like paranormal, or a new historical time/place (if you can get a publisher to take a chance on a historical era with no track record) -- or give your character(s) a job or avocation which is cool and interesting but hasn't been used yet. But character behavior is very rigidly policed, and writers who step a toe out of the boundaries on that side of the genre are snarked and flamed to a fine crisp. Erotic romance and m/m both are both relatively new (at least on the commercial side) and have both grown up in relative isolation, apart from mainstream het romance. We have our own rules and tropes, yes, but they're different from those of the mainstream, and there aren't as many of them. If I want my protag to meet the Other Guy, then have sex with five other guys before he and the Other Guy (who'll end up being his True Love) actually get together and form a stable couple, I can do that on the m/m side and no one will pop a gasket. Not so on the mainstream het side. If you want to write about a woman who has a lot of sexual experience with a lot of different men, but then meets Her Guy and falls in love and gets married, without regretting her past or beating herself up over it, you can do that. Not so on the mainstream het side. The readers will accept more variation in character values and behavior in our chunks of the genre, which is one of the reasons I love writing here. Within the boundaries, mainstream het can produce some wonderful stories, yes. But it's like wanting to write poetry and being restricted to only sonnets; sonnets are beautiful, but I want <i>more.</i> M/m and erotic romance gives us, as writers, that "more" -- the extra freedom and elbow room to create without running up against barbed wire and flamethrowers. Angie Same with m/m. [nod] I think it’s because the mainstream romance genre has been around long enough, and has been under the internet microscope for long enough, that it’s developed a lot of rules and guidelines and exclusions, such that it’s actually pretty tough to innovate in any but a few accepted directions. You can come up with a new setting — like paranormal, or a new historical time/place (if you can get a publisher to take a chance on a historical era with no track record) — or give your character(s) a job or avocation which is cool and interesting but hasn’t been used yet. But character behavior is very rigidly policed, and writers who step a toe out of the boundaries on that side of the genre are snarked and flamed to a fine crisp.

Erotic romance and m/m both are both relatively new (at least on the commercial side) and have both grown up in relative isolation, apart from mainstream het romance. We have our own rules and tropes, yes, but they’re different from those of the mainstream, and there aren’t as many of them. If I want my protag to meet the Other Guy, then have sex with five other guys before he and the Other Guy (who’ll end up being his True Love) actually get together and form a stable couple, I can do that on the m/m side and no one will pop a gasket. Not so on the mainstream het side. If you want to write about a woman who has a lot of sexual experience with a lot of different men, but then meets Her Guy and falls in love and gets married, without regretting her past or beating herself up over it, you can do that. Not so on the mainstream het side.

The readers will accept more variation in character values and behavior in our chunks of the genre, which is one of the reasons I love writing here. Within the boundaries, mainstream het can produce some wonderful stories, yes. But it’s like wanting to write poetry and being restricted to only sonnets; sonnets are beautiful, but I want more. M/m and erotic romance gives us, as writers, that “more” — the extra freedom and elbow room to create without running up against barbed wire and flamethrowers.

Angie

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