So...about Romance Novels and Tarts...

[Corrina]

Well, February is romance month for Sequential Tart or our version of romance anyway.

I decided it would be a good time to interview my friend Chris Merrill who writes for Harlequin Mills & Boon. Yes, those category books, historicals in her case.

She's also a big SF fan and takes family vacation for World Con. And she's funny. Trust me. Maybe not Gail funny but damn close. A snippet:

*********
My husband says the number one question he gets asked is "Do you help her with research (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)?"
I write in the English Regency period. I have been waiting for him to inherit a dukedom, with a great big manor house, and a bunch of servants. I think it would really help with the historical research.

So far, no luck.
*******************

Here:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=855

And don't forget to check the homepage. (Or you could always find the forums for the Dave Sim appearance....:)

[snarkbunny]

Category romances were my stress-relief in university and I thought you did a great job with the article.

Looking forward to the rest of the month.

Well done, Corrina!

[Sally Sensational]

Corrina,

You might see if Mercedes Lackey would have the time to send you a bit about writing romances - her 500 kingdoms series was put out by Harlequin and it is fun, fun, fun!

I enjoy some category romances, myself. My newest rec is Lauren Willig's series that starts with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation - it's a spinoff of the Scarlet Pimpernel series - lots of humor and fun, but not a lot of bodice-ripping and throbbing members.

[PatrickG]

I keep forgetting you're a Tart.

I don't talk much with Gina these days. Is she still active with you guys? I know she's pretty disillusioned with comics post-Didio.

[PatrickG]

Oh! One more thing... I was at a bookstore the other day and I could have sworn I saw a romance novel called "Bride of Frankenstein".

Are books like Wicked and the Harry Potter books paving the way for a lot of cross genre works? I've also noticed a fair number of original super-hero novels post-Chabon.

That really fascinates me, if true.

It's considerably cheaper and easier to publish and distribute a novel than to publish a comic book.

Quite frankly, paying an artist and printing a comic makes it financially quite a load. Whereas publishing a novel, well... I could break even with a VERY homespun publicity campaign. I can think of a dozen bookstores and libraries that I could get to stock anything I wrote in a heartbeat and it wouldn't take much to recoup expenses there. It's a touch harder to do that with a comic.

The other thing being that most concepts I think up aren't strictly one genre. Whereas most comic books I see published tend to stick to one or two genres unless the writer has developed a name.

[Cam63]

Have fun with it, Corrina.

[Gail Simone]

She's one of the VITAL tarts!

Gail

[heystacy]

Good interview Corrina. There are things about romance writing I did not know.

Years ago I was told and often read that the romance genre was very much formula driven, and repeated itself multiple times. I got a very biased view.

[Lester C.]

Good interview Corrina. There are things about romance writing I did not know.

Years ago I was told and often read that the romance genre was very much formula driven, and repeated itself multiple times. I got a very biased view.

The bias comes form the fact that you're a man. Gay, straight or bi, none of us are into that genre.

[heystacy]

The bias comes form the fact that you're a man. Gay, straight or bi, none of us are into that genre.

If I guy writes something romantic, it ends up being called a "love story," or "drama." I think.

[PatrickG]

I worked briefly with a friend on a concept that involved making an Erotica/Romance novel randomizer.

Had we made it sufficiently sophisticated, the idea was to publish HUNDREDS of romance novels via Print-on-Demand options and claim to have authored hundreds of books each.

Unfortunately, we spent half an hour giggling when we ended up creating the name of a guy we didn't like much with the random name generator and the sample paragraph mentioned his "sinewy jackhammer of desire massaging her ominous chasm of pleasure with velvetine quakes of ecstacy" or something like that.

[heystacy]

I worked briefly with a friend on a concept that involved making an Erotica/Romance novel randomizer.

Had we made it sufficiently sophisticated, the idea was to publish HUNDREDS of romance novels via Print-on-Demand options and claim to have authored hundreds of books each.

Unfortunately, we spent half an hour giggling when we ended up creating the name of a guy we didn't like much with the random name generator and the sample paragraph mentioned his "sinewy jackhammer of desire massaging her ominous chasm of pleasure with velvetine quakes of ecstacy" or something like that.

Holy quivering flesh, Patrick! ;)

[Cam63]

She's one of the VITAL tarts!

Mum's tarts were the best, but I get your point.

[PatrickG]

Another fun thing with the randomizer was the profession/background selection.

The idea was that each character would have some random elements designed to enhance the marketability of the novel.

The initial idea was to go for the "desperate housewife" and so the women's professions were all things like school teacher and librarian while the men were test pilots, archaeologists and dinosaur hunters. However, we had already planned for gender alterations for gay and lesbian audiences and some tweaks to the engine for different demos.

I think one of them had something on the order of a cornfed Arabic priest from Iowa being seduced by a museum curator in the Civil War or something.

[PatrickG]

Incidentally, there was also a "Academy Award winning film" randomizer we did.

I seem to recall my favorite being about a Jesuit priest in 1812 Virginia who abandoned his calling for a prostitute with syphilis and following her death was taken in by slaves.

[Corrina]

Nah, I'm just a staff writer. The vital Tarts are the editor who put in so much time getting everything up, assigning stories, and editing my typo-filled copy. I'm just a cog. They do all the work.

The romance genre does get slammed as formula. But it's no more formula than mysteries, for example. In mysteries, you have to solve one. In a mystery, readers want to know what happened. At the end of a romance, readers want the two main characters together.

Within those boundaries, the differences in tone and genre are really amazing.
Category novels don't have so much a formula as a tone, dictated by the line. The historicals, though, seem pretty no holds barred. Chris' second book starts, for instance, when the heroine sneaks out to the hero's house and asks to be his mistress. She has an abusive father and is being married off to an abusive husband, and she noticed the hero dumping his mistress the other day, but in a gallant way, so she figures she's better off with him than an abusive husband. And he says 'no' but she accidentally drinks the laudanum (sp?) that's in his tea and passes out. (He's been taking drugs to forget his work in the war--he's addicted.)

I won't say all romance novels are all winners. No way, no how. But I don't think much of the bulk of SF, mystery, or regular fiction or superhero comics, I only tend to like about five to ten percent of what's out there.

However, romance novels aren't inherently awful because of their genre, no more than superhero comics are awful just because they're about superheroes.

[Corrina]

The initial idea was to go for the "desperate housewife" and so the women's professions were all things like school teacher and librarian while the men were test pilots, archaeologists and dinosaur hunters. However, we had already planned for gender alterations for gay and lesbian audiences and some tweaks to the engine for different demos.



You'd have to update that now. It's at least as likely that the women are the test pilots, archaelogists & such.

In the first pure romance novel that I read, Welcome to Temptation, the woman was a small time video producer, doing stuff for weddings, but had been hired to shoot a soft porn movie. (And, yes, the movie does is finished by the end of the book.)

There's still some readers who really like more 'traditional' heroines, of course. But different tastes and all. The only segment of romance novels that I don't like is the whole 'alpha male/vampire/werewolf/magician/wizard shows up and become instant soulmates with the heroine.' Just Not My Thing. Sherrilyn Kenyon and Christine Feehan are having a good run with it, though.

[Cam63]

Incidentally, there was also a "Academy Award winning film" randomizer we did.

I seem to recall my favorite being about a Jesuit priest in 1812 Virginia who abandoned his calling for a prostitute with syphilis and following her death was taken in by slaves.

There's your feel good movie right there.

[Reverend Smooth]

I don't read them now just because none have been shoved at me, but I read a lot of them as a teen-- as soon as I hit eleven or so, a friend of my grandmother's used to give me boxes and boxes of them when I'd go out to the country, where there was no cable (and the internet wasn't even around).

So I'd sit around in the living room reading a dozen of the things a day (some circa 1960s type stuff, with a very strict formula and very tame stuff, and some flat-out softcore, some historical) while my grandma watched church programming (she knew what was in the books, but never cared, probaly figured it was better that I read it around her than do it in private) and grandpa listened to his old radio. Good times, some of my nicest -- if oddest -- childhood memories. ^___^

Go romance novels!

[PatrickG]

You'd have to update that now. It's at least as likely that the women are the test pilots, archaelogists & such.

In the first pure romance novel that I read, Welcome to Temptation, the woman was a small time video producer, doing stuff for weddings, but had been hired to shoot a soft porn movie. (And, yes, the movie does is finished by the end of the book.)

There's still some readers who really like more 'traditional' heroines, of course. But different tastes and all. The only segment of romance novels that I don't like is the whole 'alpha male/vampire/werewolf/magician/wizard shows up and become instant soulmates with the heroine.' Just Not My Thing. Sherrilyn Kenyon and Christine Feehan are having a good run with it, though.

For some reason, I tend to cross associate things with my first exposure to them.

Obviously, it's awesome how a lot of genre entertainment has evolved just within our lifetimes.

Westerns and detective stories and romance are such different animals now than they were when I was a kid. I grew up on Gunsmoke reruns and Magnum P.I. and Danielle Steele TV movies that came on after my bedtime. :)

I've noticed that there's a lot of focus on strong characterization in alot of genre entertainment anymore, sometimes even to the detriment of the "genre" part but to the benefit of the "entertainment" part.

Most mystery/detective shows anymore, for instance, seem more driven by quirky personalities and banter. And the writing is much more humane and believable. But the extra time spent developing characters means that a lot of these programs really only have one or two suspects per episode.

I'd imagine that romance novels are tremendously more believable and exciting now from a perspective of characterization and drama. But probably lack some of the sweep and melodrama of the old stuff.

I don't know. I'm a bit sad at the prospect of everything evolving towards literature or at least well-polished entertainment.

I dunno. I've said it before but I love comics in the vein of the Weisinger Superman with all kinds of incestuous, bizarre or subversive subtext. And I like westerns on a sound stage that function as a blatant metaphor for political and moral dilemmas today. And I have a hunch I'd even like those old romance novels where "Dirk Squarejaw" types sweep a farmer's wife off her feet.

If it's TOO good, it's not really genre anymore. :rolleyes:

[Karen El]

I notice that romance fiction has spread out into genre areas more recently, but is there much SF there? I'm thinking more the hard SF than the fantasy disguised as SF. I grew up reading old Asimov and um, others I forget now. But it was all problem solving stories with little to no character development and no icky gurls allowed. I'd be amused to know that this genre had been given a makeover.

[Lester C.]

If I guy writes something romantic, it ends up being called a "love story," or "drama." I think.

I'm talking about those red/pink novels you see in the supermarket with the bare chested muscle bound Neanderthal about to kiss some swooning woman with a beatific expression on her face. You know the covers I'm talking about. The ones that suggest that right after the snap shot was taken a whole lot of !@#$ing is about to go down just as soon as you open the cover. Men if you purchase such a book for your reading pleasure I'm going to start passing jar around so you can kindly deposit your testicles as you won't be needing them in the near future.

And another thing while I'm on top of my soap box sounding like an anachronistic misogynistic misanthrope. Why do women complain about men viewing them as sexual objects when they purchase this crap by the lot?

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k116/rhrh319/romancenovelcover.jpg

[Reverend Smooth]

Most women doing that aren't buying those.

But plenty of dominant men fantasize about licking women's pleather boots and being told they're naughty boys.

Doesn't mean most women or men want to be subordinate to someone else, even if it's good stroke material now and then.

Even I've liked to bottom in the past, but when it was over, damn, get into the kitchen and make me a snack, man.

[Lester C.]

Most women doing that aren't buying those.

But plenty of dominant men fantasize about licking women's pleather boots and being told they're naughty boys.

Doesn't mean most women or men want to be subordinate to someone else, even if it's good stroke material now and then.

Even I've liked to bottom in the past, but when it was over, damn, get into the kitchen and make me a snack, man.

As always Reverend, and eloquently astute point and that brings me to the following diatribe. Men if you have a burning desire to read romance novels, lick women leather boots, and pay for the pleasure of having someone kick the shit out of you all the while calling you names there is something profoundly wrong with you. To put it far less eloquently and astutely than Father Smooth, you people are fucked in the head. You freaks need to find Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Elvis, Heystacy something anything to deal with your varying neuroses. All of you need to man the fuck up. Now!

[Corrina]

Ah, the clench covers.

Short answer: They sell.

Long answer: There's a good segment of the audience that wants to read the fantasy of really hawt sex with a hot guy. This kind of cover is a shortcut to them. It's certainly come to represent the romance cover but it's by no means the only kind of cover available.

However, like, say, Greg Land porn star poses on covers, it's not necessarily reflective of the quality of the interior story. Yes, probably a hawt will occur inside but having a cover like this doesn't necessarily mean the writing inside sucks. Trust me, there are romance writers who wince whenever they see these covers, much as I winced at some of the BoP covers during Gail's run.

This site is sorta the romance equivalent of the Tarts:
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/

aka Smart Bitches Love Trashy Books. They make fun of the covers too.

Good romance SF? Hard to find. I'd first recommend Bujold's Cordelia's Honor and Civil Campaign. And her new two-part fantasy, The Sharing Knife, is really satisfying as a SF/F book and as a romance. Real people, real relationships.

Linnea Sinclair writers really excellent SF--I mean hard SF, galactic SF with all sorts of fun technology and romance. Gabriel's Ghost is excellent, as is Finders, Keepers. I liked the Down Hown Zombie Blues as well. And Catherine Asaro's work is pretty good, too, though not as much to my taste as the others. You have to watch, though, because some of them are really romances with just the trappings of SF or paranormal. Sinclair's shelved in SF, btw, as is Bujold & Asaro.

Eileen Dreyer, who also writes mysteries, had dinner with Fabio once, btw. She was not impressed. "It's hard to talk to a man who's busy checking out his looks in the clean dinner plate."

Oh, Patrick! You need to find some Beatrice Small! So over the top soft-core porn melodrama! Harems, even!! :)

For mystery readers, you could do a lot worse than by going back and reading Mary Stewart's romantic suspense books. Love them.

[Lester C.]

Ah, the clench covers.

Short answer: They sell.

Long answer: There's a good segment of the audience that wants to read the fantasy of really hawt sex with a hot guy. This kind of cover is a shortcut to them. It's certainly come to represent the romance cover but it's by no means the only kind of cover available.

However, like, say, Greg Land porn star poses on covers, it's not necessarily reflective of the quality of the interior story. Yes, probably a hawt will occur inside but having a cover like this doesn't necessarily mean the writing inside sucks. Trust me, there are romance writers who wince whenever they see these covers, much as I winced at some of the BoP covers during Gail's run.

This site is sorta the romance equivalent of the Tarts:
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/

aka Smart Bitches Love Trashy Books. They make fun of the covers too.

Good romance SF? Hard to find. I'd first recommend Bujold's Cordelia's Honor and Civil Campaign. And her new two-part fantasy, The Sharing Knife, is really satisfying as a SF/F book and as a romance. Real people, real relationships.

Linnea Sinclair writers really excellent SF--I mean hard SF, galactic SF with all sorts of fun technology and romance. Gabriel's Ghost is excellent, as is Finders, Keepers. I liked the Down Hown Zombie Blues as well. And Catherine Asaro's work is pretty good, too, though not as much to my taste as the others. You have to watch, though, because some of them are really romances with just the trappings of SF or paranormal. Sinclair's shelved in SF, btw, as is Bujold & Asaro.

Eileen Dreyer, who also writes mysteries, had dinner with Fabio once, btw. She was not impressed. "It's hard to talk to a man who's busy checking out his looks in the clean dinner plate."

Oh, Patrick! You need to find some Beatrice Small! So over the top soft-core porn melodrama! Harems, even!! :)

For mystery readers, you could do a lot worse than by going back and reading Mary Stewart's romantic suspense books. Love them.

For the record there is nothing wrong with women purchasing romance novels. I'm even willing to make an exception for homosexual fourteen year olds without access to the internet and fanfiction. But damn it men should not be reading anything with a clench cover.

[Reverend Smooth]

As always Reverend, and eloquently astute point and that brings me to the following diatribe. Men if you have a burning desire to read romance novels, lick women leather boots, and pay for the pleasure of having someone kick the shit out of you all the while calling you names there is something profoundly wrong with you. To put it far less eloquently and astutely than Father Smooth, you people are fucked in the head. You freaks need to find Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Elvis, Heystacy something anything to deal with your varying neuroses. All of you need to man the fuck up. Now!*laughs!* XD

I actually don't have a problem with people doing their kinky shit. There's probably more satisfaction in having the shit kicked out of you by a hot woman than by God smiting your house with a tornado. XD

Re: fantasy romance: I hear Mercedes Lackey has written a few. I have not read them, but they're on Amazon somewhere. I know McCafferey has done romance (and DragonFlight could be arguably considered that), also forget the titles.

[Lester C.]

*laughs!* XD

I actually don't have a problem with people doing their kinky shit. There's probably more satisfaction in having the shit kicked out of you by a hot woman than by God smiting your house with a tornado. XD

Re: fantasy romance: I hear Mercedes Lackey has written a few. I have not read them, but they're on Amazon somewhere. I know McCafferey has done romance (and DragonFlight could be arguably considered that), also forget the titles.

A lot of authors, under pseudonym start as romance authors. Lawrence Block for example had such humble beginings. But there is a reason that the moment they gain respectabilty they drop the pseudonym and begin work in their chosen field.

Mercades is an awesome author. I was blown away when I found out she was married to Larry. The whole things has a local boy made good feel to it. As a result Larry is always a bit intimating to me because he's married to an author that has been a favorite of mine since childhood.

[Charles RB]

Men if you have a burning desire to read romance novels, lick women leather boots, and pay for the pleasure of having someone kick the shit out of you all the while calling you names there is something profoundly wrong with you. To put it far less eloquently and astutely than Father Smooth, you people are fucked in the head... All of you need to man the fuck up. Now!

If that's directed at me, I am OUTRAGED.

I've never had a desire to read romance novels.

[PatrickG]

As always Reverend, and eloquently astute point and that brings me to the following diatribe. Men if you have a burning desire to read romance novels, lick women leather boots, and pay for the pleasure of having someone kick the shit out of you all the while calling you names there is something profoundly wrong with you. To put it far less eloquently and astutely than Father Smooth, you people are fucked in the head. You freaks need to find Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Elvis, Heystacy something anything to deal with your varying neuroses. All of you need to man the fuck up. Now!

Jesus has leather boots? Hot.

[Reverend Smooth]

Mercades is an awesome author. I was blown away when I found out she was married to Larry. The whole things has a local boy made good feel to it. As a result Larry is always a bit intimating to me because he's married to an author that has been a favorite of mine since childhood.He co-writes with her, too.

ANd yeah, they're awesome. <3

[Reverend Smooth]

Jesus has leather boots? Hot.
http://www.sub-shop.com/ProductImages/579p.jpg
Oh god, oh god!

[Charles RB]

Jesus has leather boots? Hot.

Well, the Testaments do bring up discipline and punishment a lot - I'm more surprised that Buddha is into this stuff...

[PatrickG]

And I know some women who intentionally buy the shittiest romance novels they can find and sit around reading them in funny voices. (This works well with any kind of bad writing. I also recommend taking a writing class just to get your hands on some good material -- however, don't be disappointed if there are only one or two people per class who write at that Engrish level that you laugh at with very little guilt.)

It's a bit hard to work your way into those circles as a guy. And there's a chance of figurative emasculation.

But there's a little rush to be had saying naughty things in funny voices with a bunch of attractive girls.

The old box office staff at my college theater used to do readings of the trashy romance novels for kicks when they were bored.

Some of the most attractive womenfolk I've known over the years were girls who could not only openly talk about sex in front of guys but openly laugh about it with them.

Any guy who feels like cheesy romance novels and ridiculous levels of sexuality are a gender segregated affair is welcome to stay at the sausage fest; I'd rather chill with my homegirls at the slumber party.

[Grazzt]

(This works well with any kind of bad writing.)

I recommend "The Eye of Argon", if you want to do a sci-fi variant of this.

[PatrickG]

I recommend "The Eye of Argon", if you want to do a sci-fi variant of this.

If you read THAT book out loud, the universe will destroy itself in a fit of self-pity.

[heystacy]

I'm talking about those red/pink novels you see in the supermarket with the bare chested muscle bound Neanderthal about to kiss some swooning woman with a beatific expression on her face. You know the covers I'm talking about. The ones that suggest that right after the snap shot was taken a whole lot of !@#$ing is about to go down just as soon as you open the cover. Men if you purchase such a book for your reading pleasure I'm going to start passing jar around so you can kindly deposit your testicles as you won't be needing them in the near future.

And another thing while I'm on top of my soap box sounding like an anachronistic misogynistic misanthrope. Why do women complain about men viewing them as sexual objects when they purchase this crap by the lot?

What if he read chick lit?

[Riker Omega Three]

Ah, the clench covers.

Short answer: They sell.

Long answer: There's a good segment of the audience that wants to read the fantasy of really hawt sex with a hot guy. This kind of cover is a shortcut to them. It's certainly come to represent the romance cover but it's by no means the only kind of cover available.

That's interesting. I always assumed that a lot of women were turned offed by these types of covers, although I suppose publishers wouldn't keep doing them if too many objected. One alternative I've seen is a kind of dual cover. The outer cover doesn't have the guy and girl, but when you turn it back, you see the painting of the two embracing lovers. That seems like a good way to appeal to both extremes.

[Reverend Smooth]

A lot of women are turned off by them. Just not the ones buying them. XD

[Aroihkin]

http://www.sub-shop.com/ProductImages/579p.jpg
Oh god, oh god!

So that's why you imported me. For my boots. :O

[Reverend Smooth]

Yeah, if I wasn't allergic to 'em. DX

[Aroihkin]

I'm just amused that you used that example. :33

And I knew it! Knew it all along!

[Reverend Smooth]

I had it on hand from when I was taunting Charles RB's boot fetish. XD

[Aroihkin]

I could taunt him even worse, I have the photos J took.

But I've used up all my meany-head points for the week...

[Reverend Smooth]

Don't give the poor boy a nosebleed!

<33 CRB.

[Corrina]

Just for fun, I counted the half-naked posed covers in the book section of my grocery story. Four days with romance and mixed romance.

Twelve covers of those type, and eight of them were between two authors: Hannah Howell & Cassie Edwards. (Howell writes Scotland set historicals, Edwards, Native American ones.)

I didn't even find one in the Harlequins! Some of those had couples embracing but they were fully clothed.

[PatrickG]

Just for fun, I counted the half-naked posed covers in the book section of my grocery story. Four days with romance and mixed romance.

Twelve covers of those type, and eight of them were between two authors: Hannah Howell & Cassie Edwards. (Howell writes Scotland set historicals, Edwards, Native American ones.)

I didn't even find one in the Harlequins! Some of those had couples embracing but they were fully clothed.

The terrorists have WON!