column: EUOLogy #18

[Oldie Black Witch]

Wake Me was in the LDS Fiction section of the BYU Bookstore. Not everywhere splits the genre up.

[House of Mustard]

Sounds like your publisher needs some new copywriters and art directors.

I certainly wouldn't argue with that.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

they know I'm available for the right price, correct?

[MsFish]

I guess this is the problem with labels.

Or with writing across genres.  I'm glad to know it can be done, though.  

[EUOL]

Sorry I haven't responded to some of those who addressed me.  Let me do so now.

Stacer:  The article did indeed mention the rise of YA fiction, and sf/f YA fiction in specific, as a promising sign.  I can't remember the percentages right now, but it seemed significant.  Like, a jump of some seven or eight percent in the amount of YA sf/f being purchased.

HoM:  You have noted that you're generally responding to the sentence in my article that says: "We SF&F people certainly consider ourselves to be a step above other forms of genre fiction."

Actually, I don't see anything disputable in this statement.  I didn't say that SF/F WAS a step above, but only that we consider it to be.  Since the thesis of my column was that SF/F and literature people have more in common than either would like to admit.  

Now, as to your REAL argument--that we shouldn't discount romance or thrillers in general--I feel I have very little to stand on.  I will try and make an argument with what I have, however.  This is all based in assumption, as my reading in the romance field is very slim.  (Though I do have some experience with thrillers.)

The thing about the mainstream romance genre is that I get a feeling in general that it doesn't take itself seriously.  Writers have a large number of pseudonyms, and produce a lot of fiction very quickly.  Morag worked at a bookstore, and he used to tell me about the shelf-life of romance novels.  They're usually on and off in less than a month.  (Compared to SF/F, where even lesser-known authors stay on the shelves for upwards of a year.)  The romance genre also doesn't invest in the production of very many hardback books.

All of these things make me wary.  I think you can stereotype a genre--just like people have rightly stereotyped fantasy for the repetitive plots the genre used through the eighties and early nineties.  Perhaps, if I read, I would be pleasantly surprised.  However, I doubt it.  Go pick a best-selling (but not too high--say, upper midlist) romance novel, and an equivalent fantasy or sf novel, and I believe you will find more thought put into plotting, packaging, characterization, and worldbuilding in the sf/f book.

This prejudice may be undeserved.  But, all the proof--and the limited reading I've done in romance--seems to support it.


The prejudice between SF/F and mainstream literary comes over a disagreement regarding what is valuable.  We emphasize plots and worldbuidling.  They emphasize prose.  We like sympathetic characters, they strive for extreme realism in characters.  It's this philosophical difference that fuels the rift between us.

I know of no such disagreement between romance and the other genres.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

The only argument I cna make for Romance not being good would be based on my very limited experience.

And I want to point somethign out about that. The people here who DO have a little experience, and not much, with Romance have probably not read books that have come recommended by people who are deeply into the better parts of the genre. I've read a few, and from what Skar said earlier, it seems directly comparable to his experience: they were ones that I found lying around and read primarily because I was bored. That sounds like a cruddy basis for choosing an experience in a new area. Would you explore classical music for the first time by finding out what recommendations afficianados and experts make and why? Or would you just grab the first CD you found as you entered the store? It doesn't seem like using a very limited experience, or even extensive experience based on similar premises (I read what was available and/or handed to me). If you don't put any thought into selecting your limited exposure, then you should probably not expect your exposure to stretch you any or be particularly good, or even representative, examples of the genre. Imagine if Piers Anthony were held as representative of the quality of Fantasy and Science Fiction *shudder*

Just my 2  bits.

However, whenever in the past I've made derogatory remarks about Romance, I've not been given good examples of ones I should try that would change my opinion. I've spoken with professional romance novelists (not best sellers like that Jackie person, but people who've sold 4 or 5 novels over the course of a half dozen years) and they've not been able to point me to any specific examples that contradict my stereotype.

And even if they did, that doesn't disprove that the genre, as a whole, is lacking quality material. There are certainly exceptions to every rule of this sort, and I would never contend that the genre is *incapable* of being writing that appeals to something deeper or stretches more, but from what I see, and what I hear from most writers and readers of romance novels (and yes, my experience of the 3 or 4 I've read in my life), the percentage of crap is higher than other genres.


Finally, despite what I've said, I think that what HoM says about his books reveals a lot more about the book than this thread or the marketing dept's decision to market it as a romance. On Second Thought seemed to me to be primarily a mystery. The romance isn't even settled until the climax has passed. There are romance elements to it, enough to say that it is in part "Romance" in genre, but I find it poor thinking to really qualify it primarily as a Romance. It sounds to me like Wake Me When It's Over is primarily a thriller, and only secondarily a romance, so I don't really regard HoM's work as a sufficient example of even showing there are really exceptions to the standard level of Romance, should such an argument be made.

[House of Mustard]

Reviving the old topic, Wake Me When It's Over was just reviewed in Meridian Magazine -- in a large article describing different types of romance novels.

Here's the full text:

Wake Me When It's Over is an excellent example of the humorous romance, in this case the humorous romantic suspense.  Wells would quite likely insist his novel is humor, not romance, though all the romantic elements are there, as are the suspense elements.  The greatest difference is the writer is male and the story is told predominantly from the male protagonist's point of view and it's told for maximum humor rather than to be taken seriously.  As in most good humor, the line is very thin between tragedy and comedy.  The action is heart-stopping and the poor reader is left at times uncertain whether to laugh or cry.  It is the hilarious tale of a young college student, Eric, who falls madly in love but is content to admire his love from afar until circumstances force him to take action.  His heart and his faith are in the right place as he bumbles and fumbles his way through trying to rescue Rebekah from the man who abducts her.  He is a hero with a broken wrist, wending his way through hair-raising chase scenes, vicious kidnappers, and a mysterious woman who seems to know who he is and where he is a little too well.  Still it is the story of a young couple who meet awkwardly and proceed clumsily to get to know each other through unusual circumstances and eventually discover something special in their relationship.

Wells is rapidly establishing himself as a writer with a gift for humor, but in this novel he also proves he knows something of the human heart and the part faith and fidelity to gospel principles plays in LDS character-building and in relationships between men and women.

The article is at www.meridianmagazine.com

[Spriggan]

What I want to know Mustard, is when are you going to start getting Fabio to modle for your covers?

[stacer]

MUCH better review than that rambling one for the last book (if you'd even call that a review, and not her own travelogue).

[House of Mustard]

when are you going to start getting Fabio to modle for your covers?

Even if he was on the covers, they'd dress him in a suit and hide his face.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

but you'd see the hair. They'd have to cut his locks first.