Since I first posted about the essays on romance authors which had been published in the journal Teaching American Literature there have been some changes made. Most of the essays have been renamed and restored to their original (in some cases significantly longer) lengths:
- Gillian Mason's "Rosemary Rogers: The Positive Power of Romance and Sexual Fantasy" is now "Rosemary Rogers."
- Suzanne Milton's "Danielle Steel: Bringing Family Issues to Light" is now "Danielle (Fernande) Steel."
- Sarah S. G. Frantz's "Suzanne Brockmann: The Military and the Romance" is now "Suzanne Brockmann."
- Wendy Wagner's "Jennifer Crusie: Romance as Academic Question" is now "Jennifer Crusie."
- Fahamisha Patricia Brown's "Beverly Jenkins: African American History and the Romance Novel" is now "Beverly Jenkins."
- Patricia Kennedy Bostian's "Amanda Scott: Bringing History to Life" keeps the same title and url.
- Leslie Haynesworth's "Janet Evanovich: Comedy and Romance" is now "Janet Evanovich."
- Fahamisha Patricia Brown's "Anita Richmond Bunkley." Brown notes that
Anita Richmond Bunkley identifies herself as the author of nine book-length novels, two romances, three novellas, and one work of non-fiction. While it is difficult to say which two titles she would characterize as romances, what is certain is that all of her novels contain an element of romance. (1)
Given that one of her novels, Suite Embrace, (published in 2008) "is a Kimani romance novel (Harlequin’s African American series)," that's possibly one of the two that Bunkley would classify as romances. - Lee Anna Maynard's "LaVyrle Spencer." I was particularly interested in Maynard's description of
themes and motifs in The Fulfillment, most notably in the characters’ connections with the seasonal cycles on the farm. Life on a farm is dictated by the seasons, with they and not the farmer controlling the timeline of planting, cultivating, and harvesting, but Spencer forges a much deeper symbolic connection in her novel. (2)
and her observation that, in Forsaking All Others,With sly self-referentiality, Spencer opens her novel with a breakthrough assignment for Allison – shooting a lusty cover for a romance novel Allison finds herself absorbed in reading, although she bristles at the tidy, happily-ever-after ending and what she imagines will be its surefire appeal to women readers. (4)
Maynard also discusses the symbolism of "the rejuvenation of a house" in two of Spencer's novels. - Diana Stout's "Karen Robards." In the very first paragraph, Stout informs the reader that "Robards claims that she doesn’t write under any formula, and has never sold any of the cookie-cutter romances produced by such publishers as Harlequin and Silhouette" (1). I wonder if this is Stout's paraphrasing of the following exchange between Robards and an interviewer:
Did you ever write for the big formula-type romance publishers?
Even if the description of Harlequin/Silhouette romances as "cookie-cutter" is the result of Stout's paraphrasing of Robards's response to the interviewer I'm still rather taken aback by it because it seems extremely dismissive of a great many romance novels and authors, including Nora Roberts (discussed below), who began by writing category romances. It has always seemed very ironic to me that, in a genre whose readers often complain that their novels are unfairly dismissed as "trash" or "fluff," some readers of single title romances often seem to be equally willing to take a negative, broad-brush attitude towards category romances.
No. I never did.1 - Wylene Rholetter's "Nora Roberts." One of the many interesting details about Roberts's career which are included in this extremely comprehensive essay is that "Roberts's name has come to be associated with connected stories during her more than twenty-year career, but, according to Isabel Swift, Vice President, Editorial, Silhouette, the concept was new in category fiction when Reflections and Dance of Dreams appeared in 1983" (2).
Another unusual aspect of Roberts's career is that The Last Honest Woman "was Roberts's fiftieth title for Silhouette, and Roberts herself served as the cover model for Abigail O'Hurley Rockwell, the novel's heroine" (6). I've included a photo of the cover in question, as well as a near-contemporary photo of Roberts, for comparative purposes.2
For all Roberts's success, the following claim seems overstated: "When Roberts entered the field in 1981, category romance was successful as a genre, but individual works within the category format had a shelf life of about thirty days. Nora Roberts challenged that limitation. She has proved that twenty-year-old category fiction still sells" (26). While it is certainly true that Roberts's novels for Harlequin have been repeatedly republished with impressive frequency and in impressive numbers, the Harlequin Classic Library had already reissued category romances which twenty or more years old. Juliet Shore's Doctor Memsahib, for example, is #4 in the Harlequin Classic Library. The publication details reveal that the novel was first published as a Mills & Boon hardcover edition in 1958, the first Harlequin edition was published in 1960, the "Golden Harlequin Library" edition was published in 1972 and the Harlequin Classic Library edition was published in March 1980. Lucy Agnes Hancock's Community Nurse was first published in hardback in 1944. The first Harlequin edition, in paperback, dates from 1953, and it seems to have been reprinted a couple of times between then and 1982, when it was added to the Harlequin Classic Library.
As Rholetter notes, people often describe "Roberts as a 'publishing phenomenon'" (22) but the statement that "The MacKades with their expletive-rich language, quick tempers, tender hearts, and steady love for family suggest that in the creation of male characters, as in other areas, Roberts has moved far beyond the limits of formulaic romance" (12, emphasis added) seems to me to do more than simply praise Roberts's skill at characterisation. It raises questions about what constitutes "formulaic romance," and how many other authors in the genre have "moved far beyond" its limits. Rholetter's clearly not alone in elevating Roberts by comparing her and her novels to an anonymous mass of other romance writers and their books: "According to Thomas Kellner of Forbes, Putnam's Phyllis Grann believed Roberts's books were 'much more complex and textured' than typical romance fare" (9). This got me thinking about how scholars who appreciate the genre can write about its outstanding proponents without wording that appreciation in ways which might be interpreted by others (particularly those who do not know and love the genre as we do) as a dismissal of much of the genre. I think Rholetter gets the balance right here: "Margo [...] is a familiar type to romance readers, the beautiful woman fully aware of her sexual power and accustomed to using it. What sets Roberts apart from lesser talents is the skill with which she uses the type yet creates a distinctly individual character" (13). Here Rholetter carefully distinguishes between the use of traditional plot types (which are neither denigrated nor praised, but simply mentioned as an integral part of the genre) and the skill of a particular author in bringing something new to their use.
1 Stout included the interview “Karen Robards: The Romance Writer & Her Crystal Ball” in her list of sources. The web address Stout gave no longer seems to be working, so it's possible the version I found may be different.
2 The photo of Nora Roberts came from Claire E. White's 1998 "A Conversation With Nora Roberts" at Writers Write. The image of the cover of The Last Honest Woman is a customer image provided on Amazon.com. This is the cover of the "September 1990 reprint of "The Last Honest Woman" by Nora Roberts, Silhouette Special Edition No. 451, April 1988." The original cover features the same picture, but without the inset portrait of the heroine/Roberts.
"how scholars who appreciate the genre can write about its outstanding proponents without wording that appreciation in ways which might be interpreted by others (particularly those who do not know and love the genre as we do) as a dismissal of much of the genre."
ReplyDeleteI find it a tricky balance to strike. I tried to express that on the Gab a while ago, in discussing my difficulty with reviewing category romance. Talking about a very stylized category romance with a ridiculous plot and setting but great characters and emotional writing, I said:
"I absolutely don’t want is to equivocate and create an aura of 'For a category romance, it’s a good read' or 'I’ll give it a free pass because it’s just a short category romance.' That type of commentary smacks of low expectations, and I’m reluctant to feed the prejudice held by some readers and authors against category romance. Category romance is all too often criticized even by those who defend romance as a whole as a varied, legitimate genre. But perhaps I simply haven’t come up with the right phrasing yet. Instead of 'For a category romance, this is a good book', perhaps I should turn it around and try 'For a really engrossing read, this book has some surprising flaws'?"
That sounds reasonable, but it elides the whole point that category is a form unto itself and perhaps *should* be judged differently. Is it a genre that calls for judging a book entirely according to what it sets out to accomplish? Yet that approach only critiques the work, not the genre.
I still haven't resolved it, so I always appreciate seeing good examples. (Bad examples abound!)
it elides the whole point that category is a form unto itself and perhaps *should* be judged differently
ReplyDeleteMaybe I see this differently because my romance reading really began in earnest with category romance and I still tend to read many more categories than single-titles, but I don't think of category romance as "a form unto itself."
Within category romance there are significant differences in length, for example. The Modern/Presents and Romance romances are 50,000 – 55,000 words long, the SuperRomances are 60,000–65,000 words, and the Historicals are 70,000 – 75,000 words long. One reviewer, writing about a recent Avon romance, calculated that "At approximately 200 words per page, this one comes in at just about 72,000. In direct comparison, another Avon historical I picked at random adds up to more than 92,000."
This would seem to suggest that the length of romances is on a continuum and some category romances are not really that much shorter than some of the shorter single-titles.
As for homogeneity, I do notice similarities based on line and/or publisher but these can affect both category and single-title romances. It's difficult to pin them down exactly, but having read quite a few Avons in quick succession as a result of their Love Gives Back promotion, I began to get a feel for the sort of romances they publish. Obviously not every Avon romance is the same, but there's something about a lot of them, when read en masse, which somehow feels similar. The same is true of each of the Harlequin lines (though definitely not true if you read across all the Harlequin imprints, from the inspirationals to the erotic romances). You can also begin to notice a similar "feel" when if you read consistently within a particular sub-genre (e.g. trad Regencies). But even so, the Signet trad Regencies had a different "feel" to them from the Mills & Boon "sweet" Regency-romances I've read. I know there was some discussion a while ago on the Smart Bitches' site about editors and how their tastes influence what's published:
I had to stop and ponder something a Bitchery member said in a comment thread [...]. To wit: it’s not so much an author we should be glomming, but an editor’s work. The editor you follow as a fangirl should consistently deliver the kinds of stories you enjoy, because most likely, they are the kinds of stories h/she enjoys.
So I'd suggest that unless it's a priority to identify books which will take a shorter time to read, perhaps what's significant is not really whether or not something is a "category" romance but whether it
(a) has a relatively limited cast of characters
(b) doesn't have a secondary sub-plot or secondary romance, or at least not a significantly developed one.
Some people prefer more details about the setting, more complex plots and larger casts of characters, but you can't be guaranteed this in every single-title. Conversely, although the word-count limits will probably mean that you find them less often in categories than in single-titles, you may still find them in some category romances.
(c) is a romance which uses one or more of the many well-established romance plots or character types e.g. a secret baby, a rake. Not all categories do this, and many single-titles do. Maybe it's because romances of this kind are so often found in Harlequin Presents/M&B Moderns that some people have the impression that this is what all/most category romances are like this.
There's absolutely nothing wrong, in my opinion, with authors using those well-established plots and characters, as long as they add something new which brings them to life/gives them emotional intensity. They may, however, be a bit more stylized and/or require some reader knowledge of romance conventions. However, as I said, I don't think this kind of romance is only to be found in category romances, and some category romances can be really innovative with regards to plot and/or character types.
I absolutely love books with a great realistic, romance plot, even more so with a little mystery added- such as Patrick Davis' book, "The Silent Note," which I just finished yesterday. As long as the story is realistic I am for it.
ReplyDeleteBecky, I followed the link, but the description of The Silent Note doesn't give any indication of there being a romance plot. There's a dead pianist, another dead woman, and then her husband and child investigating a mystery. I suppose it might have romantic elements in it somewhere (perhaps to do with the long-dead pianist) but unless it has a central couple whose love story is concluded in a positive way, then it's not a romance according to the RWA definition.
ReplyDeleteThere's also mention of a "spellbinding" mystery, which made me wonder if there were paranormal elements or whether the word was just being used metaphorically.
RfP, continuing with the issue of wordcounts, I just saw an item at Dear Author reporting that "Harlequin has sent out an email strongly urging that all manuscripts be kept under 100,000 words due to printing costs."
ReplyDeleteMeljean said she was "guessing this is primarily for the lines that are single title books" but an interesting detail that emerged, from Gennita Low, is that "Avon started the 90,000 word limit a few years ago" and she added that "If you look at most RWA chapter contests today, they’re asking for 90K word count in the guidelines."
More information, this time from Karen Templeton:
H/S has been cutting word counts across the board for some time — categories now run, depending on line, between 45K and 70K (Supers might run up around 75K, I’m not sure). Some lines were cut by as much as 20-25% within the last few years — the old Intimate Moments, now Silhouette Romantic Suspense, used to run 80-85K ten years ago; now it’s 55-60K.
So it begins to seem as though today's single-titles might well be similar lengths to some of the category romances of the past, and even with both categories and single-titles getting shorter, some of the longer categories may be similar in length to some of the shorter single-titles.
Yes "The Silent Note" includes mystery,and drama, but overall I was most impressed with the love story that is brought back to life after so many years- which is why I referenced this book on the blog.
ReplyDeleteLaura, you're right, category romance isn't homogeneous. By calling it a separate form, I didn't mean to imply that.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, it doesn't sound like category romance is lengthening but more as though single-title is becoming an amuse-bouche, as Robin put it. Though whether it's 50k or 92k, it's a fairly short work considering that it has to develop characters and a relationship; as Victoria Janssen said, at any of those lengths it's subject to some of the same challenges in writing "short".
Your descriptions of the different lines are actually the main reason that I think category may be a distinct form. The specificity of the character types, situations, and the mood they're intended to evoke make romances from some category lines instantly recognizable. That's not to say they're bad, or all alike, but they're highly identifiable and I think form the basis of much of the "genre shorthand" that can baffle a romance newbie. Perhaps the reviewing landscape *should* be altered by that specificity in many category romances' aims. It's not too often one finds a form in which one can so clearly evaluate works' success at achieving their intended effect.
At the same time, if authorial intent is that clear, is that the overriding criterion by which to evaluate the work? For a dedicated romance reader, perhaps yes: does the romance "work" as intended? For a newbie, though, probably not. For example, a reader not acculturated to romance might have a reaction along the lines of "What? Her father just gave her virginity to a business rival to pay off a debt? Is this dystopic speculative fiction?" or "Why would he stop in the middle of the action and proclaim his love so wordily? Is this a spoof on James Bond's smug asides?" Just as a new reader of urban fantasy might wonder how the central character can possess extraordinary ass-kicking powers and keep developing new powers. I think we as genre readers accept certain quirks in the texts as allegorical, or as a means to an emotional end. What I find tricky is balancing "Did it meet genre expectations" with "How does it work as a work of general literature".
Your descriptions of the different lines are actually the main reason that I think category may be a distinct form. The specificity of the character types, situations, and the mood they're intended to evoke make romances from some category lines instantly recognizable.
ReplyDeleteYes, but as you say, it's only "some category lines" which are "instantly recognizable", and even within those, every so often something will come along which in a line which is surprising/pushes the boundaries.
I also don't think this is specific to category romance. At one point, for example, there was a lot of talk about the "Avonization" of historical romance. Those are single title romances, but the fact that the term was coined does suggest that, at least to some readers, there was a sense of sameness/of having a brand identity.
Within certain sub-genres you can also see the development of particular "character types, situations, and the mood they're intended to evoke." In a recent review Jessica jokingly refers to "the 'bad ass brotherhood' subgenre of paranormal romance," mentions "the exaggeration typical of paranormal romance" and also describes the moods they're intended to evoke: "I think of the pleasures of (much) paranormal romance that way: you go from hit to hit to hit. It connects directly with powerful baseline human emotions like anger, lust, jealousy, possessiveness, and pride."
the "genre shorthand" that can baffle a romance newbie [...]
For example, a reader not acculturated to romance might have a reaction along the lines of "What? Her father just gave her virginity to a business rival to pay off a debt? Is this dystopic speculative fiction?" or "Why would he stop in the middle of the action and proclaim his love so wordily?
I never had any sense of culture shock or bafflement when I first started reading romance. Maybe it's because things like the selling of daughters is something that still happens in the real world, (the issue of "forced marriages" is particularly topical, in fact) so doesn't seem "dystopic" to me.
Long discussions about emotions seem quite realistic to me anyway but in my pre-romance-reading days I was already used to operas and musicals, where people often stop in the middle of the action to sing at length about their emotions.
What I find tricky is balancing "Did it meet genre expectations" with "How does it work as a work of general literature".
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but doesn't that presuppose that there are works of "general literature" which don't have genre expectations? It seems to me that all novels are written in a context which shapes the expectations within which the intended reader reads.
I don't disagree on any of your points, Laura, but to me the consideration of where one slices and dices book from fiction from genre from subgenre is inextricably (and enjoyably) part of the challenge of reviewing and recommending books.
ReplyDelete"Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but doesn't that presuppose that there are works of "general literature" which don't have genre expectations? It seems to me that all novels are written in a context which shapes the expectations within which the intended reader reads."
I didn't intend anything like that, but I can see that it reads that way. Perhaps if I'd phrased it as "in general, as literature" it would better get at what I meant--which was that "What do I think of this book as a romance?" is different from "What do I think of it as fiction?" In other words, to what extent do my genre expectations shape how I respond to a book; and does the book work equally well with or without that genre background.
"Long discussions about emotions seem quite realistic to me anyway but in my pre-romance-reading days I was already used to operas and musicals, where people often stop in the middle of the action to sing at length about their emotions."
That's an interesting point. Yet even so, I sometimes find a character's final declaration of love overdone. Perhaps if I imagine it as opera, I'll feel differently about it. In musicals and operas there's often a sense of winding up for a declaration or embroiderment; one knows the onstage cast will burst into song at any moment. It's a pretty good analogy, really!
In other words, to what extent do my genre expectations shape how I respond to a book; and does the book work equally well with or without that genre background.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost exclusively reading romances at the moment, so perhaps that's affecting how I think about this kind of thing, but I'd find it very difficult to separate out how I feel about the book as a romance and how I feel about it as fiction.
I sometimes find a character's final declaration of love overdone. Perhaps if I imagine it as opera, I'll feel differently about it. [...] It's a pretty good analogy, really!
I'm glad if that's a helpful way for you to think about it.