Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Hands up who reads romance novels

I love romance novels. I'm an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, and I'd guess that romance novels make up about 25% of my reading. Besides romance, my favorite genre is journalistic non-fiction. I also really like biographies and memoirs. I'm currently reading Confederates in the Attic, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz. It's a fascinating book about the long-term affects of the civil war.

Anyway, I find that romances are a fun way to unwind. I don't watch much television, so for me, romance novels are the equivilent of whatever sit coms I'm missing each evening. Especially since I read so quickly, that I usually read a romance novel in the time it would take me to watch an evening of primetime television. However, I'm extremely picky about which authors I read. I'm easily annoyed by horribly contrived plots and errors. Historical inaccuracies (like Wendy mentioned) bother me, but because that is not really my area of expertise, I can overlook minor errors. However, I read a novel not long ago where the plot setup was that the heroine was a columnist for a major newspaper who was suddenly thrust into being the sole reporter covering a professional sports team in the area. If that wasn't bad enough, the reason she got the job was that the team manager had requested she do it because he thought the old reporter was "unlucky" for his team. She then fell in love with one of the players and carried on an illicit affair with him while continuing to cover the team. Conflict of interest, anyone? Though normally I just stop reading books with major errors, this was was so ludicrous that I couldn't stop. It was like a train wreck.

Anyway, after a couple of instances like this, I got REALLY picky about romances and basically I wait for author recommendations before trying someone new. I love historical romance, and thanks to folcs I discovered Mary Balogh and Mary Jo Putney. I haven't read any Jo Beverly yet, but I've been hearing good things about her, so she might be the next author I start reading. For modern day romances, I like Sandra Brown and Linda Howard. (Though I don't recommend either of their early works, they've definitely improved with time.) And I adore Janet Evanovich, though her books are really classified more as mystery than romance. I love the romance elements of them though, and they are so funny. I like some Catherine Anderson books, but sometimes her heroines are so helpless and pathetic, I can't even work up any sympathy for them. And I'm always looking for more recommendations.

Annie

Mention has been made of bad grammar in romance novels and I have to wonder if or why an editor would let a book go to print if it was so full of errors. Then I started thinking about "voice" -- the special something that an author has that defines his or her work. And I realized that what one person may perceive as bad grammar my actually be that particular author's "voice."

In this article the writers gives some tips on finding your voice. Turning off the internal editor that makes you follow all the rules is one. I remember LabRat commenting positively about my use of sentence fragments in a piece I posted not long ago. To her it was my "voice" coming through. To another person it may have looked like I failed senior English. One friend was working on line edits last week and was having trouble with a "baby" editor who wanted to take out the southern dialect that showed through in her writing. That's her "voice" and should never be messed with.

Personally, I blame declining standards at publishing houses.

Seriously... 'distinctive voice' or not, would any author want to be thought of as, "Oh, she's the one whose grammar stinks"?


Wendy

Well, I wonder just how well Mark Twain's books hold up in that regard. I suppose it all depends upon whether the notoriety translates into sales from. I've run across plenty of literary specimens in the past that were lauded as "great works" that didn't contain "good grammar" at all. In fact the authors went out of their way to NOT have good grammar. It all depends on the interpretation and what's "in" at the moment.

That and whether ultimately they tell a story that grabs the reader's attention and won't let go of it.

Beverly

Beverley, just a clarification - I'm not talking about poor grammar in dialogue where an author is trying to convey a regional accent or the authentic dialogue of a poor, uneducated homeless kid. I mean books where the author and/or her editor clearly knows nothing about punctuation, tenses and so on.

As for telling a story which grabs the reader's attention, I couldn't agree more - and I have my doubts as to whether editors always know best there. Having said that, as with reading fanfic, poor grammar is one of the things which will always jerk me out of a story - and when it's a book I've paid good money for, then I'm not going to give that author another chance in a hurry! :p


Wendy

Back to Yvonne's original post...

Whether y'all read a lot of romance or not, most of the love scenes in above average fanfic sound like they were lifted from the pages of a Silhouette Desire. I'm not talking the "P" word; I'm talking style and the feel of the scene.

Question: Do you read romance novels?

Answer: Yes, I read Lois and Clark stories.

Actually, I have too many problems these days trying to keep up with all the Lois and Clark stories being posted on the archives to even consider reading something else. It seems that every week I get further and further behind in my reading.

When I did read other books, they were seldom romance novels. I tended towards Leon Uris or Tom Clancy novels.

ML

Actually, I don't find this at all surprising. Isn't it somewhat inevitable? There is only a finite way to write a lovemaking scene after all. And given how long fanfic has been around you could probably say Silhouette Desire books match the lovemaking scenes in fanfic, just as easily. So, it seems fairly logical to me that you don't necessarily ever have had to read a modern romance novel to write a similar lovemaking scene in fanfic, terms of style.

I know I should probably know this - no doubt from the rest of the thread - but it's eluding me and it's after 2am, so I'll ask anyway... P word? <g>

LabRat

Yeah, I forgot this was the purpose of the post. I got so wrapped up in talking about reading that I forgot all about writing. <G>

Do I think my lois and clark stories are influenced by romance novels and sound much like romance novels? In a word: yes.

Here's the long answer <G> : I started reading romance novels in high school, but only read them very sporadically. They made up a tiny fraction of my reading list. However, once I started writing, I started reading more and more of them. A million and one sucessful writers have said that the key to becoming a better writer is to read, read, read. That doesn't mean copying someone else's style, that means reading lots of different things and seeing what you like and what you don't. Finding what works for you. It also helps develop things like characterization, plot, etc. All the basics. So when I started writing romancy Lois and Clark stories, I stared reading more romance novels and I'm sure that affected my writing. Yes, most of my scenes do sound like they are lifted straight from a romance novel (hopefully a decent romance novel, not the ones that make me cringe, but the jury's still out on that one <G>). I've actually had so much fun writing romance (which I never thought would happen) that I've started a couple of original romance novels. I still have my "serious" writing that I'm working on slowly but surely, but now I have fun romance novels to work on, too. I think they are a great practice for my more serious writing, and they are also fun in and of their own right.

Annie

The "P" word? Plagiarizm.

LOL, I'm glad you clarified that ... my mind was going in a very nfic-y direction and that wasn't at all the word that came to mind. ROTFL!

But it's interesting to hear that L&C love scenes tend to be similar in style to published romance novels. Having never read one myself, I have no idea what that means and no idea if mine fit the bill or not! I'll have to ask Annie to give me examples when she gets back from vacation. <g>

Kathy

Yes and no. Yes, sex IS universal and all the, um, body parts are going to line up the same way regardless of what genre one is writing for, but that can happen the same way in an action thriller, just as easily as a romance if all one is talking about is physically describing the scene. Personally, I think the similarities in style between romance novels and L&C fanfic aren't in the physical descriptions but in the emotional content of the interaction between two people in love, which one wouldn't necessarily find in other genres. So, no, it isn't inevitable.

Beverly
http://www.booksanctuary.com

Okay, I gave in . The poll is here.

Yvonne

Bev, could this be because the focus of most L&C stories *is* the romance between the two characters, just as the focus of most romance novels is the relationship between those characters? Maybe it's ineviteble in the sense that in each case, you are describing a couple with strong romantic feelings for each other and the ups and downs of how they get together. Maybe "romance" is such a universal theme that we all 'know it when we see it', even if we can't describe it in specific terms?

Kathy (off to answer the poll <g>)

Hmm . . . again I’d have to say yes and no. Yes, in general terms what’s you and others are thinking is true, Kathy. A love story is a love story is a love story and to some extent all of them are going to “sound” similar no matter how many times and ways one tells it or even who tells it.

However, there is another sense where it’s not necessarily inevitable that they’re all going to sound alike. This has to do with the “language of love” - something that’s been written about a lot by those that actually “study” romance fiction, particularly as popular culture and not necessarily as literature. It’s a proven phenomenon that romance fiction as a whole has a completely different sound, feel, sense or rhythm to it than other genres of fiction with emotional nuances, sub-contexts and symbolisms that are unique to the genre, i.e. almost literally a language pattern of its own, and the primary reason for this appears to be that most of it is written by women for women. This sometimes flowery use of language appears to be the way women “communicate” with each other when storytelling.

This isn’t saying that all women and conversely no men are comfortable writing that way or reading it but simply that the phenomenon exists and isn’t an accidental, one time occurrence. It happens all the time, even with authors who’ve never read a romance before attempting to write one, and is probably one of the reasons romance as a literature form is held in such contempt to begin with – a large portion of the population simply doesn’t feel comfortable reading it and isn’t going to be unless they “learn” to understand the inherent language and accept it for what it is.

What I find curious about the fact that so much of L&C fan fiction “sounds and feels” like a romance novel to me, a longtime romance reader, is that apparently quite a lot of the writers that haven’t or don’t read romances are tapping into those rather unique language patterns without even realizing it. Inevitable? Maybe, but probably not in the way many of you mean and it’s definitely curious all the same. Don’t ya think?

For a great reference work on this phenomenon, check out a collection of essays by romance authors called DANGEROUS MEN & ADVENTUROUS WOMEN: ROMANCE WRITERS ON THE APPEAL OF THE ROMANCE and edited by Jayne Ann Krentz [ISBN 00610084638].

Beverly :-)
http://www.booksanctuary.com

To answer the original question: Yes, I do 'read' romance novels. That is, I 'listen' to them on tapes that I get from the blind library. I intermix them with mystery and suspense novels. My primary reaction to 'hearing' a romance novel is that in many of the stories, the sex scenes become hilarious when you hear all that overblown language spoken out loud. I'm still trying to figure out how to write really good L&C NFic. Some writers seem to have a natural bent for it.

Jude

Curious, yes ... fascinating, definitely!

Kathy

I'd like to back up a bit and address a statement in an earlier post that has been gnawing at me.

I spent last night and this morning re-reading the book you referenced and I'm sorry but I don't find reams and reams of errors. Sure there are a handful. Some fall into the category of author/editor error and the others I can tell are type-setting errors. But reams and reams? No. You could not have been editing from the original paperback book because you'd have known it was a plagiarized piece of work and the whole incident would never have taken place. So were you editing from a Word document that had been typed using the original book as copy? That would lend itself to "reams and reams" of errors. I wouldn't bother with this except the author isn't here to defend herself.

Wow there have been quite a few authors mentioned here. I like this thread for that reason. Now I will know who to look for my next trip around to the book store. LOL Kathy I was thinking in the same direction about the P word too<g> Laura

Also has hand up! Yes, I do read romances and have, on and off for a long time.

My favorite is Regency but I had stopped reading fiction for a long time. I was mostly reading periodicals and reference information until I found Lois and Clark fanfic. That brought be back to romance fiction pronto!

Through this message board, I had some recommendations and started reading historical romances again. I've recently discovered audiobooks for exercising and am loving rediscovering Georgette Heyer books on tape.

It's always been ROMANCE for me. Action is on the back burner and I have a lot of trouble with mysteries, always cheating and reading the end too soon