I was listening to a non-fiction audio book yesterday. In the book it related a story about wine connoisseurs which got me thinking about books…
The romance genre is often denigrated by those who have loftier, more serious, literary tastes. Romance novels are tarred as escapist…and light…as having not much substance…of being something that is churned out quickly without much thought all in order to earn a quick dime. I know from my own experience in the industry, writing, editing, and publishing romantic fiction that there is a breadth to the genre. Some of it is purely escapist reading…some of it is light…some of it doesn’t have much substance…some of it is churned out quickly without much thought to the quality…but I see the pieces that are like this as the exception rather than the rule. Most romanced are excellent reads with greater depth of character and greater internal motivation than one finds in many other forms of fiction.
Romance is an escapist form of literature…that much is true…but that is a label that could be applied equally across all the fiction genres. If we are honest, we pick up a fiction book when we want to escape for awhile, when we want to relax, when we want to experience a world and a reality other than our own. Being an escapist form of literature alone shouldn’t render an entire genre as something akin to the $2 bottle of bargain wine that we hide in the basement and never admit to drinking.
Is there inherently anything wrong with a book, or a genre for that matter, that is light and fun with a happy ending? Isn’t it more likely that that kind of book is just another flavor…one that delivers what it promises…something that if it were a wine would have the connoisseurs raving about the uplifting bouquet?
As for complaints about romance books having no substance–I sometimes wonder if those issuing these comments have ever read a romance. Though romances can be light and fun many are dark and many approach serious subjects in a way that show real consequences of war, abuse, crime, violence and other issues that affect our society. Is there any other fictional genre that as a genre is as character driven or that explores the depths of the characters as much? Is there really anything more interesting or more intense than the ways in which people (flawed or otherwise) meet, are attracted? Is there anything more interesting than the ways in which that attraction migrates into admiration, loyalty, and love?
Having written a rather serious romance novel myself I can tell you there is nothing churned out or hurried about it. My novel took three years to write and had portions that were written and re-written several times. The book wasn’t written to be devoured and quickly forgotten. It was a book that I wanted readers to remember for a long time after they closed the cover. I know from working with other authors that the majority of them want to write deeply meaningful books that touch their readers whether to make them laugh or to cry.
Someone asked in a chat awhile back what I thought readers of romance should say when others denigrate the romance genre. My response was something along the lines that I thought they should point out that 64.6 million American readers read at least one romance novel in 2006 and that romance enjoys the second highest number of sales among fiction genres (1.37 billion), seconded only by religious and inspirational titles.
I’ve rethought my response some in recent weeks. I still believe that the things I mentioned above are valid points and are worth stating…but what of the reasons that we enjoy romance novels so much? Shouldn’t we move ourselves from talking about our genre of choice as if we are ashamed of it and instead approach it as connoisseurs of the genre?
Maybe we should talk about the bouquet of satisfaction that wafts up filling our beings as we reach the happy ending when two flawed human beings unite at the end, both better in tandem than they ever would have been singly. Maybe we should talk about the depth of characterization present in the best books our genre has to offer. Maybe we should talk about the hard work that goes into creating books that not only entertain but often make us rethink our positions on things or that teach us something we didn’t know about history, a profession, or an interesting place on the globe that we’ve never been to.
Maybe we should be more like the connoisseurs of fine wine…maybe we should demand the best of the genre that we love so much and maybe we should talk about it like connoisseurs of the genre.
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