Idaho Students Need More Orgasms to Achieve Satisfaction
I figured that would get your attention.
Earlier this month, esteemed writer and fellow Barker Marcus admitted to have published SciFi, so I thought I too would spill my secret love affair with genre fiction. In my case it really is a love affair, or at least mostly about love. I’m a huge fan of romance fiction. Not the kind that publishes several slim volumes each month in a series displayed on your grocery store shelves, but the kind that has strong, kick-ass women saving themselves, but then somehow still decides to hook up with a good man (if they are a little bad, that’s okay too). My favorite plots are kind of like a Lara Croft adventure with some paranormal creatures thrown in and a girl-meets-boy happy ending.
Read on to find out about those naughty students…
According to Romance Writers of America (RWA), the definition of what makes a novel a romance novel is quite broad, it has to have a central love story, but it does not have to be the focus of the book, and the ending has to be “emotionally satisfying and optimistic.” Okay then, so John Grisham and Tom Clancy write romance—who knew?! Even some of Stephen King’s books would fall into that category.
I joined RWA after every person I met at a fiction writers’ conference asked me why I wasn’t a member when I told them I wrote contemporary women’s fiction. It turns out RWA is like a huge union for writers. It has more than 10 000 members and around 145 local and online chapters. Every month I get a magazine and an online newsletter that tells me the inside scoop on women’s fiction publishing: which editor has moved to a new publisher, which agent struck out on their own, which editorial assistant has been promoted to editor, but most importantly, I find out who’s looking for new writers and how to submit to them.
So, I could go on about why the romance genre is getting a bad spiel compared to other genre fiction, but instead I’m going to entice you to read these brilliantly written articles about the genre by only citing lurid and out of context lines from them:
And if that’s not enough for your daily romance reading, check out this favorite blog of mine: Smart Bitches Trashy Books: All of the Romance, None of the Bullshit.
Enjoy, but be careful, you don’t want to end up like those Idaho students. Or, maybe you do…
Interesting links. I didn’t realize how broad the definition for romance fiction was. I think the problem is the optimistic ending part. It’s tricky to pull off but then again a good ending is always hard to find.
I’ve also seen the definition “emotionally satisfying” on the RWA site. I think that sometimes it’s satisfying if the characters don’t end up together. :-)
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