Sometimes it seems that romance novels are on the
racks everywhere you look. Airports, drugstores, supermarkets, discount clubs,
truck stops... Hey, you can even buy them in book stores – imagine that!
Stores stock what their customers want to buy, and
romance novels account for just about half of all mass market paperback
books sold in the United States each year. If we count only paperback fiction,
the figure is well over fifty percent of sales. Romance is incredibly popular.
Romance is nearly as popular in other countries around
the world. The largest publisher of romance, Harlequin/Silhouette, publishes in
25 languages and in 120 countries from Abu Dhabi
to Zimbabwe
All those love stories add up to half a billion
dollars worth of romance novels sold each year in North America alone, more
like a billion world-wide. And that only takes into account the original sale.
Nobody even tries to keep track of re-sales in used book stores, at garage
sales, at thrift shops and through on-line exchanges – but it's safe to say that,
on average, every romance novel that's sold is read three times.
A billion dollars in total sales every year is a big
chunk of change – and those sales figures mean that romance writing is one of
the few areas in fiction where you can actually make a living as a writer.
Writing romance novels isn't easy, but you can develop the skills necessary to
write (and perhaps publish) your own book. In our romance classes at Gotham
Writers’ Workshop, we help many students do just that.
This series of lessons will
point you in the right direction, by showing you how to create your
all-important hero and heroine and plunge them into their story. But in order
to get started writing, it helps to first know about the form -- how romance
novels came into being, how they're different from other sorts of books, and
what kinds of romances there are. So that's where we'll start in this lesson
and in your reading activity.
Why Romance Is Popular
What is the big draw of romance novels? There are just
about as many answers as there are fans.
What makes them just as popular with readers in other
cultures as in their country of origin? One reason for the foreign sales is
that reading romance is a pleasant way for those who speak English as a second
language to practice their skills and/or to learn about another culture. For a
while, some romances published in South Korea
But the single biggest reason that women around the
world are drawn to romance seems to be the promise of a happy ending. That's
not because romance readers are shallow or naive, because they aren't. (The
average romance reader is in her thirties, employed outside her home, with a
family, a college education, and a household income that's well above average.
This woman reads romance to relax – not because she doesn't like other forms
of literature, but in addition to them.) And it's not that romance readers want
predictable stories they don't have to think about, either. They like to be
startled, surprised, and even scared along the way. But they also like knowing
that in the end, somehow, everything will work out just fine.
Part of the fascination with a happy ending is that it
includes an element of reassurance as well as fantasy. A happy ending makes a
promise to you, the reader, that no matter how bleak things look sometimes, in
the long run it will all come right. In the midst of difficult times -- whether
the trouble is personal, economic, or national -- readers seek comfort. And
there's a great deal of comfort to be found in a form of reading material which
promises that even very bad situations will end up with very good results,
things will always turn out for the best, true love will triumph over problems,
and marriages will last forever.
Men, on the other hand (and yes, men do read romances,
they just don't talk about it much in public) seem to read the books for
different reasons. One man at a romance book signing was asked by the
television crew covering the event if he was buying the book for his wife. No,
he said. It was for him to read because reading romances kept him in touch with
the way his wife liked to be treated.
Most male readers read their first romance because
they're curious about what their wives find so fascinating about romance
novels. So on a rainy Saturday afternoon when they're bored and there's a book
lying on the coffee table, they pick it up to while away a couple of hours.
Nine times out of ten, they're amazed to find that: 1) it's not pornographic
and 2) it has a plot. And frequently, after they've experienced that first
book, they keep right on reading. Occasionally a guy will like the books so
much that he subscribes to a romance book club so he won't miss any, but he
generally puts down his wife's name instead of his own so the mailman won't
think less of him.
Romance Novels Are Not Simple and Predictable
The detractors of romance novels like to think that
the stories are simplistic and childish and that they contain no big words and
very little plot, just a lot of love scenes separated by filler. The
stereotypical view of romance says that there's only one story, so all the authors
have to do is change the hair color, eye color, and names, and then they can
"crank out" another book.
But as you'll see when you do the activity assignment,
there are as many different kinds of romance novels as there are reasons for
reading them. Some are set in the present day, some are historical. Some are
sweet, some are spicy and sensual. Some are long and complex, some are short
and straightforward. Some are dramatic, some are comic. Some are down-to-earth,
others feature witches or werewolves or time travel. But each story is unique.
(This lesson's reading assignment covers the various
sub-genres of romance, as well as some basic story archetypes commonly found in
romances.)
Romance novels are generally small (they're
shorter than many other kinds of novels). They're light (they focus on
an entertaining story rather than on such things as the evils of modern
society). They're easy to read (the story is told in a way which is
effortless for the reader to comprehend, to picture, and to understand). But
because a story is easy to read doesn't mean it was easy to write. In fact, the
more smoothly the story flows, pulling the reader along from scene to scene,
the harder the author worked to create it.
The Romance Novel Defined
You will find that all romances have a few things in
common – though actually very few – and that fact is what creates the common
perception that there's a magic formula for writing them. In fact, the only
thing romance novels have in common is a basic structure.
Here it is: A man and a woman, while they're
solving a problem, discover that the way they feel about each other is a
once-in-a-lifetime love that makes them decide to spend the rest of their lives
together.
(Even then, the rule has exceptions: There are gay
romances, and there's a new line featuring a younger heroine, which can end
with her finding Mr.-Right-for-Now rather than Mr.-Right-for-Always.)
But the most important element common to all romances
is that the love story is always kept at the very center of the book. In other
kinds of fiction, a romance may be included, but it probably isn't the most
important element of the story.
When you pick up a romance novel, however, you expect
to experience a love story. The author hopes that you'll enjoy the other
action in the book (the mystery, the quarrel, the illness, or the custody
battle) and that you'll want these issues to be resolved – but she knows that
you want the romance to remain the most important focus of the story.
So, gather up your interest in stories and your
fascination with falling in love, and let's start writing romance!
Discussion
After reading the lecture, try answering some or all
of the following:
1. Why do you like to read romance novels?
2. Do you like reading novels other than romance novels? If so, what are
some novels you've enjoyed?
3. If you are a woman, do you know any men who read romance novels? If so,
why do they read them? If you are a man, why do you read romance?
4. Why do you think romance novels are popular with readers around the world?
How might the attraction of romances be different because of the reader's
ethnic group or nationality?
No comments:
Post a Comment