Nicole Laurent

 

I am a romance writer. Penning a tale about one of the most elemental and natural experiences in life-falling in love-satisfies me. Like many women, I remember the insecurities and seemingly insurmountable roadblocks in the romance that lead to my own personal happily ever after. Reading (and writing) about it rekindles memories and gives me that sweet rush of falling in love again.

And according to book sales, I’m not alone.

‘According to the Romance Writers of America, romance novels sold $1.52 billion in 2001 (up from $1.37 billion in 2002). 51.1 million Americans read at least one romance novel in 2002 (41 million readers in 1998). 2,143 romances were released in 2001. Romances account for 18% of all books sold in America (35.8% of all fiction sales in 2001). Almost half of all mass market paperbacks sold are romance novels. Romance novels are sold in more than 100 international markets. The average romance reader is a college-educated working woman over 35 who spends $1,200 each year buying some 200 titles.’

            ~From Bookmarket.com

 

So why is it people, many of them women, bash the romance genre as though it’s tripe and somehow unworthy/not real writing?  I’ll concede that everyone has his or her own preferences. I’m not a big fan of science fiction/fantasy … yet I can respect an author who writes it well. It would take great skill to world-build, to take the reader into a completely different time/world/existence and to suspend disbelief successfully. Does it not follow that it takes great skill to write a compelling story about two people with different backgrounds and baggage coming together over creative conflict because and despite their sexual attraction? To write it believably enough that you suck in the reader, their heart breaks here and there, and they finish the book with a feeling of satisfaction and warm fuzzies … that takes skill. If you can make a reader laugh, cry, get turned on? Mad skills.

There are some fabulous mystery writers who could not pull off a compelling, heart tugging romance to save their lives. There are some romances authors (myself included) whose head would explode if they had to come up with an amazing, suspenseful mystery plot. That’s not to say there aren’t authors who can’t successfully cross genres. There are, and those writers are beyond creative and talented. But most authors find the niche that they most enjoy reading and writing and focus their time and energy on perfecting it.

Why the disdain? I’ve had neighbors hear from the grapevine that I’m a writer. They ask, “So what do you write?”

“Romance.”

Fifty percent of the time I get the screwed up face as if my answer was, “I tie newborn puppies to my bumper and drag them around the neighborhood for fun.”

They respond, “Oh, I don’t read romance,” in the same tone someone would say, “I’m college educated and have a brain so why would I waste my time.”

‘The average romance reader is a college-educated working woman over 35 who spends $1,200 each year buying some 200 titles.’

 

There are people who are turned off by the concept that HEA (Happily Ever After) is integral in romance. Some say it’s not realistic. I say it is. Most romance novels nowadays don’t end with a “And they got married, had eight babies, never knew a single hardship during their lives together, lived to a spry ninety-nine and died simultaneously, and peacefully in their sleep.”

Romance readers enjoy the chase. The conflict. They want a satisfying ending to the story. Most satisfying endings come where the couple really begins their potential life together. They don’t imply the couple will never know hardship or pain. That there will never be sickness, infidelity, huge fights, infertility, etc. The HEA is akin to you telling someone how you met your husband, the ups and downs of your courtship and how you knew he was the one. It doesn’t promise forever sunshine and roses. No one can promise that.

It’s a personal taste. I’m of the mindset that I’ve lived enough heartache and angst in my real life. I read to escape. I’d rather escape into a book that reminds me of the good things in life than the bad.

Some feel that romance is ‘too predictable’. You know before you open the book that the couple will get together in the end, right?

“Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending.”

 

When stated baldly, it does seem a limiting stricture to place on an entire genre, but proponents of the ‘happy ending’ argue that every genre has its conventions. How many murder mystery novels end with the murderer uncaught? If the perpetrator remains at large or unpunished at the end of the novel, it becomes something other than a murder mystery: a thriller, suspense novel or crime fiction.

~Suite101.com

It’s the “how” that we read for. How did they fall in love despite their internal and external conflict? Was it written in a way that put you in the hero’s and heroine’s shoes? Was the pairing relatable? Were you compelled to keep reading? Did the writer draw real emotion from you?

There are four basic elements of conflict in fiction. Man vs. Man, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Self. All have their own level of predictability. Some have more draw to an individual than the other. That’s why we read what we read and we all have different taste. Romance writers most often use a combination of Man vs. Man (woman), and Man vs. Himself (more likely woman vs. herself) … some throw in some Man Vs. Nature and in the case of Women’s Fiction, some use Man vs. Society. But because romance authors use these elements in order to build a story about a couple finding happiness, does that make them less worthy of respect?

The bottom line is, we read what we read and write what we write for very personal reasons. Should people who claim to not read romance be judging it as an unworthy genre? Should they presume it takes more or less skill to write one genre over another? Should they judge a person and their intelligence based on what types of books they read?