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Dec. 18th, 2011 06:36 pmIn my consumption of various romance novels, have discovered a few things.
1. Historical romance novels, much like supernatural Buffy/Spike fanfic, work better than contemporary romances novels or everybody's human fanfic. The reasons for this are: 1) the historicals/supernatural can get away with certain types of sexual gender power plays that come across as offensive and decidedly sexist in contemporary/everybody's human fic, 2) there's more plot in historical, and more description, 3) the story is less cliche. and 4) the heroines aren't as wimpy, whiny, skinny, perfect or young. Also, oddly historicals and supernatural fanfic tends to be a bit more subversive of traditional gender tropes than contemporary and everybody's human. (I know, you'd expect the exact opposite.)
The other thing? The better writers, much like the better fanfic writers...build-up to the big moments better. The last book I tried to read? Bachelor Undone? Summarized the plot and pretty much everything, and wrote a 100 pages of ludicrious sex scenes, some that made my eyes roll. The author clearly doesn't know much about male or female anatomy.
2. Rosemary Rodgers, who was once known along with Kathleen Woodliss for the "bodice ripper" romance novel where the heroine is often raped, many times by various sorts, has oddly in her later novels not only commented on what she did in the earlier ones, but jumped completely and utterly away from it.
Example conversation from her most recent novel "Scondrel's Honor" written in 2010:
( Read more... )
Lastly? I've noticed that there an awful lot of badly written books published on Amazon, books. The author's mistakes? Too much telling, no showing - I mean, seriously, you don't summarized the ENTIRE plot. We do not need to know everything the characters are thinking each time they have sex, before and after they have sex, nor do we need to see EVERY sex scene....it's a bit like action/suspense novels - where you have to see EVERY fight scene and see what the characters think. If the scene does not further the characters and/or plot? Kill it! Dialogue is important - good banter! Buildup to the fight or sex scene, don't just skip ahead. Also, it helps if you show us why we should care about a character - not tell us.
Say what you will about Woodlwiss and Rodgers...at least they do not make all the mistakes listed above and can write good dialogue or passable dialogue. Same goes for Helen Fielding who wrote Bridget Jones - good writer.
1. Historical romance novels, much like supernatural Buffy/Spike fanfic, work better than contemporary romances novels or everybody's human fanfic. The reasons for this are: 1) the historicals/supernatural can get away with certain types of sexual gender power plays that come across as offensive and decidedly sexist in contemporary/everybody's human fic, 2) there's more plot in historical, and more description, 3) the story is less cliche. and 4) the heroines aren't as wimpy, whiny, skinny, perfect or young. Also, oddly historicals and supernatural fanfic tends to be a bit more subversive of traditional gender tropes than contemporary and everybody's human. (I know, you'd expect the exact opposite.)
The other thing? The better writers, much like the better fanfic writers...build-up to the big moments better. The last book I tried to read? Bachelor Undone? Summarized the plot and pretty much everything, and wrote a 100 pages of ludicrious sex scenes, some that made my eyes roll. The author clearly doesn't know much about male or female anatomy.
2. Rosemary Rodgers, who was once known along with Kathleen Woodliss for the "bodice ripper" romance novel where the heroine is often raped, many times by various sorts, has oddly in her later novels not only commented on what she did in the earlier ones, but jumped completely and utterly away from it.
Example conversation from her most recent novel "Scondrel's Honor" written in 2010:
( Read more... )
Lastly? I've noticed that there an awful lot of badly written books published on Amazon, books. The author's mistakes? Too much telling, no showing - I mean, seriously, you don't summarized the ENTIRE plot. We do not need to know everything the characters are thinking each time they have sex, before and after they have sex, nor do we need to see EVERY sex scene....it's a bit like action/suspense novels - where you have to see EVERY fight scene and see what the characters think. If the scene does not further the characters and/or plot? Kill it! Dialogue is important - good banter! Buildup to the fight or sex scene, don't just skip ahead. Also, it helps if you show us why we should care about a character - not tell us.
Say what you will about Woodlwiss and Rodgers...at least they do not make all the mistakes listed above and can write good dialogue or passable dialogue. Same goes for Helen Fielding who wrote Bridget Jones - good writer.