Annoying Romance Novel Missteps

I'm reading a romance novel right now. A really, really bad one. I'm not naming the author; I'm not out to make enemies or hurt anyone's feelings. But I do feel compelled to talk about some things romance writers do sometimes that immediately make me fall out of love with the characters. If you want me to toss your book against the wall and stomp away in a huff, here's what to do:

Have more than one hero in a book. It's a big trend now for heroes from an author's past books to stop by and visit the current one, or to have a secondary character in one book who's going to become a hero in the next one. I know, I know it's a way to get readers interested in more than one character. I know it's common. It's practically endemic. It has to stop.

Here's why: your hero is supposed to be the handsomest, toughest, sexiest guy on the planet. And if there's more than one handsomest, toughest, sexiest guy on the planet, well...one of them has to play second fiddle, or both of them are diminished. And second fiddle isn't sexy. As a reader, I'm not going to fall in love with two guys at the same time. That's not romantic. That's confusing. And I'm not going to buy into the second-fiddle guy in one book becoming the hero of the next book, or vice versa.

Even worse, sometimes the secondary hero seems more interesting to me than the one who's supposed to be the primary hero of the book I'm reading. Like the one right now. The real hero is kind of run-of-the-mill, but there's a secondary character that's much more intriguing. He's only in the book for a few scenes, but I'm finding myself wishing the author would just write a darned book about him. It's like real life, folks: if a secondary character is catching my interest, there isn't much spark between me (ahem: the heroine) and the primary hero.

Make hero and/or heroine unnecessarily obnoxious. I know the typical formula states that heroes and heroines have to despise each other before they get to love each other. But it's all too common for authors to make heroes and heroines overly mean in an attempt to up the chemistry, raise the stakes, and so on. Tthere has to be something to their exchanges besides a bunch of snarking--and the snarking has to be realistic. If it doesn't make sense to me why the heroine is such a bitch or why the hero is such a jerk, I'm totally going to fall out of love with them--and I'm not going to get what they see in each other at all.

Make the hero a wuss. In today's world, it's tough to come up with excuses as to why two people can't be together. It's the era of free love, and women no longer have to be virgins or marry people they don't love. Those barriers to love are needed to create tension and drama in a romance novel. Sometimes, in order to manufacture that barrier, an author will make it so that a hero doesn't want to get with the heroine because his friends wouldn't approve, or his daughter's still mourning his ex-wife, or some other dumb reason. Look: a hero is a seize-the-day kind of guy. He sees something he wants and he takes it. That's what makes him a hero. If he's the one trying to resist the heroine, it better be for a really compelling reason. Not a dumb, complicated, wussy reason that would trip up the rest of us.

Have the hero and heroine spend more time apart than together. This one romance novel I read has the hero and heroine getting together for a few months, then the heroine is kidnapped by pirates, loses her memory, gets kidnapped by a sheik and forced to live in his harem, and doesn't get back together with the hero (who is something of a milquetoast anyway) until the end of the book. Um...excuse me? Where's the romance in that?

Make the heroine or hero fall for someone else. I realize real life is complicated. And I realize you can find...ahem...carnal pleasure with lots of different people. But in the realm of romance novels, your body tells you who you love. If the heroine finds sexual satisfaction with lots of different guys, well...okay, that might be empowering or freeing or whatever. But it's not romantic. Same if either hero or heroine have romantic feelings for others in the book--in many cases, it dilutes their feelings for each other. Keep some focus, for god's sake.

Romance novels need to focus on the relationship at hand. The hero and heroine must both be larger than life, standing out from the others around them. If more than two characters are this big-as-myth stature, it dilutes everyone. It might sound overly simplistic, but that's why I love romance novels--and why a lot of others do as well.

The Last Unicorn

The other night I was in a local video rental place and I found a real treasure--the animated version of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn. It's the story of a unicorn who has not left her enchanted forest in a long time. She discovers she is the last unicorn left on earth--and she sets off to find the rest of her kind. In the hands of a Disney-type animation house this would become a treacly, kid-friendly story with a few knowing smirks at the adults, at least one overly-hyper sidekick, and unavoidable musical numbers. But instead it's a strangely compelling, haunting movie--oddly poetic, and oddly adult--without any annoying cultural references.

I watched it when I was very young--I don't remember when, but I was definitely under ten. I remembered scenes from that movie in a way that made me feel like I'd dreamed them. They were archetypcal, poetic and almost unfathomable in the way scenes are in the type of dream that goes all the way to the core of you, to a place that can only communicate with your waking self through deeply personal metaphor.

This story might be kids' fantasy, but it does not sugar-coat the truth. The friends the unicorn accumulates in her travels are flawed and damaged. The most compelling character was the villain--he might have been a campy, cackling figure in a typical Disney movie; in this one, he's a deeply tragic figure.

The animation is very dated and took some getting used to, and the music is definitely an acquired taste--I loved it; you might not. But overall this movie made me think about the type of fantasy movies we show our kids today. They're aimed towards both kids and adults, just as this one was. But the nods in our movies are meant to be funny--kids are never exposed to wrongs that can't be righted. In The Last Unicorn, the ending is bittersweet--the unicorn finds love and loses it.

There's nothing in today's big animated features that is seminal enough to have imprinted itself indelibly in my consciousness, the way the images from this movie were so long ago. Most animated movies today are all show and no poetry, with the exception of movies like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. I believe that our kids' imaginations would be better served by movies that don't sugar-coat reality. Fantasy might be considered primarily a children's genre, but it is also, like dreams, an excellent way to communicate deep truths through compelling metaphor.

Keeping Inspired in an Uninspiring World

Inspiration is something I've learned to live without. When it's there, writing is effortless. Ideas and words come streaming out of me as though from another place; stories take fascinating turns and they always wind up being the right turns; things fall into place as if by magic. If I could stay inspired all the time, I would have dozens of books under my belt.

Unfortunately, inspiration is undependable. It comes and goes. And I've come to terms with the fact that if I want to be an author, sometimes it's going to be work. Writing without inspiration is why I need outlines, why I procrastinate, and why each word sometimes feels like it's being pulled out of me with tweezers. People who rely on inspiration alone never get off the ground. Still, it's nice to have it--it makes things so much easier. Here are a few things that work for me in finding inspiration.

Read books in your genre. Reading works in the genre I'm writing in never fails to get me excited to write. When I'm writing fantasy, I revisit some of my favorite fantasy authors from childhood--Robin McKinley, Tolkien, David Eddings, Neil Gaiman, and even a little Steven King for the scary bits. When I'm writing romance, I revisit my favorites from Judith McNaught, Joanna Lindsey, and Karen Marie Moning. If it's a book I've read before, it doesn't matter--seeing those old characters is like visiting old friends again, and they always inspire me.

Make a collage. Look around in magazines and papers for images that remind you of your mental picture of your story. A house that looks like your main character's; a living room or bedroom that reminds you of the place where your hero seduces your heroine; a scenic vista that reminds you of your setting; or pictures of people that remind you of your characters. Make a collage and hang it near where you usually write. Just looking at it will get you in the mood.

Make a mix. Go through your playlists and pick out music that reminds you of your story. Think about the soundtrack to a scene that stands out to you; the theme songs for certain characters; or the song you'd play in the credits if your book were made into a movie. Play this mix whenever you sit down to write, and you'll feel instantly transported.

For me, getting inspired isn't about taking walks or even writing in new and novel places. It's about keeping my imagination focused on the world I've created. The more clearly you can create it--in sound or pictures--the more real it will be to you when you sit down to create it in words.

How to Survive on a Salary that's Sad

Amazingly enough, when I took my first job in publishing my salary was actually an increase from my previous job as a part-time stage manager and full-time box office manager at a non-profit theatre. I was pretty sure that surviving on $26,000 a year would be easy peasy-- I was sorely surprised when I started apartment hunting in Manhattan and realised that $25,000 a year was the maximum income you could make and still qualify for government subsidised housing. Eventually, I found an apartment share with two other room-mates in Queens. Both of my room-mates made over twenty thousand dollars a year more than me and were living in Queens to save up money to buy their own properties or pay off their debts.

My current salary is an increase from my crushingly small stipend in New York-- I wont discuss what I now make, but its considerably more then my last job. While I graciously ate my ramen in my apartment in Queens I consoled myself with the following truths I've learned about pay in the publishing industry.

Everyone in Publishing Starts at the Bottom
Its true. Everyone starts as a lowly EA (editorial assistant), MA(marketing assistant), PA (either a publicity assistant or personal assistant to a VP or company director). There's no real short-cut to the top. At least, I haven't met anyone who's had a short-cut to the top not in New York or London. Everyone puts in their grunt years at the bottom. The big difference with publishing is that some people have their lifestyles subsidised by their parents, boyfriends, lovers, sugar daddies (or mamas) while they go through these lean first years. Sadly, I wasn't and am not one of those people-- thankfully, I've got a very generous and patient husband who's helped me to continue a career in publishing.

Part-time jobs are pretty standard
While I lived in Queens I worked at the local Gap in our mall and I tried to get as many freelance writing gigs as possible. My bosses at that time had both worked as waitresses and Barnes and Noble booksellers to supplement their salaries. When I advised my bosses that I would have to find additional work to help pad out my income I was (amazingly enough) given a small cost of living raise (about $1,000 a year) which was a wonderful gesture, but not quite enough to keep me from folding jeans during my spare time.

Complaining wont change anything
To be honest, everyone knows that publishing jobs are underpaid and whinging about it to your co-workers, boss, or family members isn't going to change it. Most people either suck it up (I know, its horrible) and work through those very lean first few years or they find another profession. Most of my friends who I worked with at my first publishing house have gone onto other more lucrative non-publishing careers. Jobs in publishing are seen as 'love' jobs, meaning you work in publishing for the 'love' of working with books. These jobs are very much in demand and this is how employers get away with paying you next to nothing. In a perfect world if all the minions stood up and demanded better wages we would then be able to create a labour revolution and reform the industry. This isn't going to happen-- sorry folks. Mostly because there are about five people fresh out of university lining up for your low paying job.

So, the next time I'm going through a lean time or one of my existentialist delimas of 'where is my career going', I'll calmly remind myself that everyone goes through this. Which is somewhat reassuring, no matter how grim.

Are You a Real Writer?

I wrote a post that touched on what makes a real writer on one of my other blogs. This has been making me think lately, and I'm not sure why I'm not done with this subject yet. But I've been thinking about people's perception of writers, the idea out there that "anyone can write," and the barriers some writers set up to separate themselves from people who, for whatever reason, they consider posers. On the one hand, I think it's elitist to say that one person is a "real" writer and another isn't. On the other, if someone tells me that they're a writer and then they show me their writing and it's juvenile, badly-written poetry about their grandmother--well, I'm going to disagree. Privately, of course.

Here are four "you're not a real writer unless..." assumptions I'm familiar with--and my responses to them.

You're not a real writer unless you get published. Okay, I can see why novelists consider this important. And I think a lot of novelists are so under-paid that they take on the idea that, well, at least they're real writers because they're published--as if the legitimate title of being a "real" writer is somehow adequate compensation for...well, inadequate compensation. But what about well-known authors who make a living at it--everyone from Salman Rushdie to Danielle Steele--before they were published? Were they not "real writers" until the moment their books hit stores? But they wrote manuscripts before they were published. Why should something essentially out of their control--i.e., whether a publisher accepted their first novels--define their existence as writers?

You're not a real writer unless you're not commercially successful. On the other hand, there is a sort of elitist attitude among some literary fiction writers--particularly at MFA programs--that says some bestselling writers aren't "real writers" because they sell out and write popular fiction, or their writing doesn't measure up to some standard or whatever. A lot of literary types don't think genre fiction is "real" writing. I think it is; I think you can find great writing, gripping characterization, and stunning language in romance, science fiction, crime and any number of basically formulaic genres. I also feel that a lot of literary short fiction today leaves me empty and bored.

You're not a real writer unless you feel the burning need to write all the time. I remember talking to some visiting writer at some point who said that you know you're a real writer if you can't not write--if you feel compelled to write all the time. I've written on this topic before, and I feel it's a bit cruel to say this to young writers who will experience ebbs and flows in their writing compulsion, as everyone does.

Get up at five in the morning to write. I think it was the same person who mentioned various poets who held down day jobs and got up at five in the morning to write several poems in a zen-like state before going to work. The implication was that if you don't feel the burning need to get up early in the morning to write, you just don't have the drive to make it. I think this works for some people and not others; I never had the ability to focus on creativity early in the morning, and for a while I thought that made me somehow less of a writer. It's a ridiculous idea.

You're not a real writer unless you make money from your writing. Okay, I do think there's some merit to this one. I do think there are a lot of future novelists and other excellent writers out there right now who don't make a cent from their writing; I'm not questioning their legitimacy. But I do feel as though, when I'm talking to someone at a party and they tell me they're a writer, I usually assume they mean it's their job. If I question them further and find out they keep a journal and they wrote their own wedding vows, I'm not really going to think of them as a writer--unless they show me their work and it's fantastic.

Here's the thing. When you tell people you're a writer, your writing better back you up. I remember getting a snarky comment about this on my other blog about how the person in question didn't get paid for his blogging, so he (sarcastically) said I must think he was a "fake" writer. Not necessarily. But I do think you are a "fake" writer if you think you can write, and you can't. There are plenty of sensational writers who write excellent blogs or even poems about their grandmothers that nobody ever sees. I don't think every good writer out there gets paid--but I do think if you get paid for your work, it's an indicator that you're at least decent at what you do--and ergo, you're a "real" writer.

The Last to Know

This week I'm reading The Last to Know by Melissa Hill. After I finished Skylight Confessions I've vowed off of reading Alice Hoffman books for at least six months. I thought that Skylight Confessions had some haunting characters, but the overwhelming feel of the book was so melancholy and filled with such loss that I just can't bear to read anything else by Hoffman. Skylight Confessions is a moving book of love and loss through three generations. What begins as a chance encounter between a man who gets lost on his way to a party and asks for directions from a beautiful stranger in the mooonlight turns into a story which charts the destruction of an ill-fated romance. What engaged me about this novel was the illusions to fairy tales and the clever work the author does making each character's story relate to the larger fairy tale theme that dominates the novel.

So, this week I've moved onto something lighter-- hopefully. One of my friends was raving about this book. I'm about a hundred pages in and so far it feels lighter than my last reading selection-- so with any luck this will snap me out of my melancholy funk (which has settled on me after finishing my last book).

I'd also like to take this moment to mention that as I'm on holiday for Easter break I'm going to try to get a few blog posts ready to go so that I can be more consistent in my posting! Phew!

Skylight Confessions

This week I'm reading Skylight Confessions and I'm a little bit in love with it. It's typical Alice Hoffman fare-- a fairytale for grown-ups with some stunning language and beautiful imagery. I've kind of fallen for the whole 'living in a glass house' and being destroyed by stones themes. I'm not sure if I will feel the same way when I finish it-- but I'd love to hear what other people think.