i told a friend, another writer, about this discussion and she had a question: ‘who cares – the romance industry is raking in the bucks so why think about respect and whether critics like you? the market likes you.’

harold bloomian questions value aside, isn’t this what’s important?

(susan, i’ve been reading romances since i was ten. how else was i going to learn about sex?)

As to your other question about character, just because a character has an illness, a baby or a wheelchair doesn’t in and of itself make them interesting. How they deal with it might be, though hitting the bottle doesn’t scream of great originality. The adversity you speak of isn’t new or interesting adversity, to me as I said before. It seems somewhat trite because of its familiarity. Great, you’re sick, pregant and have no use of your legs. Now what? I suppose it boils down to execution and perhaps your books are perfectly executed, my point simply being that I hope you don’t start your next book thinking, “Shoot, I gotta find me a new illness to write about…let’s see how this flesh eating virus shakes out…maybe this weird chicken flu…”

And to confirm, yes, I want people only admiring their belly-button and I believe all books should include a wheel chair bound character hurling themselves into a river, but only if they’re holding a baby and quoting Proust as they reach for the last tethers of this mortal coil. That would be sweet.

Of course approval is important to you. Don’t be silly. Everyone wants to find approval in their profession. Even people who work in fast food restaurants want to think they perform their job well.

Approval of the NYT may not be important. But approval in terms of success with your readership is.

But my point is that if you really only care about pleasing yourself and readers and doing the best job you can, then it shouldn’t matter if you or your genre are ignored by critics. The only thing that should matter is if you are reaching your target audience. However, your remarks harbour some frustration over the fact that critics do not look lovingly upon you genre.

>>> Why are the critics so disconnected from what the people want?

They aren’t really. Many of the critics are able to pick out the literary novels that will appeal to broad audiences and review them favourably. Of course popularity is not the only standard. But neither is it irrelevant. It is a critic’s job to look at work with a certain thoughtful perspective. This means sometimes making negative comments on what is popular. But not always.

But fact is that the people often don’t want great books. Nothing wrong with that. They want to be entertained and if your books are successful in reaching readers good for you. And if you really believe that is all that matters, there was no reason to write the piece. Unless it was merely to point out the obvious to people who already like your work or at least the genre you work in.

But Susan’s point about issues and happy endings is important. Like other genre fiction, romance offers an implicit contract to readers. A lot might be thrown at the characters, but at the end, they’ve changed in some manner (this is why I found The Corrections to be so unsatisfying — after wallowing in so much misery with those people, I wanted someone to take charge of his or her happiness, and never felt that happened). In the case of romance, it’s finding love (though good romance doesn’t make that the end all and be all of character change; a good story shows personal, inherent growth). Just as fiction is exploring the emotional impact of 9/11, it can explore more personal devastation, such as losing a breast in a society where breasts are fetishisized. Though there are some truly solitary humans, many of us spend our lives trying to establish and maintain relationships. Fiction should offer challenges to belief systems big and small.

Readers have different needs at different points — why do we reread certain books, despite knowing the outcome plus every plot twist? That story reaffirms something or offers comfort or challenges your worldview. You know how it ends, but you’re trusting the author to give you something despite this.

Tod, the happy ending isn’t organic in life? Because, in the end, we all die? That would make a great ending for a book. “But, none of it mattered, because eventually, they all died. The End.” LOL. Actually, I guess that’s how Shakespeare ending R&J. So sometimes that might be the right ending for a story. (g)

I guess it depends on how you define happy ending. See, the mom who was my resource for researching heart transplants kids – well, she’s still married, and her child is still doing well, so I consider that a happy “ending.” Am I wrong?

We romance readers all know that there’s going to be “stuff” for the characters after you close the books. Marriage is never a bed of roses all the time.

A mystery novel that doesn’t solve the crime is going to tick off the reader – and yet, in “real life” many crimes go unsolved. Makes for an unsatisfying ending, IMO, for fiction.

You said: “a heroine with breast cancer, a hero who’s a paraplegic and in a wheelchair, a heroine who’s a recovering alcoholic, a hero with a speech impediment” perhaps goes a long way towards understanding why traditional book reviews don’t typically cover romance fiction and why there is the perception that literary snobs such as myself look down upon it. Those aren’t what I would consider fascinating character issues — ”

Okay, so what are fascinating character issues? You don’t think people facing adversities are fascinating? You prefer navel contemplation? And that our characters manage to overcome their adversities (which, many people DO in real life, I’m happy to say) is actually a bad thing? You’d prefer the hero in a wheelchair who just can’t deal, so he rolls himself into a river and drowns himself?

Again, I’m not asking for my books to be considered “great literature.” Not my goal, not what I’m after. They’re not. Reread the last part of my essay. Tod, from what I understand, you’re a very talented writer. But your approval of what I do isn’t important to me. (No offense. (G) ) My readers’ approval of what I’m writing is what’s important to me. You’re never going to be one of my readers. That’s OKAY. 🙂

This is simply a distortion of the truth.

It is true that he was not considered his age’s greatest playwright. But there are many reasons for this. One is that Shakespeare was in may ways creating new conventions – ones that highly influenced our current literary and entertainment culture. So it is natural that he is our hero over others. But his work was very popular with a wide variety of people, even in his day. And everyone has critics. Some are probably justified.

It seems impossible to tell whose work will be declared eternal and whose will disappear from our literary landscape. But what is clear to me, is that is that we choose our masters very rationally. It is not something that happens out of nowhere, even it it seems mysterious. Shakespeare’s work changed theatre and literature. Can we say the same of romance novels? I doubt it.

To sum up. You’re not Shakespeare. When category romance produces a Huckleberry Finn or a Hamlet, I’m sure it will sell AND be well regarded.

As for Twain, I have no idea what you are talking about. Twain was very successful with both literary circles and the public. As a man opposed to much of the politics of his day, he was bound to have his ditractors.

I just don’t think we are talking about the same thing here. This is simply equivocation.

I still have yet to see a romance novelists gain the attention of the reviewing public where every other genre seems to have been given an good shake -if not more. So this is not just about genre fiction of which romance happens to be one of many ignored genres. Times have changed. With everything from comics and historical fiction winning Pulitzers and Bookers and, the literary community seems very open to quality genre fiction.

I don’t know why category romance isn’t getting the same treatment, but I’m not inclined to think it is based purely on snobbery. That’s just an excuse. The literary community has no interest in ignoring a whole genre. It’s not some elitist plot. There is no literary overloard, except perhaps Michiko, and she liked the new Harry Potter novel. That is hardly a sign of unwillingness to enjoy mass literary entertainment.

>>>I make no claims to be an “artist.” I’m a storyteller. I’m not in love with my golden words, I’m using them as tools to tell my story.

Then don’t expect to be treated like we treat artists. Romances are written sold and enjoyed. They do what they were written to do – entertain.

Every writer works with the same tools. There are no golden words, at least not as far as I’ve ever read.

There are craftsmen whose tools are used to build a very functional and even attractive furniture. (Nothing wrong with a good carpenter plying his trade. A nice well made peice of furniture is a delight.) But there are also the John George and Leopold Stickleys of the world whose work was not only skillfully crafted and attractive, but also contributed to the body American design and design all over the world. They used the same tools as many contemporaries with very different results.

The idea that literary writers are simply conserned with pretty words is misguided and untrue. Though many literary writers (to their detriment in my opinion) overly focus on prose at the expense of their plots, others are constructing very moving and exciting stories. A truly great novel is both well written and a great story. The Odyssey was written by a master storyteller.

A quality (but common) carpenter doesn’t expect to win design awards and there is no reason why a skilled romance writer need be noticed by the major forces within the fiction community.

Awards and rave reviews are for people whose work stands out as beyond the ordinary for either their immense skill or innovation. And of course sometimes we can’t all agree on what is innovative and what is just plain garbage. I think there is still some disagreement over James Joyce. But all this doesn’t come out of nowhere. I don’t always agree with the Pulitzer committee but I enjoy the discussion it generates. Is there going to be the same level of dicussion around category romance. Can it sustain such an interest?

i was skeptical, but i read her. and loved loved loved her. the detail, the finely drawn character, the wit (oh, for romance novels with real wit), the gradual dissolution of generic expectation with each novel. in my thinking james (and her academic background) transformed the romance genre. are her romances literature? she’d be the first person to say no; and that’s ok that it’s not. there are female authors i’ve studied who were hacks when they were first published. it doesn’t matter. as cultural artifacts all writing says something about the culture surrounding them and, eventually, they become interesting.

time, and literary distance, dictate how valuable we find a novel. (i never thought i’d echo harold bloom.) so, like maria edgeworth, perhaps romance novelists just need a century or so to pass…

The fact is, until the same person who happens to share my bed began writing reviews of romance that actually go beyond “Oh my god, I really liked this!” I’d never read a critical review of romance online or in print that was the least bit critical in the way the best literary criticism is. If you want to be taken seriously as literature, you have to write literature that can be taken seriously.

The point is that most of the time, it’s people looking down on romance novels – or genre fiction in general. Oh, yes, let’s have some new “great” literature – in general today, that means something boring and badly written, not extremely well-written and riviting.

Bring on the great literature that’s well-written (to my standards – I take craft issues quite seriously) and that holds my interest by telling me a compelling story, and I’m all in favor of it. I love good books of all sorts.

It’s interesting that Shakespeare and Twain were looked down upon in their time – it wasn’t until much later that they were considered to be great writers.

I make no claims to be an “artist.” I’m a storyteller. I’m not in love with my golden words, I’m using them as tools to tell my story.

I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Anyone/everyone is free to not like and not read genre fiction. Be my guest. But don’t dismiss all of it as mere “entertainment” with no redeeming value unless you’re intimately familiar with all of it.