Comments, relating to the topic, are welcome, add a great deal to a blog, but must be in English, with no profanity, hate-filled insults, or links (unless pre-approved).




Tuesday, May 17, 2011

who reads romances


Probably I have lost my male readers by now and maybe a lot of the females. I do understand romance novels have a bad rap, probably about the equivalent of soap operas. Who reads them? Maybe women a lot like I was when I did.

My first romances (to read that is) came when I was in the end of grade school and began checking out from the library some of those sweet stories like Paintbox Summer by Betty Cavanna (I had forgotten the author's name but still remembered that title which led to the author).

Those books were pretty much like the little films of the time on the Mickey Mouse Club with Spin, Marty and Annette (if you aren't in your sixties at least, you probably have no idea who they were). The stories were sweet. Sex, drugs, and alcohol rarely intruded in the lives of those teens; or if they did, they were shown as negative. I was living a life a lot like those books; so they suited me for a few years.

Then in my early teens came the westerns which really were my first romance reads of an adult sort. I was as interested then in the western life as the romantic parts. The women in his stories were often learning to live a western life and toughen up. The men they were attracted to were as tough as the land.

From this came more grown up fare by authors like Frank Yerby and Ernest Hemingway (yes, he did write stories with romance even though it usually didn't end well). The romances I read during that period had history as more important than the romantic parts, and the endings might or might not have been happy.

It wasn't until I was married and I think had my first baby that I actually read my first romance novels of the bodice ripper sort which had only recently come into popularity with authors like Rosemary Rogers, and I might add were considered wicked back then. For me, those books were quite enlightening, and I went for enlightenment in a big way for awhile.

Then I realized I didn't like any where rape was romanticized or glorified which means even by the hero. For awhile I still read romances but less frequently and a bit more carefully chosen; until, boom, I lost interest in all of them.

So what do romance novels give to women like I was and those who read the romances today, the women I'd like to interest in reading mine? In the sociology studies I have seen, they are frequently read by women with high stress jobs, sound marriages, families, and a lot of pressure. The books aren't a substitute for reality but just provide a break from it.

If someone thought they are generally read by lonely spinsters at home waiting for their Prince Charming, the studies say they are not. They mostly are read by women with very active lives, most frequently satisfactorily married. They are very unlikely to have a hero like those in the books and they wouldn't want him. They are pretty satisfied with what they do have. They aren't plotting when they will run off for their dream. Like men's Tom Clancy novels, it's just a break to travel into someone else's life for a few hours where it's exciting.

For women, it's a bit like the Barbie dolls that some feminists had a fit little girls were being ruined for life if they played with them. It doesn't make those girls want to have a figure like Barbie. She just represents glamor, imagination and play. I think that's a lot of what the romance books represent-- a break from reality and not in a bad way.

Now why I have lost interest in them, well that I cannot say. I might though get interested again if the stories changed to more like the ones I am writing ;)

10 comments:

Paul said...

You look marvelous Rain !! It's natural for one's tastes to change...:-)

mandt said...

Romances are often found at the heart of great literature: The Song of Salomon in the Bible, Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare----beautiful writing; Dickens, Jane Austen, and others. I find that great literature transcends sexual identity and appeals to conscious minds.

Rain Trueax said...

I always think that when I write them that the sexual identity isn't important-- it's the sexual attraction, the magnetic draw. Romance is romance.

What I like in a story is something more than that. I want the characters to have other things they are working through in the stories I write. Ideally I want them to grow through the sexual relationship though, to become more because of its demands. I remember a time in my reading desires where the 'find the soul mate, the other' was central but it's a lot more than that now in stories and life.

Kay Dennison said...

I went through the same phases as a child but left it behind when I was in high school. I discovered the classics and the NYT best sellers list and never looked back and I still can say that I don't read many romances and still have never read any of the ones so many women seem to enjoy. Don't get me wrong. I like a good love story and am looking forward to reading yours as I suspect that they will take a different approach. I find that with some authors like Danielle Steel just write the same story over and over -- only the names and locations change. What I call my 'popcorn' books are mysteries and hard-boiled ones at that.

Celia said...

I read Daphne DuMaurier's novels at an early age and then books like "Jane Eyre." Yes, westerns, Larry McMurtry in particular. Now I seem to lean towards films for romance. The Irish film "Once" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (also an excellent book) would be examples of that. Oh, and "The English Patient;" good film and good book.

My reading is broader these days but recently a post by Cowtown Pattie introduced me to Dorothy Benton Frank's Low Country novels. Very pleasant, romance with southern culture. Got them out of the library along with a Neil Gaiman and a newer Ursula LeGuin. Fantasy and romance, two different kinds of fantasy, ;-)

Tabor said...

Whether someone writes books about motorcycles, the weather or romance novels, if I like reading their blog I would still follow it. Just sayin...

Anonymous said...

Interesting, Rain. I don't believe that I was ever drawn to romances. In 7th grade, I liked Zane Grey; in 8th grade, I liked who-dunnits; and in 9th grade, I became enamoured of sci-fi. Sci-fi was the last genre that appealed to me until I stopped reading fiction altogether.

After retirement, I spent the first year "catching up on" my reading - including some of the fiction. You brought to mind something that my husband said when he saw me return a book without having read more than a few pages.

Hunky Husband asked why I was returning it. He gave me a strange look when I disgustedly told him it had turned out to be a bodice ripper. He had never heard the term!
Cop Car

Darlene said...

I will never forget the first novel I read that had a pulse throbbing romance in it and I am sure all of you have read it, too. It is "Gone With The Wind." I was in Junior High (now Middle School) and it spoke to my budding sexuality in a way that no book has since.

I read a few Barbara Cartland's romances but found them to be trite and. as Kay called them, popcorn romances.

Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are my kind of romances. Great books about great romances.

Rain Trueax said...

And these responses are what they say makes it so hard to sell new romances by new authors in the eBook format. They are competing with all the classics. I am actually not a huge fan of the stories from back then, although I agree they are excellently done. My reading today is mostly stories that deal with life today. Which is why I have read mostly non-fiction or stories that fall more under the category of literature, Like 'Ahab's Wife.' I also have liked some chick lit although not all of it as I really like stories about women my age or within 10 or 20 years of that where they are dealing with life problems (what I called Crone Lit).

For authors today, I admire those like Louise Erdrich-- but,as it stands, I can't write that kind of story and we have to write what we can.

The ones I have completed are definitely in the romance category although they have other aspects to them. Anyway I am still doing the editing of them (working on the fourth right now) and sticking to the covers I'd like.

Parapluie gave me a helping hand on one when I had shown her the ones I've done and she said one of them didn't fit my style. It made me go back, look at the characters and come up with a new cover design which is far better than it had been as well as maybe the best I have done.

When I make up my mind on what to do with them, I will definitely let readers her know... BUT they wont' be competing with Jane Austen for literary skill :)

Fran aka Redondowriter said...

I did read a few when I was young but as I've commented before, the genre didn't really appeal to me. Neither do mysteries, for some reason.