Fiona Lowe Outback Romance; small communities, big hearts

©Defending Romance©

Writing Romance and Being Proud of It

Notes from a talk by Fiona Lowe to the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild. The talk was drawn from the following texts. Jennifer Cruise, Defeating the Critics and Juliet Flesch, From Australia with Love: A History of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels

Today I want to talk about why we read romance, why we are writing it and how we can stand tall and be proud of that fact.

And I hope to give you some great comeback lines if you are ever in the situation of being made to feel a lesser person for writing and reading romance. For those occasions when people (and often other women) roll their eyes and say 'oh, you read and write THOSE books?

So we're gong to explore that, and come out the other end fully equipped to handle the critics.

Let's start with why we read and write romance

My earliest memory of reading romance was Pride and Prejudice followed by Mills and Boon. It was always associated with the beach and holidays so I made a connection with light reading. Then in year 11/12 I remember reading one and was horrified that the woman was technically raped. (I don't get the rape fantasy but will talk about that a bit later). And this caused my first waves of concern that have taken me the last 10 years to work through.

But I also vividly remember Doctor Zhivago and 40 Carrots which were romances and that feeling of 'ahhhhhhhhhh'. I would daydream about those films. That is the feeling that I love and why I read romance today.

So add summer with a few concerns about these books and you get a 'guilty pleaseure' and almost elicit summer escape reading. This has gone on to cause me a few problems, which is part of why I am here today.

So most of us here went from the love of reading the genre to writing them. Who ran around excitedly telling everyone they knew they were writing romance?

Who hid quietly away?

Who was told they were trashy novels?

Who has ever felt embarrassed about admitting that is what you do?

It was only back in 2001 when I heard Stephanie Laurens, Juliet Flesch and Marion Lennox talking that I had my own epiphany about writing romance and I came out so to speak:-)

In order to stand proud we need to understand the industry.

We need to understand the industry to educate people.

*148 million romance books worth Aus$1.5 billion sold to 50 million women around the world. Women, This is the important bit and we will come back to that later

*1 in 5 Australian Mass produced paperbacks are produced by Harlequin/Tor

*50% of all US books sold are romance

*99% of all romance books are read by women (remember that, it is important)

*In 2004 there was a 28.3% increase in 2004 of romance sales in Australia. (Fiona likes to think that is due to too much reality TV:-) )

*1/3 of readers are professional women under forty with disposable income. They are read as entertainment.. see reality TV is driving us to read:-)

So we have a billion dollar industry. Why?

Romance taps into the fantasy in our culture of finding true happiness. People love an expectation of a happy ending.

They originally gave Pretty Woman a more world-weary, realistic ending. The punters hated it so they re filmed the ending. That film went on to be a high grossing film.

And think about how many second weddings you have been to and how they seem to generate just as much excitement the second time around even though you know the first time round wasn't the happy ever after.

So the community likes that idea.

The word romance only came to be linked with a love story in the 20th Century. The word actually means A tale told in the common tongue. And that stands today. We tell a good story, where people can experience the highs and lows and have a happy ending and the 'ahhh' that comes with it.

We are entertainers just as actors are entertainers. We make life more enjoyable.

So why do romance novels, especially the little books with the rose on the spine get such flack?

1. Because they are read by 99% by women

Women who read generally read across a range of fiction. This is important as many critics make all sorts of links between intelligence and reading romance. More women than men read for entertainment. 61% to 39%

Of the 61% of women, 48% read romance and other fiction.

Women who read romance cross all demographics of age, race, educational levels and socio-economic groups. So well highly educated rich women read romance as well as lower educated poor women. We cannot be categorized but the media try it. SO tell people about the demographics.

Jennifer Cruise wrote a fantastic article called defeating the Critics. Romance novels challenge deeply held beliefs. They annoy anyone with a rigid idea of how life and literature should work and how women should act.

In romance women are often equal to men, sexually as knowledgeable as men and as the central character are equal to men in power, intelligence and ability.

Cruise says 'romance fiction was critically doomed when writers said our central character is female and she is gong to WIN. Society has come a long way but women are still subject to second-class bias in many ways.

Sociologists have long recognized a phenomenon called feminization…anything associated with women falls in general esteem. Look at nursing, teaching, childcare as careers?

But romance fiction challenges the patriarchy with woman front and centre and solving their own problems.

And the outcome? Critics say Romance is unrealistic

In real life women talk more about their emotions than men. In romantic fiction the hero talks about his feelings and engages in meaningful dialogue. Generation X is suffering from lack of relationship commitment. So women are reading the books to get what their real life lacks…verbal communication. They're not reading it for the sex. The climax of these books is the resolving dialogue Remember this…this will get you published. It is also the line to use when someone says 'bodice rippers'

Also remember to ask the person who is critical have they actually read a romance

2. Romance novels are predictable, unadventurous formulaic with a controlled length.

Unadventurous and predictable…we have a happy ending. Does that make murder/mystery crime fiction with a dead body predictable?

Formulaic…would you call a Sonnet or a Greek Tragedy formulaic? They have conventions and so does romantic fiction.

Publishing house guidelines…yes there are guidelines but every story is different. I just rewrote a book…the only thing that remained the same was the conflict. The characters, the situations they found themselves was different.

Controlled length…academic thesis and newspaper articles also have controlled length.

Romance fiction says sex is vitally important to women.

Here we come up against an age-old belief. Men who are experienced are a stud. Women who want sex are a slut. Why? Cruise puts forward the argument that women who have gained knowledge from other men are threatening to men in general as women are not supposed to have more sexual knowledge than men. Romance fiction says women have a right to that knowledge and gives it to them. The result…romance is decried for being soft porn.

So how do you deal with that? Quote literature. DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's mother, modern fiction 'The Godfather.' ?

Women are allowed the right to read what they enjoy.

Romance Fiction says love is powerful and important

Love used to be respectable in medieval times; it was written about and linked with honour and valor. Then it was feminised and it all went to hell in handbasket.

Why? Cruise theorizes that the fall of love coincided with the rise of science and reason. And educated man can explain everything except why he mortgaged the castle to buy the necklace to seduce the maiden who was driving him crazy.

The best and worst thing about love is that it makes fools of us all and scares the pants off someone who needs to be in charge.

Romance fiction shows us how love brings us love and raises us up when we surrender to it.

Result..Romance is silly fluff.

What about Juliet Flesch's observation? Juliet Flesch's thesis was based around this premise:

Why are romance writers and readers treated even by other women so differently from other readers and writers?

Why is romance reading considered pathological and to have flawed role models but crime and Sci-fi fiction escape such censure?

"I believe in equal rights for women and I thank the women ahead of me who have fought causes in workplace but some of feminism has tried to shed many things that women actually enjoy.

I can be an emancipated woman, believe and fight for women's rights. YES there is more to women than shopping, decorating, clothes and babies BUT at some time most of us do enjoy these things.

But because romance allows these things to be part of their books they are called antifeminist. Perhaps they are more realistic of real life then they are portrayed to be."

The bodice ripper is a problem. It is a small part of romance fiction but it the one people swoop on. They say it promotes violence against women. Well, there is a universal fantasy of non-responsibility, swept off her feet, best sex ever and no consequences. FANTASY is the key to this. Intelligent women can tell the difference.

And intelligent, well-educated women read romance for entertainment. Would someone bag you for going to see the latest block buster film? No…well some people are snobby about that too and only see art house films.

Women achieve a sense of identity through relationships. Romance shows women in healthy relationships with a clear identity that she discovers through her interaction with others.

But the critics say it stereotypes women as dependent on others.

Is no one in life free of some sort of dependence in a relationship whether they be male or female. Give examples.

IT is intellectually dishonest to criticize an ENTIRE genre based on one book or none.

As Juliet Flesch discovered there stories are varied, only the outcome is the same.

Romance is an honest form of fiction being writer by women for today's women. We are recording social history to a certain extent.

And in the words of Marion Lennox….

"If I want to a comprehensive program for organising my life I'll take a course. IF I want to eat chocolate, I'll eat chocolate. If I want to immerse myself into a good fantasy for a couple of hours get off my case and let me do it!!! The choice is mine."

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