"Romance is not real writing"

Silver-Midnight · Mar 29, 2012

Medievalist said:
You just got trolled. The OP was banned for trolling.

You might wanna pause and think a bit more before essentially making the "I've read some fairly decent and even good romance novels" given that oh, 30% at least of the canon of English and American novels could be filed under the genre of romance.

Thank you for pointing this was a troll thread.

Just for the record, I wasn't saying anything bad about Romance. I was actually trying to defend the genre, but I think I worded it the wrong way, repeatedly. So, for that, I am sorry. I like Romance; it'd be kind of strange if I didn't, given that romance is one of the genres I write.

gingerwoman · Apr 13, 2012

Real writing doesn't make you any money.

Deb Kinnard · Apr 13, 2012

I love this: "Real writing doesn't make you any money." Shades of the inspired genius starving in a garret!

Sorry, I'm not into starvation. All my writing is real writing, for which they send me real checks.

silent_count · Apr 17, 2012

Medievalist said:
Please note that the perpetrator opening this thread has been banned for trolling.

Trolling or not, even speaking as someone who'se never sought out a romance novel, the 'romance isn't real writing' perception is one that I've encountered. I think there's two things behind it.

One is that, more than any other genre, romance intentionally manipulates* the reader's emotions. It's virtue is in the emotions it puts in the reader's head - which is difficult to quantify. That vagueness is disconcerting to many people, particularly those of a scientific, bent who are more comfortable with scientific writing where the sole, relevant virtue is in the accuracy of the information presented.

The other is a more generic dislike, which we're all occasionally guilty of, "My chosen field is important. That's why I've chosen it. Therefore it follows that, if you've chosen a different one, you're wrong".

--
* 'manipulates' has negative connotations which I didn't intend in this context. If you 'manipulate' a pen, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing something bad to it.

dolores haze · Apr 17, 2012

silent_count said:
One is that, more than any other genre, romance intentionally manipulates* the reader's emotions.

Speaking as someone who writes in several genres, I'd say that all fiction writing attempts to manipulate the reader's emotions. Personally, I think horror is the most manipulative of the lot.

randi.lee · Apr 17, 2012

I don't read romance because I don't like it, not because I think it isn't "real writing." In fact, having tried my hand at writing several love scenes and failing miserably in each attempt, I have a lot of respect for romance writers.

Hildegarde · Apr 17, 2012

randi.lee said:
I don't read romance because I don't like it, not because I think it isn't "real writing." In fact, having tried my hand at writing several love scenes and failing miserably in each attempt, I have a lot of respect for romance writers.

I think if this is something you don't like to read, it would indeed be very, very hard to write.

To the "manipulate emotions" thing - unless you are talking about purely scientific (and I mean hard non-fiction science, not SciFi), I'm not sure I've read a book that doesn't attempt to engender emotions. Would be very dull, no?

RichardGarfinkle · Apr 17, 2012

Hildegarde said:
I think if this is something you don't like to read, it would indeed be very, very hard to write.

To the "manipulate emotions" thing - unless you are talking about purely scientific (and I mean hard non-fiction science, not SciFi), I'm not sure I've read a book that doesn't attempt to engender emotions. Would be very dull, no?

Having written hard non-fiction science, I can say that it needs to be as emotionally involving as any fiction particularly because the ideas being brought across can be so hard to connect to without it.

I'm uncomfortable with the word manipulative in any case. Writing has to bring ideas across and to try to kindle interest in the reader. I don't think that's inherently manipulation. To me manipulation has a character of dishonesty and ulterior motive about it.

Deleted member 42 · Apr 17, 2012

silent_count said:
One is that, more than any other genre, romance intentionally manipulates* the reader's emotions. It's virtue is in the emotions it puts in the reader's head - which is difficult to quantify.

That's the point of almost any sort of writing--hence the birth of rhetoric, the art of persuasion, the art of engendering specific reactions from the audience.

johnnysannie · Apr 20, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
I love this: "Real writing doesn't make you any money." Shades of the inspired genius starving in a garret!

Sorry, I'm not into starvation. All my writing is real writing, for which they send me real checks.

Yeah, me too! No starvation - checks you can take to the bank and use to pay bills. That's real enough writing for me and I write romance.

fireluxlou · Apr 20, 2012

The negativity towards Young Adult and Romance lies souly in misogyny to be honest. It's usually men that berate them for not being real genres and the women writers in it not being real authors because they are genres populated mostly by women authors.

VanessaNorth · Apr 20, 2012

fireluxlou said:
The negativity towards Young Adult and Romance lies souly in misogyny to be honest. It's usually men that berate them for not being real genres and the women writers in it not being real authors because they are genres populated mostly by women authors.

I agree with this.

And, whenever the disdain for romance writing emerges in a conversation, I direct the disdainful to dangerousbooksforgirls.com and tell them to watch the video, and then we'll talk.

RobJ · Apr 20, 2012

fireluxlou said:
The negativity towards Young Adult and Romance lies souly in misogyny to be honest. It's usually men that berate them for not being real genres and the women writers in it not being real authors because they are genres populated mostly by women authors.

Do you have any evidence you can link to?

Deb Kinnard · Apr 20, 2012

If this misogyny thing is at all true, one wonders why men sometimes diss science fiction as "not real writing" when much of it is written by men, for men?

Methinks there is more to this than sexism.

thethinker42 · Apr 20, 2012

My completely unscientific observation is that "This is not real writing" usually applies to any genre the speaker doesn't write or read.

Deb Kinnard · Apr 20, 2012

thethinker42 said:
My completely unscientific observation is that "This is not real writing" usually applies to any genre the speaker doesn't write or read.

This. Yes. This sort of mindset drove my dad completely nutso. He always said it stemmed from preschool behavior: "Look at me! Do what I do! Like what I like!"

Some folks may need to grow up & move away from the playground.

fireluxlou · Apr 20, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
If this misogyny thing is at all true, one wonders why men sometimes diss science fiction as "not real writing" when much of it is written by men, for men?

Methinks there is more to this than sexism.

Yea but Science Fiction and Fantasy are regarded more highly than they used to be say back in the 70s. They are still very much seen as mens genres (well the most popular books of them are written by men) and most people seem to consider them proper literature these days (GRR Martin, Stephen King etc). And those men I find who diss those two genres tend to be snobs who think they are of higher calibre than everyone else and are in positions in society which gives them the ability to think their opinions are the be all and end all. They usually recommend books from literary fiction as examples of proper fiction. Just my observations.

Filigree · Apr 20, 2012

I'm an sf&f nerd from waaayyy back, and I think the casual dismissal of YA genre stuff might have begun when YA was separated out from adult categories.

Patricia McKillip is one of my favorite fantasy writers, and I'll read whatever she publishes in YA or adult fiction. I know the language will be as gorgeous and difficult, the characters just as delicately drawn, and the storyline as intricate - no matter what she writes. Tanith Lee writes YA that is just as sly as her adult work, though obviously toned down in theme. Andre Norton's books were often shelved with YA, but there's little difference in tone with her adult writing.

But I have noticed some other YA lately that seemed somehow simplistic. Is that a function of the market, or the writers? I know that a recent poll found American high-schoolers reading around grade level 3 - 5, but I didn't think it was that obvious a shift.

LindaJeanne · Apr 21, 2012

I think there's a subconcious thought process that goes like:

I don't like reading X, and have a hard time seeing why anyone would want to. So, I stay away from it.
Therefore, what I see of X is mainly it's sterotypes and cliches (since that's what's most visible from a distance) and not the positive aspects.
Therefore, It's clear that X novels are poorly written.
Since they are bad writing, they are easy and formulaic to write.
I hear this idea re-enforced by people who reached this conclusion the same way I did, and that validates my opinion.
Therefore X isn't "real" writing, it's just churning out product.

You can fill in "X" with just about anything: Romance, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Literary Fiction, Westerns, Horror... I've heard it all dissed by someone-or-another who seem to have reached their conclusion via the above process.

Same goes for styles of music.

Edited to add: throw in Stergeon's Law, allowing you to find myriad poor examples of anything you want to dis. Then add a dash of the "No True Scottsman" logical fallacy -- when presented with an example of your dissed category that you have to admit is good, you insist that it's not really part of the dissed category.

gingerwoman · Apr 22, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
I love this: "Real writing doesn't make you any money." Shades of the inspired genius starving in a garret!

Well I was joking, my point being that romance writers make more money overall than any other genre and 55% of all fiction sold is romance.
Which is why I chose to write romance when I felt I would have been happy writing in any number of genres. I have a Masters in English Literature, but I didn't choose to try and go the literary route. Although I've been told the novella in my avi was too literary for some of the digital first publishers I sent it too. My novel coming out from Samhain in December isn't literary, it's more genre fiction that the novella in my avi which is in slightly literary erotic romance I guess.

Dreadful Romantic · Apr 23, 2012

It's been in my experience that people who echo the "Romance is not real writing" sentiment rarely read *anything* and don't write at all.

The coworkers I'm friendly with know I write romance, and with one exception none of them read it. They lean towards literary fiction, sci-fi, and horror. Still, when I told them I had finished my first romance novel and was going to submit it to publishers, the response was encouraging -- "You wrote a book? That's so cool! Can I read it?" One of them read my MS, and he didn't have any beef it with being a romance novel; he's just not used to reading fiction, period (he still liked it, but he said he didn't have anything to compare it to).

Any naysayers I've encountered read their last book in high school. I'm not going to get worked up over their opinions.

Deb Kinnard · Apr 23, 2012

As my little books have come out, most of my co-workers have read them. My day job boss goes out of her way to let me know that she hasn't and never would. Once she went into the city to meet a celebrity who'd compiled a bunch of letters and poems given over the years to her mother. The next day she gushed, in my hearing, about how terrific it was to "meet a real author!"

If I remember correctly, I went for another cup of coffee about that time.

celoise · Apr 23, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
As my little books have come out, most of my co-workers have read them. My day job boss goes out of her way to let me know that she hasn't and never would. Once she went into the city to meet a celebrity who'd compiled a bunch of letters and poems given over the years to her mother. The next day she gushed, in my hearing, about how terrific it was to "meet a real author!"

If I remember correctly, I went for another cup of coffee about that time.

That vile woman clearly wasn't raised right.

Dreadful Romantic · Apr 23, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
As my little books have come out, most of my co-workers have read them. My day job boss goes out of her way to let me know that she hasn't and never would. Once she went into the city to meet a celebrity who'd compiled a bunch of letters and poems given over the years to her mother. The next day she gushed, in my hearing, about how terrific it was to "meet a real author!"

The epitome of class, right there.

thethinker42 · Apr 23, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
As my little books have come out, most of my co-workers have read them. My day job boss goes out of her way to let me know that she hasn't and never would. Once she went into the city to meet a celebrity who'd compiled a bunch of letters and poems given over the years to her mother. The next day she gushed, in my hearing, about how terrific it was to "meet a real author!"

If I remember correctly, I went for another cup of coffee about that time.

Wow.

Some people's kids...

"Romance is not real writing"

Silver-Midnight

gingerwoman

Deb Kinnard

silent_count

Eats souls... 'cause they're yummy.

dolores haze

international guttersnipe

randi.lee

Certified Non-Genius

Hildegarde

A newb in the fog

RichardGarfinkle

Second Edition and Second Laughter

Deleted member 42

johnnysannie

fireluxlou

VanessaNorth

Purple hair, not prose.

RobJ

Deb Kinnard

thethinker42

Abnormal Romance Author

Deb Kinnard

fireluxlou

Filigree

Mildly Disturbing

LindaJeanne

On a small world west of wonder

gingerwoman

Dreadful Romantic

Deb Kinnard

celoise

Truss me I iz lawyor

Dreadful Romantic

thethinker42

Abnormal Romance Author