 Romance/Love: November 19, 2014 Issue [#6669] |
  Romance/Love
This week: The Romance Stigma Edited by: Elle - on hiatus  
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'The rising tide of e-reading devices – and their subsequent drop in price – has been a blessing to many, but perhaps none more so than fans of romance. No longer are they forced to conceal the covers of their latest purchases...from fellow commuters. Instead, they can follow their heroine's romantic adventures with impunity, safely protected by the anonymity of their e-readers.' - Alison Flood
'One of the many reasons why we believe romance readers have taken so quickly to ebooks is that there is an inherent snobbery towards romance as a genre in the UK. It's sad that this is the case but dedicated e-readers and tablets allow readers to read whatever they like in public without giving anything away about what they are reading.' - Gillian Green
'One of the things about reading romance is that slightly furtive thing, the 'oh God, I can't be seen on the train reading a romance'. If you've got a Kindle then no one knows what you're reading. It's not about embarrassment, really – it's more that you don't want to be judged, and we are often judged by what we read.' - Sharon Kendrick |
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When people ask me about the benefits of ereaders, I say the price of books, the lack of storage space required, and the discretion they provide. Why do I need discretion? Because I read mainstream romance novels. 
It seems ridiculous that a novel can be judged based solely on genre. Not author, length, plot, characters... Just genre. Yet that became the case for for romance novels and the people who read them. Romance became seen as trash for bored housewives. I distinctly remember when an older lady at work nodded knowingly at my paperback and said "I used to read those. You'll grow out of it too."  Excuse me?
Reading is considered an intellectual's pursuit. So many people are vegging out in front of the television these days that people are impressed by those who still read for pleasure. "What sort of books do you read?" "Romance novels." And then you get that pitying look. Their estimation of your IQ just dropped by about 50 points because you read romance novels. And it doesn't matter if you're male or female. In truth, it also doesn't matter if you're reading one or writing one. It seems that people believe romance novels are less intellectual than novels from other genres.
Yet I'm constantly learning from the romance novels I read. The other day I was reading a paperback novel and suddenly realised that I missed being able to just click on a word to get a definition, like I can on my ereader. I have a very good vocabulary, but I learn new words all the time from my romance novels.
When I went to Scotland earlier this year, I was telling my husband the history behind Gretna Green, where we stopped on our way north to Inverness. I have never researched Gretna Green, nor read any reference or guide books on the subject - my entire knowledge of the area came from historical romance novels. But what I told him matched exactly with what we saw and heard at the visitor's center there. I also taught him about the battle at Culloden, which I learned about from my romance novels. But when you mention a fact and a local says "That's right, how did you know that?" and you reply "I read it in a romance novel", you end up back in that cycle. Because romance novels are just time-wasters, aren't they? 
One standard complaint I get is that 'they're all the same.' Really? So regardless of whether it's set in Regency England, on a Viking longboat, or in an executive boardroom in New York, they're all the same? Whether it features a brawny Scotsman, a smooth talking vampire, or an interstellar mercenary, they're all the same? Or even if they feature a blind Scotsman who walks with a limp, a demigod with a debilitating stutter, or a werewolf with a phobia of thunderstorms, they're all still the same? What a load of rubbish. The only thing they have in common across the board is the 'happily ever after' ending.
One of the wonderful things about romance as a genre is that there are a multitude of subgenres that mesh so well with it. You can have romance with mystery, romance with fantasy, romance with horror, romance with action and adventure, romance with comedy, romance with steampunk... The possibilities are endless.
You have seen here on Writing.com that a contest requiring all the entries to be written in the same genre for the same prompt will all be different. No two authors will ever write exactly the same story. Why would it be any different in the global publishing market where the 'prompts' are infinite? It wouldn't. It isn't. Romance novels are not all the same, and now more than ever with the advent of ebooks and self-publishing, more and more diverse storylines are being explored within the romance genre. Despite all that, I still wonder how long it will take before the genre loses the 'bodice ripper' stigma. |
These romance novel authors would love to get some feedback from readers who truly love the genre. Please leave a review!
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| Have you experienced the stigma that goes with romance novels and being a reader or writer of romance novels? Do you think the stigma is slowly disappearing or is it still alive and well? I'd love to hear your thoughts. |
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