By Caron Hart
I write the kind of genre novel many people won’t admit they read: category romance, the ones known more by type than by author. These days they’re almost all published by Harlequin Enterprises, a Canadian company that began in Winnipeg in 1949. In the 70s Torstar bought it and moved it to Toronto. Its stated goal is to dominate women’s fiction around the globe.
Since I didn’t understand International Reply Coupons, I didn’t target the lines most familiar to me when I first started: historicals, medicals and the stories about Greek Tycoons’ Pregnant Mistresses, all published by Harlequin’s UK branch. Instead I tried my hand at Superromance, a line published in Toronto. The day Laura Shin called to say they wanted to buy the manuscript that had gathered dust in their offices for a year and a half I thought the long, meandering path I’d been stepping on and off of ever since learning to spell had finally, and surprisingly, led me into that quiet, sunny world where published authors live. I imagined peaceful days inventing cosy alternate realities other women could curl up with and enjoy. Pots of tea and bubble baths all round.
Maybe that’s how it would have been before the Internet. Is it just me, or does this hive mind we plug into have a tendency to turn us into overwhelmed empaths, hearing a constant clamour of thoughts too pervasive to be sorted, filed, considered and then accepted or dismissed?
It didn’t take much time online to realize the one giant step out of my basement office was actually a very small one that had brought me to the edge of a crowded, competitive, opinionated—and supportive—community with its own traditions and expectations. Writers, readers and the optimistically-termed pre-pubs have been early and enthusiastic adopters of new technology, using chat rooms, web sites, blogs and tweets. Call stories (the acceptance call from an editor) are described, First Kisses, Dark Moments and Turning Points discussed, pictures of dresses bought for the Romance Writers of America conference posted. Pros and cons of alpha vs beta males are debated, as are clinch covers, small town settings, pregnant heroines: one person’s stereotype is another’s much-loved mainstay.
My first hero was inspired by an afternoon with paleontologists at a Dig Watch in the Alberta badlands. The men were tanned, strong, fit and, crowning glory, scientists. What better combination? I thought. What could be sexier?
Pretty much anything, apparently. From readers online I learned the market for sexy scientists is a small one. Cowboys, yes. Always. For some reason men of few words who spend weeks at a time on the range far from showers are a perennial favourite. So are firemen, cops, doctors, tycoons. I do understand the appeal of a tough, strong man who really knows how to save a woman. Between emergencies, though, don’t we want someone who will talk to us?
Harlequin was at the forefront of offering forums for that kind of discussion, guidance for wannabes and additional material like free online reads. In time it added its own ebook store, a natural extension of its traditional mail-out book club. A reader can talk with a favourite author on the community pages, then click over to the bookstore to shop.
No wonder romance readers have embraced ebooks. Incompatible technologies can be frustrating, but the benefits are clear. With so many new titles each month, brick and board stores can’t stock everything. Some series romances, normally on the shelves for one month, are rotated with other lines, giving each book a mere two weeks’ exposure. Readers who have identified a line, an author or a continuity they like don’t want to miss a single book. Online stores ensure they won’t. Missed backlist titles are available, too. Finding space for ‘keepers’ and ‘to be read’ piles is no longer an issue. Readers don’t say they’re abandoning hard copy. They still want books they can lend, ones that won’t become obsolete when technology changes again. They’re just expanding their options.
I’ll admit I don’t read romance novels in public. It’s those covers. Although an e-reader would solve the problem, I doubt I’ll ever buy one. I prefer the feel of a real book, the smell of it, the sound of the pages. A book without a battery life. And although it isn’t the best thing to drop a paper book in the tub, at least you’re not wasting a couple of hundred bucks if it happens.
A while ago I decided to unplug, as much as is humanly possible, anyway. No more writers’ loops, no more eHarlequin. I hadn’t participated in any real world book events, where mascara mattered and sentences couldn’t be edited or deleted, so when my fifth book came out and my son’s long-ago grade two teacher invited me to speak at a book club meeting it seemed like time to give it a try. Past time.
I prepared a package: books to give away, foreign editions to demonstrate different approaches to cover art, my editor’s four pages of single-spaced, one-inch margin notes for Book One, galleys and examples of reader letters and emails. All that was missing was a portable blackboard, a pointer and chalk.
Feeling dressed up in business casual, I arrived at the meeting to find red lace bras draped over lamps and other assorted lingerie leading to the stairs and beyond. We drank red wine. Dessert was Sex In A Pan. Nothing I could think of saying suited the mood of the occasion. (“Then we do line edits, checking grammar and punctuation. This is when I make sure to use American spelling, which is Harlequin’s house style.”) Everyone was friendly and tolerated the lesson, but I’m afraid I didn’t add to the evening’s fun.
No matter how many risqué books they’ve read, how many naughty movies they’ve seen, how varied a love life they’ve enjoyed, there’s a look, an expectant, sparkling look many people get, as if my luck in escaping Harlequin’s slush pile means talking to me will be wickedly entertaining. Barely restraining the wink and the nudge (and sometimes not restraining them) people ask, “What’s it like to write a sex scene? Where do you get your ideas?” Even my son, the turncoat, said once, “It’s not everyone who can say their mother writes smut.”
I don’t! Really, I don’t.
If criticized, romance writers will vociferously defend the sex in their books. It’s natural, they say, it’s beautiful, it’s universal, it’s better than kidnapping, torture and murder. Be that as it may, there’s very little of it in my books. I tried to be smutty in my fifth, but you know how it is: a writer has parents, children and beloved old English teachers. In my fourth book, the hero and heroine were so distracted by her son’s climate change fears sex was the last thing on their minds. “This is a romance novel,” I reminded myself, “and readers will expect some romance.” So, while taking a walk the two frazzled characters disappeared into the underbrush where, thankfully, I couldn’t see a thing. There was no need to think of descriptions and synonyms. This is called “closing the bedroom door.” Readers are divided on the issue. Some feel cheated, others prefer having the rest of the scene left to their imagination.
Early this summer, while puttering in the sunshine preparing an impromptu snack of baguette, goat cheese, honey and oregano fresh from a pot under the birdfeeder, one of my sisters-in-law asked, “But isn’t that why people read these books? For, um, titillation?”
Sure, partly.
Some lines, like Blaze (best in show humans) and Nocturne (vampires, werewolves) require sex; guidelines on Harlequin’s Web site ask for ‘red-hot’ scenes. Others, like Love Inspired (family, faith, tenderness) and Heartwarming (re-releases of old no-sex, no-violence titles) forbid it. Regardless of the level of sensuality, the common threads that draw readers into a series romance are a straightforward narrative style, a heroine they can relate to, a hero they can fall for and by story’s end, a love that is absolute, a commitment that will never fail.
In letters and emails readers send me, there’s no nudging or winking. They’ve read the books, after all: they know I’m not wickedly entertaining. A woman who couldn’t travel as much as she’d like thanked me for a realistic setting that made her feel as if she’d been to the Alberta badlands. Another said she related to a subplot about a single mother raising a preteen girl. Someone else said a story had brought back warm memories of visiting her grandmother’s house in the country. A couple of readers said they’d ignored the work they had meant to do and instead read all day. A goal met!
Then there’s Marc Jackson from The Reminder, a northern Manitoba online paper. I’d contacted him with questions about gold mining for my third book, so when it came out he kindly read it. The review he sent is framed on my office wall. I love the photo: a tattooed man with my book in hand. It wasn’t bad, he told Reminder readers. A little mushy in places, but with enough twists and turns to keep him guessing. If he was stuck for something to read he might even consider picking up another romance novel some day.
It’s my favourite review. Tough man, curled up enjoying one of my cosy worlds. An Internet voice, sorted, filed, appreciated.
Closing the Bedroom Door
Articles
By Caron Hart
I write the kind of genre novel many people won’t admit they read: category romance, the ones known more by type than by author. These days they’re almost all published by Harlequin Enterprises, a Canadian company that began in Winnipeg in 1949. In the 70s Torstar bought it and moved it to Toronto. Its stated goal is to dominate women’s fiction around the globe.
Since I didn’t understand International Reply Coupons, I didn’t target the lines most familiar to me when I first started: historicals, medicals and the stories about Greek Tycoons’ Pregnant Mistresses, all published by Harlequin’s UK branch. Instead I tried my hand at Superromance, a line published in Toronto. The day Laura Shin called to say they wanted to buy the manuscript that had gathered dust in their offices for a year and a half I thought the long, meandering path I’d been stepping on and off of ever since learning to spell had finally, and surprisingly, led me into that quiet, sunny world where published authors live. I imagined peaceful days inventing cosy alternate realities other women could curl up with and enjoy. Pots of tea and bubble baths all round.
Maybe that’s how it would have been before the Internet. Is it just me, or does this hive mind we plug into have a tendency to turn us into overwhelmed empaths, hearing a constant clamour of thoughts too pervasive to be sorted, filed, considered and then accepted or dismissed?
It didn’t take much time online to realize the one giant step out of my basement office was actually a very small one that had brought me to the edge of a crowded, competitive, opinionated—and supportive—community with its own traditions and expectations. Writers, readers and the optimistically-termed pre-pubs have been early and enthusiastic adopters of new technology, using chat rooms, web sites, blogs and tweets. Call stories (the acceptance call from an editor) are described, First Kisses, Dark Moments and Turning Points discussed, pictures of dresses bought for the Romance Writers of America conference posted. Pros and cons of alpha vs beta males are debated, as are clinch covers, small town settings, pregnant heroines: one person’s stereotype is another’s much-loved mainstay.
My first hero was inspired by an afternoon with paleontologists at a Dig Watch in the Alberta badlands. The men were tanned, strong, fit and, crowning glory, scientists. What better combination? I thought. What could be sexier?
Pretty much anything, apparently. From readers online I learned the market for sexy scientists is a small one. Cowboys, yes. Always. For some reason men of few words who spend weeks at a time on the range far from showers are a perennial favourite. So are firemen, cops, doctors, tycoons. I do understand the appeal of a tough, strong man who really knows how to save a woman. Between emergencies, though, don’t we want someone who will talk to us?
Harlequin was at the forefront of offering forums for that kind of discussion, guidance for wannabes and additional material like free online reads. In time it added its own ebook store, a natural extension of its traditional mail-out book club. A reader can talk with a favourite author on the community pages, then click over to the bookstore to shop.
No wonder romance readers have embraced ebooks. Incompatible technologies can be frustrating, but the benefits are clear. With so many new titles each month, brick and board stores can’t stock everything. Some series romances, normally on the shelves for one month, are rotated with other lines, giving each book a mere two weeks’ exposure. Readers who have identified a line, an author or a continuity they like don’t want to miss a single book. Online stores ensure they won’t. Missed backlist titles are available, too. Finding space for ‘keepers’ and ‘to be read’ piles is no longer an issue. Readers don’t say they’re abandoning hard copy. They still want books they can lend, ones that won’t become obsolete when technology changes again. They’re just expanding their options.
I’ll admit I don’t read romance novels in public. It’s those covers. Although an e-reader would solve the problem, I doubt I’ll ever buy one. I prefer the feel of a real book, the smell of it, the sound of the pages. A book without a battery life. And although it isn’t the best thing to drop a paper book in the tub, at least you’re not wasting a couple of hundred bucks if it happens.
A while ago I decided to unplug, as much as is humanly possible, anyway. No more writers’ loops, no more eHarlequin. I hadn’t participated in any real world book events, where mascara mattered and sentences couldn’t be edited or deleted, so when my fifth book came out and my son’s long-ago grade two teacher invited me to speak at a book club meeting it seemed like time to give it a try. Past time.
I prepared a package: books to give away, foreign editions to demonstrate different approaches to cover art, my editor’s four pages of single-spaced, one-inch margin notes for Book One, galleys and examples of reader letters and emails. All that was missing was a portable blackboard, a pointer and chalk.
Feeling dressed up in business casual, I arrived at the meeting to find red lace bras draped over lamps and other assorted lingerie leading to the stairs and beyond. We drank red wine. Dessert was Sex In A Pan. Nothing I could think of saying suited the mood of the occasion. (“Then we do line edits, checking grammar and punctuation. This is when I make sure to use American spelling, which is Harlequin’s house style.”) Everyone was friendly and tolerated the lesson, but I’m afraid I didn’t add to the evening’s fun.
No matter how many risqué books they’ve read, how many naughty movies they’ve seen, how varied a love life they’ve enjoyed, there’s a look, an expectant, sparkling look many people get, as if my luck in escaping Harlequin’s slush pile means talking to me will be wickedly entertaining. Barely restraining the wink and the nudge (and sometimes not restraining them) people ask, “What’s it like to write a sex scene? Where do you get your ideas?” Even my son, the turncoat, said once, “It’s not everyone who can say their mother writes smut.”
I don’t! Really, I don’t.
If criticized, romance writers will vociferously defend the sex in their books. It’s natural, they say, it’s beautiful, it’s universal, it’s better than kidnapping, torture and murder. Be that as it may, there’s very little of it in my books. I tried to be smutty in my fifth, but you know how it is: a writer has parents, children and beloved old English teachers. In my fourth book, the hero and heroine were so distracted by her son’s climate change fears sex was the last thing on their minds. “This is a romance novel,” I reminded myself, “and readers will expect some romance.” So, while taking a walk the two frazzled characters disappeared into the underbrush where, thankfully, I couldn’t see a thing. There was no need to think of descriptions and synonyms. This is called “closing the bedroom door.” Readers are divided on the issue. Some feel cheated, others prefer having the rest of the scene left to their imagination.
Early this summer, while puttering in the sunshine preparing an impromptu snack of baguette, goat cheese, honey and oregano fresh from a pot under the birdfeeder, one of my sisters-in-law asked, “But isn’t that why people read these books? For, um, titillation?”
Sure, partly.
Some lines, like Blaze (best in show humans) and Nocturne (vampires, werewolves) require sex; guidelines on Harlequin’s Web site ask for ‘red-hot’ scenes. Others, like Love Inspired (family, faith, tenderness) and Heartwarming (re-releases of old no-sex, no-violence titles) forbid it. Regardless of the level of sensuality, the common threads that draw readers into a series romance are a straightforward narrative style, a heroine they can relate to, a hero they can fall for and by story’s end, a love that is absolute, a commitment that will never fail.
In letters and emails readers send me, there’s no nudging or winking. They’ve read the books, after all: they know I’m not wickedly entertaining. A woman who couldn’t travel as much as she’d like thanked me for a realistic setting that made her feel as if she’d been to the Alberta badlands. Another said she related to a subplot about a single mother raising a preteen girl. Someone else said a story had brought back warm memories of visiting her grandmother’s house in the country. A couple of readers said they’d ignored the work they had meant to do and instead read all day. A goal met!
Then there’s Marc Jackson from The Reminder, a northern Manitoba online paper. I’d contacted him with questions about gold mining for my third book, so when it came out he kindly read it. The review he sent is framed on my office wall. I love the photo: a tattooed man with my book in hand. It wasn’t bad, he told Reminder readers. A little mushy in places, but with enough twists and turns to keep him guessing. If he was stuck for something to read he might even consider picking up another romance novel some day.
It’s my favourite review. Tough man, curled up enjoying one of my cosy worlds. An Internet voice, sorted, filed, appreciated.