“It’s silly.”
“Why don’t you read a story with a plot?”
“Why would you read something that you know how it ends?”
“Read something exciting for once.”
“There’s no literary value.”
If you’re a romance reader, like me, you’ve probably heard something along those lines at one point or another. Even if not directed at you, directed at people who like the books you like.
Confession time:
I’ve been reading romance novels since a young age.
I denied that I enjoyed reading romance novels well into my twenties.
Now I write them for a living.
Pretending I didn’t enjoy reading or writing romance novels in highschool is pretty rich, considering the binders full of thousands of handwritten pages of my highschool book that my husband has affectionately dubbed, “Teenage Virgin Romance Novel.”
My Teenage Virgin Romance Novel, once hidden in shame, now has a shelf of pride in my office. And I am an unabashed romance reader and writer.
As a teen, I read the Twilight Saga “for the world-building and creative take on vampire lore.” The Southern Vampire Novels? Oh, young Lynn devoured those books “for the mystery.” And don’t even get me started on my Anita Blake books justifications. “I’m not reading for the love-scenes. It makes logical sense in the magic system.” Uh huh, sure young Lynn, I’m sure that’s why you’ve read them all many times.
When I was contemplating doing this as a career, those little voices in my head started cropping up again. Where’s the value in romance? Or worse, It’s just porn for women. I pretended that the stories I was writing weren’t about the ultimate connection of people in love. Or worse, I’d tell people I was just writing silly little romance novels. Even though I didn’t think they were silly at all.
Back to the reason for this blog today. Stories have value. Romance has value.
When I first published Tooth and Claw, it wasn’t as an aspiring writer. It was a selfish desire to have more rejected fated mate stories on my kindle. I’d devoured every book I could find that hit that niche and needed more. I figured there had to be at least a few other readers that wanted more too. So even though I didn’t think my story was all that great, I bought a cover, did the formatting, and threw it into the ether.
And it exploded. In a few short months, I had two more books published in that series, over a hundred reviews on amazon (including a review written in German). My silly werewolf melodrama connected to people the same way the books I’d been reading since the dawn of time had connected to me. That’s really what romance is all about to me.
Connection. Empathy. Catharsis.
A good romance novel gives the reader all three, no matter the temperature of the steam.
I dive into the sweet romance novels whose climax ends with the main characters holding hands with the same fervor as I read novels that climaxes early and often. I devour heart wrenching redemption stories that leave me in tears and books that make me laugh until I cry. Men, women, aliens, amorphous blobs, I don’t care, I’ll read them all as long as it hits me in those three places.
Connection- I want the main characters to connect to each other. To their environment. But most importantly, I want the character to connect with me. I want to see bits and pieces of myself or my friends and family in them.
Empathy- A good romance novel makes me feel. I want the butterflies in my stomach during the will-they-won’t they. I want the heartbreak if it fails; I want the warmth in my heart, and soul when love prevails. A good romance makes me feel more than just the romantic feelings. It makes me hurt with biting comments; it makes me laugh with jokes; it makes me giddy when the team scores the winning point, or disappointed when they fail.
Catharsis- Romance provides this more than any other genre. When I put a romance novel down, I feel lighter. Emotions I didn’t know I was repressing have lifted from my shoulders. This is easier to feel in the books that are written to make me cry, but even the sweetest romance does this. I cherish the books that give me catharsis. Books are a safe place to process the emotions that are too scary in the real world.
I hope my readers feel a connection to Aster, Jen, Willow, Iris, Souli, and all the characters in their worlds. If my books can provide even a fraction of the catharsis, I’ve so greedily received from other authors, I’ve done my job.
Romance as a genre is so much more than silly stories about love. It’s not just porn. It might not be what critics consider having literary value, but the value it provides is personal and sacred.
(Alright, time for another confession, I’m totally down to read books that are just sexy times. I’m just not great at writing them… yet So…. maybe in the future… in a pen name my dad doesn’t know about)