Beyond Heaving Bosoms

by Sarah Wendell

  Best shoe-obsessed vampire queen, ever: That’d be Betsy Taylor of MaryJanice Davidson’s Undead and Unwed. Read the other Undead books at your peril, however, as they rapidly become a whole lot less substantial and a whole lot more expensive.

  Screw Antiheroes, we want some Antiheroines, too: Meljean Brook’s Lilith in Demon Angel is a lower-echelon changeling demon, and unabashed about it.

  Vampires? In Regency England? Strewth!: Karen Harbaugh wrote, as far as we know, the first traditional Regency to feature a vampire viscount, called (drumroll, please) The Vampire Viscount. Plus, there’s Colleen Gleason’s five-part Gardella series, featuring Victoria Gardella, Regency vampire slayer.

  We like ’em hairy, but only once a month: Cracktastically awesome Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten is a paranormal romance with a werewolf hero and heroine, and a wonderfully fascinating and functional pack community.

  Buttsecks?: Morgan Hawke’s Fallen Star and Elizabeth Amber’s Lords of the Satyr books feature not heroes who have hemipenes. That’s right: one dude, two schlongs. Commence acrobatic buttsecks!

  Novels with ginormous crossover appeal: People who love books that focus as much on the love story as on the Sci-Fi/Fantasy setting will likely revel in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series (he’s not quite five feet tall, angsty as all hell, and somehow a sex god—don’t ask us how Bujold pulls that off, but she so does) and Sharon Shinn’s Samaria series (the lives and loves of genetically engineered angels on an alien planet; what’s not to love?).

  All steamed up: Emma Holly writes some decently entertaining Victorian-era steampunk in her Demon series, which so far includes The Demon’s Daughter and Prince of Ice. And since it’s Emma Holly, you know there’s going to be humpin’. A lot of humpin’. How much? Let’s just say they give the Cynsters a run for their money.

  The Whole Paranormal Posse: Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, despite having titles that are difficult to tell apart, feature the entire posse of paranormal creatures, from werewolves and vampires to Valkyrie, demons, and witches, to say nothing of creatures you might not have read about before.

  Trend 6: Erotic Romances

  This category is a bit of sticky wicket—and we’re not just referring to the hero’s dude piston. Given that just a couple of decades ago, most romances could barely mention the word “penis” without giving themselves a case of the vapors, the recent proliferation of romances that use words like “cock,” “cunt,” and “pussy” without batting so much as an eyelid is nothing short of astonishing. It’s not just the language; most erotic romances aren’t afraid to explore areas previously considered taboo in romance. Anal sex. Bondage fetishes. Sex toys. Bisexuality. Nonmonogamy for both hero and heroine. That’s right: group sex, and lots of it, please.

  Show me your purple-helmeted soldier of love: Bertrice Small wrote Old Skool erotic romances before they were known as erotic romances. Recognize.

  Tea for three: Emma Holly has written some fantastic romances in which the heroine ends up with more than one hot man with whom to play hide the salami, most notably Strange Attractions and Ménage.

  Gay Romance: No, not all gay romance is erotic romance, but much of it easily thrusts itself in either subgenre. For a variety of reasons, many women romance readers love romances wherein the protagonists are both men. And the sex scenes are long, in more ways than one.

  WE READ BY PLOT AND BY AUTHOR

  Behind every plot cliché, and the pirate earls and Navy SEALs and inspired Coast Guard captains and absurdly huge families with populations that overflow their country manor estates, there’s a reader who loves that plot. Plots, in fact, are one of the ways romance readers hunt for books. If it’s not the work of a favorite author, it’s a particular plot—All About Romance has an ongoing database built on reader suggestions that is sorted by plot or character device. Looking for guardian/ward romances, or romances based on marriages of convenience? They have a list for every type, and continue to build new ones by soliciting reader input.

  Similarly, on our site, we have a regular column we call “Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid,” in which we offer a scenario or type of character, and ask for recommendations for books that fit that description. When a reader writes in for help finding books that she may like, more often than not her preference is based on plot twist and setting, and not on character. The plot addiction, it is a mighty, mighty buying impulse.

  While shopping by plot leaves room for the old “Oh, so they are all the same” bullpucky argument, we know better. And there’s no time like the present to start knocking down those arguments as to why your reading material is plebian and lame one by dastardly one. So let’s get to it, shall we? Yarrr!

  The Smart Bitches’ Big Mis Game

  It’s time to head down the happy trail and play with the Smart Bitches Big Mis! No, not that. Damn, you’re nasty.

  The Big Mis is our first-ever interactive board game, where you’re the hero, and you head down the Happy Trail (no, we’re not going to get tired of saying that) to reach your Happy Ending (hur hur) with the heroine. But many, many big misunderstandings stand miserably in your way.

  RULES OF PLAY

  1. Find yourself some tools.

  Are you one of the few, the proud, the l33t, who have role-playing-game dice in your immediate reach? One of those dies with 45,924 sides? Cool. Go get that. Otherwise, grab a deck of cards and prepare to deal yourself random numbers. Face cards are worth 1. Or use your preferred method to generate random integers between 1 and 10.

  2. Then, grab a Barbie shoe, a penny, a condom, an M&M, a piece of dry cat food, or whatever is small and nearby, and use that as your game piece.

  3. Use a two-out-of-three round of rock, paper, scissors to determine who goes first, only instead of rock, paper, scissors, obviously it’s man titty, pimp hand, legs spread—but you totally knew that.

  4. Start your game pieces on the picture of our hero, Thorus Lancelot Magnuscocke III, Duke of Dieppeshitte, and draw a card or roll your die.

  5. Advance the number of squares indicated by the number you see. If you land on a blank square, you’re continuing unimpeded to the promised land of Happy Ending (hur hur).

  6. If you land on a Big Mis, read aloud in your most dramatic fashion the misunderstanding that befalls your character, then go back the indicated number of squares.

  7. If you are moving backward due to Big Misunderstandings, and you land on another Big Misunderstanding, you must move backward the number of squares indicated on that square as well. Yeah, we know. We did that on purpose. We suck.

  8. First player to reach the promised land for the Happy Ending wins!

  ADDITIONAL PRIZES, CONTESTS, AND MASS FUCKNUTTY AWESOMENESS

  We are holding a contest to celebrate our book’s debut—actually, we’re probably holding more than one, but we’re definitely holding this one. Send us pictures or video of your game in action to bigmisgame@smartbitchestrashybooks.com and we’ll pick the best creative use of game pieces, random number generators, and dramatic readings of Big Mis scenes. Winner will receive:

  A signed copy of the book compete with Smart Bitch Book Gift Set:

  a hot pink flask for drinking games

  pink crystal-encrusted game pieces and pink die for Big Mis games

  a pink-crystal custom-made T-shirt that reads “Smart Bitches Read Romance” in your choice of size

  Game ends May 15, 2009. Void where prohibited, and if you live in a place where you’re not allowed to play goofy board games about Happy Trails and Happy Endings, might we suggest you consider moving? Because, dude. Lame. You deserve better.

  Chapter WTF

  DEFENDING THE GENRE (NO, IT’S NOT CHICK PORN. DAMMIT.)

  When we started writing, we called this section a media guide, but it’s not the media who question your interest in romance. It’s more likely to be friends, family, anyone who sees you reading a romance, or anyone manning the cash register at the bookstore who gives you an arched brow at
your eight-book stack of romances. Of course, the thought of your buying eight romances at once fills us with envy, complete with hand-wringing and squeaking, but to most people who don’t understand the genre and don’t want to, the thought of dropping a cool seventy-five to a hundred dollars on romance induces not envy but indignant, confused spluttering. For some reason, the sight of another person reading a romance gives passersby permission to take complete leave of their manners. Sarah’s been approached by total strangers on the New York City subway who snidely comment on her reading material. You’d think people would have more self-preservation than to diss the reading material of an uncaffeinated commuter.

  So imagine the opportunity to defend your choice of reading material. You’re at a press conference with a dozen microphones, which resemble giant fuzzy electronic phalluses gathered in a bouquet in front of you. You have to field those same old questions about romance novels, and do so in front of thousands on behalf of the millions who read romance. No pressure or anything.

  AREN’T ROMANCES ALL THE SAME?

  Short answer: Yes. Also, no. But in asking, you reveal how little you know about the genre.

  Yes, the plots of romance novels are very similar. There are often similar characters (angst-ridden vampire hero anyone?) and the thematic structure is based on a long-established foundation of literary history. But no, romances are not all “the same.”

  The accusation of sameness emerges from the concept that romances, much like other forms of popular fiction, are based on a “formula.” And, as Pamela Regis says, the “connotations of ‘formula’ are quite negative. The term implies hack-work, subliterature, and imagination reduced to a mechanism for creating ‘product.’” The use of the word “product” is key—denigrating romance by saying it’s all the same, written according to a formula, implies that writing—and reading—a romance is like manufacturing an item, one of thousands of identical pieces, for sale to consumers who are all looking for the same exact thing. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  And if you’re bruising for a frosty discussion? We’re always down with that. Our advice is to point out the following: all expressions of creativity have a structure at work within them, most particularly those that adhere to a classical form. All romances are the same in the same way that all choreographed ballets are the same. Each ballet is a written sequence of the same steps, but each performance is remarkably different depending on the dancer in the role, the costumes, the dressing of the stage, and the musicians playing the music. All symphonies are the same piece of music each time they are performed, but the nuanced differences of varying musicians and conductors can make a world of difference. For that matter, most music is composed of octave variations of the same twenty-two notes, and we’ve never heard anyone say that there’s no difference between Bach and Copland, or Glass and Brahms.

  If ballet and music don’t make your argument, try cookies. Aside from the underlying insult to the intellect of both the writer and the reader, which is wide and deep and so very irritating, if we examine the concept of a formula and a product, what we’re really talking about is a structure and a result. Consider the Toll House chocolate-chip-cookie recipe. A perfectly functional recipe, it combines the basic dry and wet ingredients, with a wee bit of leavening amid the sugar, salt, eggs, butter, and flour, to create a pretty damn serviceable cookie, suitable for eating while you read a romance novel, and no, you do not have to share your cookies with the people who ask you such nebby, thinly veiled insulting questions.

  Now, consider the Toll House recipe in the hands of two different chefs. One, who is Not Sarah, puts nuts in the batter. Sarah thinks nuts in any baked good are a crime against humanity, so instead, she adds nutmeg, some unsweetened cocoa, and a bit of concentrated coffee liquid to her cookies. With three tiny ingredients, she has mocha-chocolate-chip cookies (that are awesome, by the way) while the other chef, who is busy violating the Geneva convention with those walnuts and pecans, has an entirely different cookie coming out of her oven. Both are chocolate chip cookies, but with a marked, and subtle difference.

  That’s how romance works. There’s a structure, a foundation of common elements to each novel, but the variation in how those elements are woven together into a delicious narrative is the art, not the product, of each author. Eighty cooks crafting chocolate-chip cookies are going to produce chocolate-chip cookies, but each and every cookie from each chef is going to be different. And thus romance novels, which share a structure but diverge wildly based on subgenre and the innovation and creativity of each author, are not at all the same. The variations in the space between the narrative elements are the romance.

  Those variations create something new in each novel. Nora Roberts, who is called by the actual press time and again to discuss and defend the genre, has said repeatedly (and still they call with the same question): Yes, there is a happy ending. But the book isn’t about the happy ending. It’s about the journey to that happy ending.

  Smart Bitch Law 1

  Note: Avoid the easy pitfall of violating Smart Bitch Law 1: Thou shalt not diss the reading material of another person merely to elevate one’s own. By slapping at someone else’s love of true crime novels, thou art not defending romance. Thou art passing the buck, and by doing so, verily thou art being a douche bag.

  For example, with a mystery you know that the crime will be solved, the perp brought to justice, and maybe there’s some sexxy sexxoring for the protagonists, though often it’s behind closed doors, or obliquely referred to with a fade-to-black kissing scene. But in the end, Bad will lose to Good, and the mystery will be solved. Otherwise, it’s not really a mystery novel.

  Just like romance, there are plenty of mystery novels to choose from, with all manner of settings, protagonists, themes, and deeper significance hidden within. And just like romance, there are plenty of mystery writers. Moreover, just like romance, there are plenty of mystery writers who scare the ever-loving crap out of us, and there are some whom we stopped reading because in our opinion they were too much structure, not enough creative pizzazz.

  Of course, mystery novels are socially and culturally acceptable reading material; they are not victim of the “scribbling for silly women” reputation that romances endure. Moreover, because mysteries are often about violence, crime, murder, and bloodshed, they’re acceptable. Romances, which feature and focus on sex, emotions, happiness, and love, are not as acceptable, and truly, there’s enough wrong with that imbalance of value that it underscores itself. Violence, murder, and crime: okay. Sex, emotions, happiness and relationships: not okay. What, we ask in all seriousness, the fuck?

  But it’s not just readers who confront that bizarre imbalance. Authors hear it, too. Nora Roberts told us in an interview, “Once, years back, I did a mass signing with authors from various genres. One of the mystery authors came up to me at some point, patted my hand. I can’t remember the entire conversation, but she ended it by saying: ‘But you’re writing mystery now, dear.’ It still amuses me. It was said in the tone you’d use to someone who’d recovered from a long illness, or had recently been paroled. She meant well, but in her mind I was now legitimate.”

  Lisa Kleypas says, regarding the idea that those pesky romances, they’re all the same, that “everyone knows the basic plot or formula, and then a lot of writers, including me, have discussed how to write ‘outside the box.’ But after twenty-two years of being published, I’ve come to realize that what makes a romance novel successful, not only in financial terms but also in a creative sense, is to think inside the box. The constraints, the limits, the structure of the romance novel is what allows a good writer to soar creatively.”

  It’s not the structure that counts. It’s the structure in the hands of a talented, creative, and enthusiastic author. What’s more, some authors have had considerable success creating for themselves an additional narrative structure within the existing romance.

  Some readers love the series of a specific author, parti
ally because a specific series may take place in a world with very clear and identified rules. There are several authors who have developed a structure of their own so unique it becomes their trademark of sorts within the structure of the genre. Usually at that moment, the marketing department of their publishing house gets down and does a booty-shakin’ happy dance because authors with strong series can sell to a thirsty, eager audience.

  And that can be when “formula” becomes the best word to describe the structure-within-a-structure, because that repeated structure can become boring, trite, repetitive, and banal. And that’s when we, as readers, get really pissed off, because there is no journey between the narrative elements. There’s just more repetition of the same from the last book, from the book before, and the book before that. Those, unfortunately, are the books that can easily give romance—and any other genre that operates on a solid, historically grounded narrative structure—a tawdry reputation.

  TIME FOR SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS WITH YOUR HOSTS, THE SMART BITCHES

  Match the author to their “formula,” in convenient haiku style:

  Well, that and the man titty.

  So Why Is Romance So Often and

  So Frequently Denigrated?

  Good question. Why do mysteries, thrillers, spy novels, military-intrigue stories, and the rest hold a slightly more elevated position in the social ranking of “Other People’s Opinions of Your Reading Material” than romance?

  Are you a woman? Look in your pants. That could be why.

  As Nora Roberts says, “Romance is the hat trick of easy targets: emotions, relationships, and sex.” Add to that hat trick the instant handicap of being a genre written mostly by women, mostly for women, and the stereotypical images that surround both the readers and the writers, and it’s a one-stop express to Highly Denigrated Genre land.