Hey, I could do that better
Mar. 30th, 2010 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
We were at the bookstore the other day (mostly to buy a DVD of The Princess and the Frog, because we liked it and we want to support classic hand-drawn fairy tale movies, by golly!) and Ryan saw the appallingly monolithic displays for Twilight merchandise. He kept pointing out the apple excitedly ("A-glottal stop-l! A-glottal stop-l!") And I kept replying, "Yes, Ryan, that's a poisoned apple." I suppose I was hoping someone would hear me and respond. :P
Somehow I ended up reading a long chain of posts about romance and gender in YA literature. (It started with this post, which makes me really want to read her book when it's published. Also, it makes me want to write lots of books with women who are older than their love interests, just to be contrary.) The discussions really sucked me in, I suppose because of how disturbing certain trends are - i.e., stalking and lusting are equated to love, boyfriends who are controlling and brooding are supposed to be oh-so-romantic, and characters are expected to be in love simply because they are pretty and they are the main characters. I can see why these sort of tropes appeal to young adults - they wouldn't have appealed to me as a young adult, but that's because I was kind of a forty-year-old teenager and had no patience for gushing romance.
Anyway, this has led directly into a critical look at my own novels. I've been pretty hyper-aware of how I present romantic relationships from the beginning, so I don't think I've done anything so extreme as presenting abuse as romantic, but now I'm nitpicking every bit of dialogue, every detail of the dynamics between males and females. It's kind of driving me crazy, so I should probably take a deep breath and step back for a bit.
It could explain, though, why my novels keep circling back to romance when I don't write romance novels, darn it! It's a more specified form of being motivated to write because I read something and think "Hey, I could do that better." I want to write romance responsibly, as if I could single-handedly counter this alarming wave of he-wants-to-kill-me-isn't-that-hot?? in YA novels. I want to portray healthy relationships. And if unhealthy elements show up, I want to make it clear that they're unhealthy rather than condoning or even idealizing them. That was basically the primary impetus for my reverse-gender Beauty and the Beast story. Not, by any stretch, two pretty people fawning over each other. And no one falling for someone because they're dangerous or mysterious or brooding. And not an instant attraction belied by feigned dislike. No, my characters genuinely don't like each other when they meet, and they only begin to have more favorable feelings when they both begin to change and grow and get to know the hidden parts of each other. Love takes time, patience and compromise. I guess most young adults don't want to think about that. No wonder people reading Pride and Prejudice interpret Lizzy's initial dislike for Darcy as sublimated attraction, when I've always thought it was plain that she changes from the beginning of the book to the end. And no wonder no one wants to publish my book. Waaaah.
But enough with the self-pity. My other novel, the Snow White one, doesn't center as much on the romance, but it's true that my protagonist and her love interest are both motivated in much of what they do by their feelings for each other. Their lives, however, do not revolve exclusively around that romance. Nor is much time spent on describing what they look like. I think the initial thing that attracts Bianca to James is his ability to have a sense of humor even in bleak circumstances, because she's a pretty serious person herself and she needs someone to make her laugh. Meanwhile, James is probably drawn to her because of her determination and passion to do the right thing, because he hasn't met a lot of people like that in his life.
And I'm pretty pleased with the romances that show up in my fantasy series. There's a married couple who go through some pretty rocky things but endure it together. There's a young couple whose romance is pretty much the opposite of the YA romances I was just bemoaning - just when they're starting to fall in love in a very sweet, awkward sort of way, he's lured into a path of dark, horrible things. And when he comes to her, all brooding and dangerous and such, she sends him away. She's devastated, of course, and mopes about for a while, but eventually she picks herself back up and goes on with her life. Later (spoiler alert? like it matters?) he pulls back from the darkness and tries to make what amends he can, and this leads the way, gradually, for them to attempt a relationship again. But they're both wiser, and warier, and much more mature for it. The third major romance in my novels doesn't show up until the fourth book, but I absolutely love it because it's just so bizarre - a mercenary-ish woman fighter with a whole lot of emotional scars from her childhood, and a mild-mannered, fat, bald healer with a particular secret of his own. They aren't pretty, and they couldn't care less.
Blah blah. I know I'm babbling on about characters that most people haven't the slightest idea of, but I think all this rambling has reminded me of what lies at the crux of my romance ethos. I find good characters attractive. So my protagonists do as well. I can't recall more than a few passing descriptions of what my love interests look like, but I think the exact line "He was so good" shows up more than once in reference to a woman thinking admiringly of a man. And conversely, I find bad characters unattractive. I don't buy the bad boy attraction. It's shallow at best and dangerous at worst. Strong can be attractive, yes. But strong enough to break her windpipe? No thanks.
Whew. I've gone all over the place, but I think it's been a fruitful rambling. Hooray for healthy relationships and all that. :D
Somehow I ended up reading a long chain of posts about romance and gender in YA literature. (It started with this post, which makes me really want to read her book when it's published. Also, it makes me want to write lots of books with women who are older than their love interests, just to be contrary.) The discussions really sucked me in, I suppose because of how disturbing certain trends are - i.e., stalking and lusting are equated to love, boyfriends who are controlling and brooding are supposed to be oh-so-romantic, and characters are expected to be in love simply because they are pretty and they are the main characters. I can see why these sort of tropes appeal to young adults - they wouldn't have appealed to me as a young adult, but that's because I was kind of a forty-year-old teenager and had no patience for gushing romance.
Anyway, this has led directly into a critical look at my own novels. I've been pretty hyper-aware of how I present romantic relationships from the beginning, so I don't think I've done anything so extreme as presenting abuse as romantic, but now I'm nitpicking every bit of dialogue, every detail of the dynamics between males and females. It's kind of driving me crazy, so I should probably take a deep breath and step back for a bit.
It could explain, though, why my novels keep circling back to romance when I don't write romance novels, darn it! It's a more specified form of being motivated to write because I read something and think "Hey, I could do that better." I want to write romance responsibly, as if I could single-handedly counter this alarming wave of he-wants-to-kill-me-isn't-that-hot?? in YA novels. I want to portray healthy relationships. And if unhealthy elements show up, I want to make it clear that they're unhealthy rather than condoning or even idealizing them. That was basically the primary impetus for my reverse-gender Beauty and the Beast story. Not, by any stretch, two pretty people fawning over each other. And no one falling for someone because they're dangerous or mysterious or brooding. And not an instant attraction belied by feigned dislike. No, my characters genuinely don't like each other when they meet, and they only begin to have more favorable feelings when they both begin to change and grow and get to know the hidden parts of each other. Love takes time, patience and compromise. I guess most young adults don't want to think about that. No wonder people reading Pride and Prejudice interpret Lizzy's initial dislike for Darcy as sublimated attraction, when I've always thought it was plain that she changes from the beginning of the book to the end. And no wonder no one wants to publish my book. Waaaah.
But enough with the self-pity. My other novel, the Snow White one, doesn't center as much on the romance, but it's true that my protagonist and her love interest are both motivated in much of what they do by their feelings for each other. Their lives, however, do not revolve exclusively around that romance. Nor is much time spent on describing what they look like. I think the initial thing that attracts Bianca to James is his ability to have a sense of humor even in bleak circumstances, because she's a pretty serious person herself and she needs someone to make her laugh. Meanwhile, James is probably drawn to her because of her determination and passion to do the right thing, because he hasn't met a lot of people like that in his life.
And I'm pretty pleased with the romances that show up in my fantasy series. There's a married couple who go through some pretty rocky things but endure it together. There's a young couple whose romance is pretty much the opposite of the YA romances I was just bemoaning - just when they're starting to fall in love in a very sweet, awkward sort of way, he's lured into a path of dark, horrible things. And when he comes to her, all brooding and dangerous and such, she sends him away. She's devastated, of course, and mopes about for a while, but eventually she picks herself back up and goes on with her life. Later (spoiler alert? like it matters?) he pulls back from the darkness and tries to make what amends he can, and this leads the way, gradually, for them to attempt a relationship again. But they're both wiser, and warier, and much more mature for it. The third major romance in my novels doesn't show up until the fourth book, but I absolutely love it because it's just so bizarre - a mercenary-ish woman fighter with a whole lot of emotional scars from her childhood, and a mild-mannered, fat, bald healer with a particular secret of his own. They aren't pretty, and they couldn't care less.
Blah blah. I know I'm babbling on about characters that most people haven't the slightest idea of, but I think all this rambling has reminded me of what lies at the crux of my romance ethos. I find good characters attractive. So my protagonists do as well. I can't recall more than a few passing descriptions of what my love interests look like, but I think the exact line "He was so good" shows up more than once in reference to a woman thinking admiringly of a man. And conversely, I find bad characters unattractive. I don't buy the bad boy attraction. It's shallow at best and dangerous at worst. Strong can be attractive, yes. But strong enough to break her windpipe? No thanks.
Whew. I've gone all over the place, but I think it's been a fruitful rambling. Hooray for healthy relationships and all that. :D