Author Rant: Series vs. Romance - Do The Same Rules Apply?

After the discussion about labels on romance novels, and prior discussions about series books in the romance shelves, one author and I had a rather lively discussion via email about series books and whether the same rules and expectations should apply to them as to romance novels. Since this author doesn’t want to be seen as trying to sell her own books, she asked that I post her rant anonymously so that it would be evaluated on content and not as a potential marketing attempt. Normally we’re all about owning your comments, but I can see her point – she wants her argument to stand on its own without being judged as an attempt to build buzz around her series. So – Anonymous Author defends Series in Romance, take 1.

AnonyAuthor says:

Ignoring the whole OMG-bad-language-naughty! aspect of what Madeline Baker wrote, her comment that “Lately I’ve read several books that have ‘paranormal romance’ on the spine. In my opinion, a good number of them haven’t been romances at all…” got me thinking: are there still hard and fast romance rules? Or has there been a gradual change with the new guard of readers taking over the old when it comes to what a romance “should” have?

With the recent popularity of paranormal series novels, where happily-ever-afters aren’t automatic, does the Romance label on the spine still imply to people that there are certain formulas inside? Or has the romance genre changed to where formulas/guaranteed HEA’s/Heroes with Big Cocks are more, to quote Captain Barbosa from Pirates of the Caribbean, like ‘guidelines’ than actual rules?

I could be biased but I think there should be some leeway for series novels when it comes to a HEA. If a book is a true stand-alone with NO other novels being written containing the same characters and it’s labeled a romance, then I can see how people get their bacon burned when there isn’t a HEA. But if you have a series, be it paranormal or mystery or whatever, then you know there’s more to say and the HEA might be just delayed, not eliminated.

I guess what bothers me is how readers blame the authors. Unless you’re an established money-making author, you have NO say over how a publisher markets your novel. Especially if you’re a new author, you do a lot of smiling and nodding, not much else, because the publisher doesn’t give a shit that your newbie hasn’t-made-them-a-dollar-yet ass disagrees with their marketing scheme.

But when some people get upset about a book not having a HEA if it’s labeled a romance, they don’t email the editor or pub house – they bash the author. If a book has “romance” on the label, yet no HEA, or perhaps half the plot isn’t about the romance, remember that the author didn’t chose the marketing label. The publisher did. After all, it’s not like an author can pull a fast one and sneak in a non-HEA after a novel’s been edited – the publishing house would have known it wasn’t there when they bought it.

Several of my author friends are in the same boat, having a “romance” label when their books don’t follow old-school romance formula, but what’s a new author to do? Pull out of their contract in protest when they see how their book’s being labeled?

So to wrap up a loooong ramble, IMO, I’d say series books should have a somewhat different set of rules when it comes to romance. But if that still doesn’t appease, then readers who are unhappy about not having their expected formula/HEA should go to the person who did the labeling with their complaints, not the author (unless the author is self-pubbed, then yes, readers can bring on the bitching to us!) 

I personally am not fond of series, though I do see this author’s point. She’s right that the issue isn’t that the publisher said to the author, “Hey we really like this romance but it should be a series – think you can hack off the happy ending and make it so the book doesn’t really come to an end?” The series idea was there from the get-go, and the publisher knew it when the book was sold. There are also plenty of series books in romance now – from paranormal to contemporary to historical – and there are those readers that LOVE series books and write the date of the next issue down in their planners so they can buy the next one.

I, with my shoddy memory and inability to remember things and my terrible recall and…um… oh, my bad memory, am not one of these people. I like my happy ending in hand, thanks. Not only will I not remember to pick up the new book in the series, I’ll likely not remember what happened in the last book. And I’ve said a few times how irritated I get when I am 30 pages from the end and I realize there’s no way the romance and the plot can be sewn up satisfactorily in that time. But is the publisher subject to a smack on the wrist for putting the label “romance” on the spine? Does the designation “romance” demand a happy ending? Is there another subgenre descriptor we need to use to designate a series with a pair of primary protagonists and a plot that continues over multiple books? I think the term “series romance” is already taken.

But really, my biggest beef is one that I bring to the author AND the publisher: there are several series that start out fantastic and fizzle . I don’t even have to name them – I’m sure you can tick them off on your fingers for all they’ve been discussed here and elsewhere. And I blame both parties for that problem – neither the author or the publisher seems to have an end or at least a resolution in sight, and both keep churning out new issues of the story without the larger story arc in mind. It reminds me of everything that went wrong with television shows I loved – characters change into villains for no reason other than easy tension, the triangle of “who will s/he choose?” gets old and stale far too fast, and there’s no consideration for the larger story and the smaller story within each issue.

So if the publisher hangs a “romance” label on a series that doesn’t have an end point in sight, much less a HAPPY ending, I do get irate. It’s not a question of violating formula; it’s neglecting to mention that the book in my hand is not going to meet what I hold as the most important tenet of romance: everything will be ok in the end. With a lot of current series, there is no end and it’s definitely not ok!

 

Comments are Closed

  1. iffygenia says:

    raw numbers of actual books sold, not the percentage of all readers who read a particular genre

    The Census collects some of this; so does the Book Industry Study Group (their reports are expensive), and a couple other organizations.  I looked briefly at it, and decided it was a big big job to figure it out. More of the figures are in $ sales than # books, so it’s hard to sort out expensive hardcover vs cheap mass market, etc.  The number sold is really hard to figure out even with subscriptions to the various reporting services—each one reports a fraction of the market, and some of them report what shipped to stores while others report what actually sold.

    In terms of total books read (across genres), avid readers are generally maxed out—they can’t read any more books than they currently do.  But frequent or avid readers (at least 1 book/month) are only 16% of the population, so something like Harry Potter that gets the huge non-avid population to all buy one book per household creates more market growth than a few avid readers frantically reading a little faster.

    That’s for all genres—but it’s partly applicable to romance.  Given that many romance readers are in the maxed-out avid reader category, there’s obviously a new readership snapping up the cross-genre books.  I can’t imagine how else all the paranormals are hitting the bestseller lists. (Dear Author’s annotated USAToday list shows several books in this group.)

  2. Jane says:

    There was a report either in the spring or early summer that showed romance was decreasing and sff and mystery were increasing.  They were slight changes – single digit percentages – but I think that it heralded a future, and larger, shift.

    Impulse buys account for a huge portion of retail purchases and while books could be different, I don’t think that they are which is why placement of books (at the front ladders; on the tables; face out) and covers play such a big part in why books sell.

    As for hybridization, I don’t mean paranormals and romantic suspense, I mean increasingly non romance books being labeled as romances such as Cameron Dean’s series or the Clamp series (this isn’t the first place I’ve read those complaints about the Clamp series) or Colleen Gleason’s books.  They all happen to be paranormals and series at that, but it isn’t the sub genre of the books that makes it a hybridization in my mind, it’s the cross genre classification, the dilution of the purity of the romance novel in terms of not ending happily or not ending at all.

    I don’t put books like Suzanne Brockmann or even Karen Rose (a highly underrated romantic suspense author in my mind) in the same category because even if their books are series or connected, each one contains a wholly integrated romance that ends with a couple together. 

    As for the HEA being an “antiquated” notion, I just don’t buy that. I read alot of YA literature and many of those books have a romance in them that ends happily as well.  Meg Cabot who, behind JK Rowling, is probably one of the highest selling YA authors almost always ends her books with an HEA.  I say almost because her most recent entry into the “babble” series doesn’t end with the h and her love together at the end.  I have hopes for the future though. 😉

  3. iffygenia says:

    As for hybridization, I don’t mean paranormals and romantic suspense, I mean increasingly non romance books being labeled as romances such as Cameron Dean’s series or the Clamp series (this isn’t the first place I’ve read those complaints about the Clamp series) or Colleen Gleason’s books.  They all happen to be paranormals and series at that, but it isn’t the sub genre of the books that makes it a hybridization in my mind, it’s the cross genre classification, the dilution of the purity of the romance novel in terms of not ending happily or not ending at all.

    What I’m saying is that the “cross genre” hybridization and the “subgenre” developments are happening for the same reasons.  It’s no coincidence that paranormal romance and urban fantasy are both booming—and with a lot of overlapping readership.  There’s a market.  It’ll evolve—that’s what markets do.

    I’m baffled by the disconnect here—these arguments work against each other.  You can keep romance an exclusive club, or you can let the crazy people in.

    If you’re really concerned that romance is going under (which I don’t believe at all), then I’d think you’d want to see hybridization and new readership. Preserving high walls between genres isn’t the way to grow, and the idea of “the dilution of the purity of the romance novel”… again, that’s an idea that speaks primarily to existing romance devotees, not new readers.

  4. Kalen Hughes says:

    You can keep romance an exclusive club, or you can let the crazy people in . . . Preserving high walls between genres isn’t the way to grow, and the idea of “the dilution of the purity of the romance novel”… again, that’s an idea that speaks primarily to existing romance devotees, not new readers.

    What you appear to be arguing for is the dissolution of the concept of the “genre” novel, and I don’t think that would serve readers or writers. When I buy a romance, I want an HEA. When I buy a mystery I want a mystery-that-needs-solving to present itself, and by god I want that mystery to be solved. When I buy a sci-fi/fantasy novel I want to be swept away into another world and I want to go on a some kind of grand adventure (overcome the evil forces, win the war, whatever). When I want to read something a bit edgier (a tragic romance, or a murder mystery where the protagonist if the murder, or something that doesn’t wrap up neatly, something where I don’t have a stated “contract” with the author) I buy general or literary fiction.

    The walls can be lowered in genre fiction, but if you knock them down entirely you no longer have a genre.

    word verification: point65

  5. iffygenia says:

    What you appear to be arguing for is the dissolution of the concept of the “genre” novel, and I don’t think that would serve readers or writers.

    I’m not arguing for this at all.  I’m saying I think there’s room for a variety, and that some experimentation is healthful for the genre.  I don’t think hybridization is any threat to genre.  The genre novel isn’t going away, nor would I want it to.

  6. Kalen Hughes says:

    I would rather some of those badly written romances with awkward, forced happy endings be allowed to NOT have happy endings, or not as explicitly so—to make the overall book better.  I think sometimes an author produces a book that just doesn’t wrap up tidily, and that’s OK.  I’d rather my happy endings be really good and satisfying.  I feel more betrayed by uterus-less women having miracle babies and reconciliations with formerly-dead brothers on the final page than by a semisweet, 75% cacao, or even bittersweet ending.

    This is the statement that I was addressing most explicitly (combined with your other statements about “purity” and “walls” and “hybridization” etc.). It seems to me that you are clearly stating here that you think the HEA rule of genre romance is something that should be thrown out or reconsidered. But since that HEA (or happy right now) is the bedrock guarantee of the genre (that which makes genre romance genre) I don’t see how it can be thrown out without simply dissolving the very concept of genre.
    I’ll agree 100% that I find the endings of many books unsatisfying, schmaltzy, or just plain old wall-bangingly-bad. I don’t think this is the fault of the genre requirement for an HEA. I think this is the fault of bad writing, lazy editing, and a publishing machine that serves up a vast quantity of mediocre books (in all genres and categories). Removing the HEA from romance won’t fix this problem, but it will guarantee that legions of readers (myself included) will be forced to read the end before plunking down our $$$, and I don’t want to have to do that! When I want angst and bittersweet there are other sections of the bookstore that serve that up by the bowlful.
    I don’t think anyone here was arguing against the idea of crossover appeal (whether it be paranormal or thriller or evangelical), but we were standing firm against the idea that hybridization and crossover appeal means that books which lack an HEA should be labeled and sold as genre romances.

  7. iffygenia says:

    It seems to me that you are clearly stating here that you think the HEA rule of genre romance is something that should be thrown out or reconsidered. But since that HEA (or happy right now) is the bedrock guarantee of the genre (that which makes genre romance genre) I don’t see how it can be thrown out without simply dissolving the very concept of genre.

    That’s not my intent.  I’m not motivated by trying to attack the genre, I’m expressing bafflement over the “yikes, barricade the door” I’m hearing. Basically, I read capital-R “Romance” with a HEA, and I truly can’t believe that it’s in any danger of dilution.

    I think the hybridization provides a deep fringe around the core of “Romance”, and that provides space to experiment with new styles and expectations in a number of ways.  E.g. I’d love to see romance become stronger in making physical setting really matter to the story.  Physical description is a major strength of some of Juno’s Paranormal Romance anthology.  (I know that book is a family-size can of worms, and I agree it’s badly named; the new one’s called Romantic Fantasy.)  Regardless, my point is—The romantic aspects aren’t always strong, but the descriptions really leap out at me.  Cross-genre learning opportunity, both directions.

    I feel like I’ve lost the plot here.  I need a nap.

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