Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

It’s not new.

Star Trek The Next Generation #24: Nightshade was written by Laurell K. Hamilton

In fact the series has been written by numerous authors.  It’s FanFic before FanFic was all cool and stuff.

My mother used to bribe me with SVH books when I was young.  I think I still have 70 or so of them sitting in the closet at home lol.

I always enjoyed James Blish’s adaptations of the original Star Trek episodes.  This is going back 35+ years, but Blish was an already an outstanding sf writer and putting him at the helm of the adaptations brought them to life in a new and wondrous way.

SVH is after my time, but I’m concerned that YA girl readers are overlooking some of the outstanding novels a previous generation read—MARA, DAUGHTER OF THE NILE (Eloise Jarvis McGraw); THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND; The Anne of Green Gables series; Sally Watson’s historicals with a touch of romance, and too many others for my aged brain to bring forward right now.

I never read SVH [why do I read that as ‘Sweet Valley Ho’?], but I was a devoted fan of Silhouette YA romances [Sweet Dreams?] and that Bantam YA romance line.

All I could remember about these books are proms, proms, proms, love, proms, proms, divorce, proms, proms, popularity contests, proms, proms, and more proms.

Having said that, I never read other series that were popular: Seniors, Cheerleaders, and that mercifully short-lived series with godawful covers that have those teen models in neon-coloured clothes, shoes, and *scarves*.

I do remember how much I loathed Caitlin, the heroine of Francine Pascal’s one-off YA trilogy. This was long before I discovered the term ‘Mary Sue’. Believe me, I had absolutely no desire to become a Caitlin clone. I’d rather stab a rusty fork in my eyes.

Oooh! Serial Quillers

*sheepish grin*

One more, but honestly, it’s a gem.

Sweet Valley High

Writing by committee? Sounds like my day job.

Sorry. My comment above sounds a little bitter. It’s not quite that bad; I just don’t want to go back to work tomorrow.

This is a remarkable phenomenon, though, isn’t it? Gotta say, it sounds like it would strangle creativity.

I might have a copy of that Star Trek: Next Gen book. I’ll have to check. Might be interesting to read a chapter or two.

It sounds like Alloy is a book packager.  I worked for one for a couple of years on the East Coast.  They gave me a basic idea of what they wanted, then I’d prepare the book proposal.  If the proposal sold, then I’d write the book.  This was cookbooks, btw.  But I’ve also ghost written the novelization of a screenplay.

Neither is going to make a creative person very happy, but you can actually makea fairly decent and regular living doing that.  I wasn’t happy working that way, so it didn’t last for me.

I don’t know what’s more depressing - the possible rise of writing by committee, or the fact that if a pub said, “We need a writer to bang out a few books in a series about a shopaholic vampire…” there would be hundreds of writers crawling over each other to apply.

First, I was a SVH brat but I think I only read up to 18?  Maili, that cover from the SVH link brought it all back.  I used to stare at the cover and wish I could look like them.  Also, I wanted a sister to go through high school with so it wouldn’t be so horrible.

I had no idea that the YA books were being written this way.  Also, no clue about Francine Pascal - man, I’m such a dupe!

I will buy name brand toilet paper, feminine products and laundry detergent.  After that, it’s all good.

When I started watching Sex in the City I would hear all this banter about Prada etc. and the characters all acted like they knew what each other were talking about.  It took me a while to catch on but now I know what people are talking about.  Now, would I ever pay 400 bucks (US!) for a pair of shoes - HELL NO! and I’m sorry but I saw that Louis whatever bag that Jessica Simpson was lugging around and it was ugly!

It’s bad enough being 34 and seeing 18 years old with more money than brains.  How does it feel to be a teen nowadays and think that if you haven’t made it by then, you are never going to make it.  Depressing as hell. 

Hmm, I’m off topic.  Anyways, I have stopped watching any shows about rich people because it’s not worth that pang of envy.  (Although I watched the Osbournes because it was nice to see that their animals crapped on their rugs too)  I hate admitting that there is a pang of envy but, there most definitely is.  So, I realized that about myself and decided to stop the action.  Much better.  No, really.

CindyS

As if I’m not in enough trouble!
You think that’s unusual? It permeates the publishing world. Image is all, and books are being marketed as light entertainment. When “The Da Vinci” code is seen as deep and profound, is it worth carrying on? When Kinsale’s “Shadowheart” is judged against the latest pseudo-Regency chick lit and found wanting, what hope is there?
Gone are the days when the publishing house takes a flyer on a new and very strange author, when the editor’s judgement is considered reliable.
Purchases are made for the bigger houses by committee, the marketing department having the biggest say. If it doesn’t fit, if they can’t sell it, it doesn’t get bought.
So why do you think many new books are bland and formulaic? Because the marketing department knows what is good for us. And why are sales going down? Because the reader is more perceptive that they’re given credit for.

Francine Pascal didn’t write the SVH books?

I feel violated.

Maili, I read Seniors. I still remember getting excited when Kit(?) had sex for the first time, although If I recall correctly, it didn’t last very long…

In my opinion, romance has a much bigger problem with lack of creativity than YA lit.  Of course, part of it is that YA is a market, not a genre and so not limited by things like a HEA.  But I also see a wider range of settings and characters in YA fiction, and so much more experimentation as well (when was the last time you read an adult novel in verse?).  Teens have such different interests and tastes, not to mention reading and maturity levels, that as popular as the Alloy books are, there are a lot of teens who read, say, Meg Cabot (ah, Mia Thermopolis, the anti-Serena and Blair), Sarah Dessen, Carolyn Mackler, Holly Black, or Tamora Pierce (and the list could go on to include male authors) in addition to or instead of the Gossip Girls of the world.

At this point, I don’t really have a problem with book packagers because I see a lot of creativity on the YA side and there seems to be enough room for both.  If it takes a Gossip Girl or Traveling Pants book to get a kid interested in reading, I’m not complaining.  And with the Traveling Pants books, you have quality in a packaged product, proving that the two are not mutually exclusive.  However, if it gets to the point where we’re overrun by packagers like Alloy and inferior products, then, yes, I will have a problem.  But frankly, I don’t see that happening.  *keeping my fingers crossed* The library market is much more important to YA publishing than it is for romance, buying Gossip Girl due to patron demand, but also books like how i live now and Looking for Alaska and Bloody Jack because of their quality.  Yes, having the popular stuff is important, but YA publishers know that YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association) has more lists and awards for quality than popularity, and that YA librarians (full disclosure: I’m a YA librarian) are an important part of their market.  With romances, publishers are just trying to get individual romance readers to buy books.  With YA, publishers are looking at teens who buy books for themselves, parents who buy for their kids, and librarians buying for their collections.

Now, regarding romance, I sincerely hope that publishers pay attention to all the romance lovers who complain about the homogeneity of books being published these days.  The mass market audience is shrinking enough as it is that I would hope they have the sense to make sure the folks who are actually buying the books keep buying them.  And no, prepackaged is not the way to go here.

End of my rambling and back to lurking.

IIRC, the original Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books - and maybe Tom Swift? - were all written by stable writers (in a stable that is, not a comment on their mental condition) rather than the named “author” who may or may not have existed.

I never read SVH; it was way after my time. My 13yo dau won’t touch them. OTOH, she’s currently reading Fight Club, which says a lot about her that she’d want to and us that we’d let her.

“So why do you think many new books are bland and formulaic? Because the marketing department knows what is good for us. And why are sales going down? Because the reader is more perceptive that they’re given credit for.”

So what’s the solution?  I’m tired of hearing elsewhere that those of us who want better and more diverse historical Romances (the sub that seems to be suffering the most at the moment) are “extreme” or at the least over-reacting to a problem that isn’t there?  I’ve been toying with an e-petition for publishers, but feel discouraged, despite my absolute disgust with much of what’s being published.  Personally, I think that in the past 5 or 10 years the Romance reading audience has diversified far beyond what the industry is producing, but since many of these readers are still closeted, it’s difficult to convey the increased diversity.

Wow. Just… wow.

I must say I haven’t noticed this trend in the publishers and agents I deal with, but it fills me with deep dismay. The good news is, these books written by committee and slickly packaged, will never be able to have the kind of lasting effect Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or any other truly creative and unique voice will have. The bad news is, we might be in for a long haul while this trend swells like a goiter and finally bursts like the dot-com bubble…

IIRC, the original Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books - and maybe Tom Swift? - were all written by stable writers (in a stable that is, not a comment on their mental condition) rather than the named “author” who may or may not have existed.

Yes, that’s true. Carolyn Keene was the shared pseudonym for a buncha different authors hired by the publisher. Other YA/children’s series that used various authors are The Three Investigators (my favorite authors for that series were Robert Arthur and M.V. Carey) and Trixie Belden.

But here’s the thing: are these franchises in any way similar to what Alloy is doing? I always assumed that the authors had some creative freedom in terms of plot, etc. I mean, they’d be given the framework, the world, if you will, and they built their stories in that world. Same with the Star Trek/Star Wars/other SF franchises. But it sounds like what Alloy is doing is a lot more detailed than that.

As for YA Romances: the best one EVER was Wrong-Way Romance by Sheri Cobb South. Sigh. It was part of the Sweet Dreams line, which was the Bantam YA romance imprint. I read a bunch of others, but none of them came close to being as sweet and funny and true as that book.

And about formula in romance: I think the on-line community is not necessarily representative of the romance reading community at large. And then there’s also the fact that when people bitch and moan about wanting something different, and then somebody DOES provide something different (e.g. Laura Kinsale with Shadowheart, Laura Lee Guhrke with The Marriage Bed) and these same people start bitching and moaning about how this, that or the other squicked them the hell out. So it seems like we romance readers are a pretty hard lot to please. We want edgy and different, but not TOO edgy and different, please.

“So what’s the solution? I’m tired of hearing elsewhere that those of us who want better and more diverse historical Romances (the sub that seems to be suffering the most at the moment) are “extreme” or at the least over-reacting to a problem that isn’t there?”

Try e-books. They’re not all brilliant, but a lot of them are. They are different. The e-publishers specialise in cross genre, and they can take chances the big print publishers can’t.

Because I learned about the fact that there was no Carolyn Keene when I was young, I’ve had several years to get over the shock at the idea.

My dismay is now reserved for what I think is a disturbing trend in adult fiction: where authors sub-contract the writing of books out to other writers, but it’s the “name” author who gets credited with the book a la Tom Clancy, James Patterson, and Janet Evanovich, etc.  It’s franchising for books, essentially.  [Can I have a side of McPlot with my McCharacter, please?] 

True, these are NYT best-seller list authors, the type I generally ignore, but frustrating because it seems to push aside other authors that are doing unique, non-formulaic stories.  Not to mention a shade dishonest, in my opinion, if the public thinks the writer was person a and that’s why they bought the book, but in fact it was person b who got little-to-no acknowledgment (if not compensation).

Why is it, I wonder, that there’s a big debate on quality writing for the YA crowd (i.e. the Harry Potter thing that comes up each time a book is released), but this doesn’t extend with as much vigor for the adult fiction crowd?

My dismay is now reserved for what I think is a disturbing trend in adult fiction: where authors sub-contract the writing of books out to other writers, but it’s the “name” author who gets credited with the book a la Tom Clancy, James Patterson, and Janet Evanovich, etc.

Holy crap! I had no idea these authors were doing something like that. Dayum. Good thing I’m not a fan of any of these authors, or I’d be really, really pissed instead of just highly indignant.

Personally, I think my innocence was well and truly shattered when I found out that Jim Davis wasn’t really doing the work for Garfield any more.

Why is it, I wonder, that there’s a big debate on quality writing for the YA crowd (i.e. the Harry Potter thing that comes up each time a book is released), but this doesn’t extend with as much vigor for the adult fiction crowd?

Awwww, c’mon! You think we don’t bitch enough about romance fiction here??

Hee hee.

I can start bitching about how awful John Grisham is. OK, his books aren’t awful, but they’re so goddamn mediocre and repetitive that I find them offensive….

Lynne’s comment is on target.  My books from LTDBooks are in ebook format as their primary format—print came second, and one reason they came out that way is because the big print publishers were very upfront about saying things like “If it were set in Scotland, we’d buy it, but an American historical set in pre-Civil War Florida isn’t in our marketing set up.” 

Ebook publishers are more willing to take a chance on something different.  Rather than compete with the big houses, they’re doing an end run by marketing what the big houses won’t.

how awful John Grisham is

This is more the kind of thing I had in mind when I was speaking of the problem of quality writing for adults.  I agree, it’s not that his writing is bad per se, it’s that it’s so damned average.  To me it means there’s what’s popular, and that doesn’t necessarily include what’s good.  (Romance is a separate category in my mind, for good or ill.  I guess that’s a whole other topic of discussion, though, and potentially an admission that means shunning by my fellow Smart Bitches.  *Ducks and runs for cover*.)  The little bit of discussion I’ve seen about The DaVinci Code kind of qualifies, as does the flap over Stephen King winning an award for his writing, but there doesn’t seem to be much by way of the heated emotion, if not vitriolic ranting, that you get when you tune in to the Potter debates that pop up with regularity.

As for Evanovich, I suppose I was a little unfair to include her on the list with Patterson and Clancy because so far as I know she has thus far limited this practice to the Full ___ series where Charlotte Hughes is clearly credited on the covers.  The thing is, I imagine that people assume that Evanovich has a lot more input in those books than she really does - from a couple of articles I’ve read (which of course I can’t find now to link back to), Charlotte does about 95% of the work, yet is credited on the books as though it was more of a 50/50 effort (like how I hear Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett worked on Good Omens).  That’s the part that seems to me that is both misleading to the public, not to mention unfair to Charlotte Hughes.

How does it feel to be a teen nowadays and think that if you haven’t made it by then, you are never going to make it.

I know this is referring to consumer goods, not romance, but this is precisely why I hated YA romances when I was a teenager—it was bad enough knowing my (as of yet still happily married) parents met at age 14; all this true-love-in-high-school stuff made me feel like if I hadn’t found the love of my life by the time I graduated, I was gonna die a never-been-kissed virgin spinster.  My favorite romances, as a teenager, were ones featuring thirty- and forty-something couples.  Messed-up, eh?

The Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys (and other of those ilk) did not have any freedom. Plot, character, and everything else were dictated to them. The thing that most bothers me about what’s going on today is that “she was working for MTV when the publisher approached her” part.

It used to be possible for ordinary people to build careers as writers. There were tons of magazines that printed fiction, and lots more pulp novelists published than there are today. You could start writing genre stuff and build a career. Today you’ve got to be working for MTV to even get hired to write one of these committee-dictated books.

And we all know about midlist fiction and so forth. I really think popular fiction is dying and all we’ll have left is committee produced rubbish. That or literary fiction, much of it written to please college professors and read by virtually no one. And nothing inbetween. It’s sad.

Sorry, I meant to say the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys writers - I left the “writers” out. But why not, since the publishers are doing it too.

“And about formula in romance: I think the on-line community is not necessarily representative of the romance reading community at large.”

I’m not disputing this, but I always wonder about the research that determines this is so.  The only “research” I’ve seen is that produced by RWA, which not only pegs “muscles” as one of the top Romance hero characteristics, but, having looked at how they put it together, looks suspiciously like a promotional publication for the industry mainstream. 

“And then there’s also the fact that when people bitch and moan about wanting something different, and then somebody DOES provide something different (e.g. Laura Kinsale with Shadowheart, Laura Lee Guhrke with The Marriage Bed) and these same people start bitching and moaning about how this, that or the other squicked them the hell out. So it seems like we romance readers are a pretty hard lot to please. We want edgy and different, but not TOO edgy and different, please.”

Okay, but are these really the same people?  And even if they are, one or two so-called different books isn’t gonna do it.  But those one of two “floater” books can, very easily obviously, be used to make the very argument you do about the impossibility of pleasing readers with something new and different.

“Try e-books. They’re not all brilliant, but a lot of them are. They are different. The e-publishers specialise in cross genre, and they can take chances the big print publishers can’t.”

I haven’t gotten much into the e-books yet, but this is clearly the direction I’m going to have to go.  I also signed up for a “test drive” of a Medallion Press book, since they are supposed to be pushing the envelope with time periods and subjects. 

What frustrates me more than the thought of trying to drink dirt through a straw is the dual message we keep getting that historical Romance is fading and that it’s still enjoying robust sales.  So which is it, and is anyone really looking at what is and isn’t selling and why (i.e. where books are placed in stores, marketing, target audiences/lines, etc.).  Or is it just that as long as publishers are meeting overall sales targets (with, for example, paranormals taking up some of the slack created by the lull in historical sales) they don’t feel the need to do anything beyond continuing to produce what they know sells with very little effort?

I’m not disputing this, but I always wonder about the research that determines this is so.

I’m not sure there’s any hard-and-fast research that does say this is so. My statement is based on nothing more scientific than gut feeling and the following deductions about the on-line romance reading community:

1. Must have access to a computer that has an on-line connection. Now, admittedly this is a lot more common than it used to be, but a decent chunk of people still aren’t connected to the Internet.

2. Must be interested enough in romance novels that they took the time and trouble to dig up links to on-line communities and/or join mailing lists.

3. Must be interested enough in the discussions that they actually contribute instead of lurking.

This is a fairly self-selecting population, I think, which is why I’m not sure it’s representative or a useful sample for prevailing popular opinions.

Okay, but are these really the same people?

Ooooh, you have a very, very good point, there.