Candy’s Note: Edited a couple of things for clarity. Bad blogger! No cookie!
Robin mentioned that one of my favorite authors, Barbara Samuel, posted an entry on Romancing the Blog about why readers should care about the RITAs. One of the reasons given is that “the RITA is the Oscar or Pulitzer Prize of romances novels.”
My immediate reaction was “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA,” closely followed by “What. The. Fuck.”
I don’t take the RITAs seriously. In fact, I don’t take ANY of the romance awards seriously. While the RWA has awarded the RITA to some books that were actually good, those works are few and far between. Of the books I’ve read from the complete list of RITA winners, I can count maaaaaybe ten books that actually deserved to win in their categories, most of them going to Barbara Samuel/Ruth Wind, Laura Kinsale and Jennifer Crusie.
And before y’all get all het up about how I’m being unfair, because “good” is entirely subjective, I’d like to point out there are plenty of objective standards to writing, which Beth pointed out with great verve and eloquence a little while back, and which I then expanded on in a much more silly manner. But if you don’t want to wade through those two long-ish pieces, here it is in short: I separate craft from personal preference. There’s what I think is genuinely good, and there’s what I enjoy reading, and sometimes the two don’t intersect, and that’s OK—not loving something that was technically perfect doesn’t make me a cretin, and neither does enjoying something that was sloppily made.
The RITAs? Like I said to Robin, the motto for the vast majority of the winners seems to be “Hi, we’re mostly competent. Mostly.†Even authors who have written genuinely good books, like Lisa Kleypas and Connie Brockway, end up winning for books that were sub-par.
I don’t treat the other awards in such a dismissive fashion. The winners of the the Pulitzer, Booker, Guardian, Whitbread, Hugo and Nebula awards have quite reliably provided me with excellent, entertaining reads. But most of these awards tend to skew towards the more literary end of the spectrum, which might make these rather unfair comparisons for the RITAs. That leaves the Hugos and Nebulas, which are genre fiction awards. So why do I perk up and take notice when I hear a book has been awarded the Hugo or the Nebula?
The only reason I can think of is the Geek Factor. My tastes are a lot more in sync with the average geek than they are the average romance reader, and geeks are more plentifully found in SF than romance, and geeks are the ones to vote on the Nebulas and Hugos. To be honest, the average SF/F novel isn’t written that much more skillfully than the average romance novel; however, I tend to find the ideas and plots in SF/F a lot more interesting, and I will forgive a lot of clunkiness if the story grabs me. Neal Stephenson is an example who immediately comes to mind; he does some absolutely maddening things with his prose and characters, but his stories are so compelling that they drag me along. I even find his massive infodumps fascinating, God help me.
So until mainstream romance tastes begin to align themselves more closely to mine (unlikely), or until romance novels start playing with prose, structure and medium in the same interesting ways that literary fiction does (even more unlikely, and frankly, not necessarily desirable), or until the RITAs stop awarding most of their prizes to the literary equivalent of Thomas Kinkade paintings (unlikely, but very highly desirable), I’m going to keep on blithely ignoring the RITAs as a source of good reads while keeping an eye out for recommendations by people whose tastes I tend to trust a bit more, like Beth, or Robin, or Evil Auntie Peril.
Yeah, Penelope Williamson. Patricia Gaffney. And “Janny” Cruisie. ::sigh:: I should just stop now while I’m two behind.
And what’s RFG? Obviously I should know, but my brain’s not working so good.
There are obviously some unspoken rules here about expectations for Romance books on the part of authors who feel that books need to be separated by subgenre, and I’m not saying they’re wrong, but they are limited. They suggest that excellence in Romance is a somewhat narrow and conditional designation, and that craft as an overall consideration takes a backseat to generic expectations and guidelines.
…Which is precisely the problem I have with the RITAs and why I can’t use the lists of nominees/winners as guidelines for what books are considered the best of the genre. As a newcomer to Romance, some of these categories seem hopelessly narrow and arcane to me. Why have the Novella *and* Short Contemporary and Short Historical categories—how is a Novella different from a Short Contemporary? If a novel has “Strong Romantic Elements,” why isn’t it considered an actual, y’know, *Romance*?
Contrast these categories with those for The Edgar Awards, given in the mystery genre. They have more categories (16 to the RITAs’ 13), but they seem to be based on format, not generic conventions: Best Novel, Best First Novel (by an American writer), Short Story, Young Adult, etc. As a reader, the Edgars seem more straightforward to me, and less arcane, which is why I trust them more.
Also, I second (or third, or whatever) the idea that there need to be categories for both Gay/Lesbian and Erotic Romance, to reflect the expanding interests of Romance readers. It seems especially, what’s the phrase? Oh yeah: assy and judgmental to have an Inspirational category while excluding those two. I would also add a category for books published only in electronic format, and allow them to be judged in that format, because it seems unfair to make the epublishers provide hard copies of books solely for RITA judging.
I’ve personally been comparing the Ritas to both the Oscars and the Grammys, but it’s much more like a music award in this way: People listen to certain types of music. Hey, it’s all music, right? But the country fans aren’t looking for the big BIG winner of the night. They’re looking for the top country artists. They want to hear those songs and root them on and try those artists out if they win. THAT’S WHY THEY GIVE OUT AWARDS IN EACH CATEGORY!!!
Okay, just to play Devil’s Advocate here, the categories at the music awards may be more comparable to all the areas of *fiction* writing (or writing that includes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, etc.). Which is perhaps why the RITA, again, speaks its own language within the industry and not beyond. A non-Romance reader has no use for the categorical distinctions in the RITA, and readers and authors *in* the genre seem to struggle with them, too.
Given the size of the genre, I find it difficult to imagine not having *some* kind of categorization, if for no other reason than to give the broadest possible representation of authors the chance to compete. Since it’s clear to me that the RITAs are most comfortably an author’s prize, this is essentially an issue over which authors should have dominion.
As a reader, though, I pay like MINIMAL attention to sub-generic categorizations beyond noting them when I purchase or receive a book. And I love love love the hybridization that’s happening in the genre, as well. But then I’ve always preferred interdisciplinary approaches for the most part. I don’t see why Pam Rosenthal’s Slightest Provocation couldn’t be read against Shana Abe’s Smoke Thief or even, say, Sharon Shinn’s Archangel (except for the fact that they were written in different years, LOL!). OTOH, if authors aren’t comfortable doing this, then it wouldn’t be a great way to hand out an achievement award. But every decision ultimately helps to define the limits and character of the genre, which, IMO, is where it gets interesting—at least to me. Some folks are totally happy with the distinct sub-genres and some aren’t. I don’t think it’s a value judgment, just a different orientation to the genre.
“They suggest that excellence in Romance is a somewhat narrow and conditional designation, and that craft as an overall consideration takes a backseat to generic expectations and guidelines.
…Which is precisely the problem I have with the RITAs and why I can’t use the lists of nominees/winners as guidelines for what books are considered the best of the genre.”
Craft does not take a backseat. (Who establishes those standards, by the way? The male literary establishment who’ve decided that the (originally female) form of the novel should be less about emotions and more about ideas? Of course not all RITA winners and finalists are going to meet exactly the same standard of excellence or voice or whatever the mood of the moment is. But they are going to meet the mood of many readers who give them a shot.
“how is a Novella different from a Short Contemporary? If a novel has “Strong Romantic Elements,†why isn’t it considered an actual, y’know, *Romance*?”
A novella is a very specific kind of writing, as different from a novel as a short story. It takes a different skill set to do it well (and no one can beat Anne Stuart, IMO—she’s just really good at it). Specifially, short contemporary novels are about 55,000 words or so. A novella is around 20-25,000.
Strong romantic elements was added to meet the growing pool of novels written about protaganists who might not follow a traditional romance journey (which tends to be a novel about a young woman meeting her mate). SRE allows more flexibility in judging mainly women’s fiction; i.e. books that are not necessarily traditional romances, but have a strong appeal to romance readers. Chick lit works there, as well as older women exploring a second chapter in their lives, and action adventure novels, and relationship novels that examine a broader canvas of relationships.
I’d enthusiastically support the gay and erotic categories. But then everyone would complain about yet more categories, wouldn’t they?
Can’t have it both ways.
I still get the feeling that a lot of readers responding here are suspicious of RWA standards and the RITAs in particular, and maybe not particularly familiar with genre standards. Is that my imagination?
If not, we’re getting a lot of outsider views of the genre, which will tend toward derision rather than a genuine embrace. I’m all for criticism and discussion as long as the participants genuinely love the genre under discussion.
Otherwise, why bother?
I still get the feeling that a lot of readers responding here are suspicious of RWA standards and the RITAs in particular, and maybe not particularly familiar with genre standards. Is that my imagination?
Nope. I don’t get the genre standards and I am suspicious of RWA and RITA standards if the effort is to get me to blindly adopt RWA/RITA’s version of what is good and wonderful in romance. I’m not a person that adopts anything blindly. I am a person who questions things. All things.
If not, we’re getting a lot of outsider views of the genre, which will tend toward derision rather than a genuine embrace.
Am I an outsider? I am not a writer. I am a reader. Sometimes when I read posts by writers, I definitely feel like I am an outsider.
I’m all for criticism and discussion as long as the participants genuinely love the genre under discussion.
What kind of credentials do I need to show that I love the genre. We readers need to pony up some type of credentialing in order to take part in this discussion? I recognize almost everyone on this blog who has commented and they all are romance readers to varying degrees, even the authors as Ms. Roberts tries to point out now and again.
But your plea was for readers to take the RITAs more seriously. And we have readers responding. Simply because we don’t embrace the RITAs or we question the validity of it, we are somehow not true believers? I’ve drunk the kool-aid. I admit to being on book crack. What more is required?
Confirmation: voice79. I am a reader voice.
Craft does not take a backseat. (Who establishes those standards, by the way? The male literary establishment who’ve decided that the (originally female) form of the novel should be less about emotions and more about ideas?
You know, the saddest, saddest thing about this comment is that if I hadn’t read a couple of your books, I would think, “wow, this is someone who really thinks very little of Romance.” Did I misinterpret your comment on RtB about how craft ideally delivers the emotional punch of the novel? Because I made the same point in that thread, as well (here, too, BTW).
Anyway, I read the comments—all of them—on your RtB post, and more than one poster indicated that craft is either “plus points” in her judging or defined in a very narrow way (i.e. POV, grammar, etc.). Shana Abe’s IMO MOST excellent novel, The Smoke Thief, got a D-—A D-!!!!!!!!—on AAR because even though the reviewer recognized that the book was well-written, it wasn’t “romantic” for her. Let me say that again: A D- (see, even after months I can’t get over it). By contrast a Romance published by a VERY BIG house by an established author received an A-, when the book was so RIDDLED with copyediting errors, grammatical missteps and word choice errors (yes, errors, not unconventional choices) that I could hardly focus on the story, such as it was. Not that long ago, an unpubbed author was IMO cruelly outed on the Internet because she dared criticize another author’s book on Amazon. The editor of said book allegedly claimed she would never work with authors who did anything like that—even though IMO the “outers” were waaaaayyyyyy more dangerous to the welfare of the genre. I guess it’s okay to represent authors who out and ridicule unpubbed authors, but it’s not okay to critique pubbed authors. Man, that whole thing was ugly, and not one little bit informed by male anything, as those in question were all female.
IMO it’s a dark, dark day in the Romance community when you suggest that readers who think that the craft of writing is undervalued in Romance are “outsiders” to the genre and further construct it as some kind of patriarchal acquiescence. Really, I can’t even be outraged because I’m just so . . . sad.
Can’t have it both ways.
Which is why I prefer the Edgar Awards categories, which are based on format (“Novel”) instead of generic convention (“Inspirational”). The Mystery Writers of America doesn’t differentiate between cozy mysteries and edgy mysteries when nominating books for Best Novel; why does RWA parse the Romance genre to such a high degree? It seems more like they’re coddling their membership (writers) than honoring the very best of the genre.
So if RWA is going to insist on a bazillion categories based on generic convention, then by all means keep adding categories like Gay/Lesbian and Erotic Romance, and I dunno, Best Book of 26,000-51,000 Words Featuring a Comical Dog, but then don’t be surprised when readers issue a collective shrug upon the release of the nominees and winners, because you’re not honoring the best of the Romance genre, you’re handing out awards to make people feel special, and that’s not a good criterion for my TBR pile.
If not, we’re getting a lot of outsider views of the genre, which will tend toward derision rather than a genuine embrace. I’m all for criticism and discussion as long as the participants genuinely love the genre under discussion.
If I didn’t love Romance, I wouldn’t read it. The thing is, I read several subgenres within Romance, and I read extensively outside the genre (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, Literary Fiction, Non-Fiction, etc.). I get the impression that RWA wants me to limit myself to just one genre (Romance) and ideally, just one subgenre so I’ll stay in my little corner and close my mind to other possibilities for the genre. Well, I refuse to become the literary equivalent of a hermit. If my open-mindedness is a problem for RWA, rest assured, I can get along without the organization—since I’m just a reader, I doubt they care about my RITA-related opinions, anyway.
Ah the RITAs, I have to bitch about that. One year I bought books based on the RITAs and they were all stinkers, Now there is a comment from one of the judges that she decides based on her heart and her head. Making that statement makes me doubt the RITAs even more. The judges will then definitely skew it in favor of “friends” or “favs”. I work in Quality and if you are really evaluating a product whatever it is, the heart is never used to make judgements. That brings subjectiveness into the judgement so it is not impartial. The product shold be judged on strict guidelines which is why the Nobel Prize has merit. So until there are better guidelines as to how the RITAs are judged, I still won’t give it much merit.
My word is mean13, yeah that is sufficiently BITCHY that I love it.
The product shold be judged on strict guidelines which is why the Nobel Prize has merit.
and
the heart is never used to make judgements.
Wow. Really? The Grammys too? Yikes. I wonder what the strict guidelines would look like. I’m almost speechless here. Okay, not quite. . .
If I’m reading a thriller should I set my heart rate aside and judge it based on the strictest literary guidelines? Should I not evaluate a romance based on how it makes me feel as WELL as craft? Is there something inherently wrong with books that make you feel yummy? I daresay that’s the purpose of a good romance, to make you feel yummy on one or many levels. That’s why I read ‘em anyway. Dreadfully hard to quantify.
Another insanely long comment that attempts to address all the points made while I wasn’t looking. Woo! It’s hella late, and I need to get up in only a few short hours, so I’m posting this without proofreading for grammar, spelling or coherency. Caveat emptor.
Reply Part the Third:
Nora Roberts: Judging in the category in which you’ve entered is asking for trouble. Seriously, while it’s nice to think people wouldn’t give their own book an edge, many others would be SURE they had.
But couldn’t the committee just make sure the author didn’t get a copy of her own work to judge? This should be easy enough to do with a simple database. And honestly, if there are enough judges for the category, the effect of a few judges being bastards wouldn’t skew the results too badly, and if EVERYONE acted like a bastard (i.e. judged their own books favorably, or marked down other books deliberately), they’d essentially cancel each other out.
As I said before, craft is an essential part of my judging process. I think it should be in every judge’s. But who’s going to control that one?
That’s the thing: nobody can control it. Craft has to matter to enough of the community that a goodly chunk of the judges will care about it, too.
And frankly? I don’t really see that in the romance community. Which is a large part of the reason why I’m so dismissive of the RITAs. I don’t trust the judges as a body (note: am not picking on individual judges) to award prizes to well-written books, whether or not those books end up being to my taste.
Laura V.: But sometimes there’s also an element of the Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome. How many people are going to declare that something is badly written if they think that everyone else is sure it’s a Classic?
I can, and have, declared my opinion of how Wuthering Heights is an interesting exercise in storytelling and important in its own way, but drastically over-rated in the canon.
But I can see why it made it into the canon.
And that’s the thing with the canon: despite my personal preferences and prejudices, I can understand why the books made it. (The ones I’ve read, at any rate.) I don’t have to like ‘em, and i’m certainly of the opinion that some of these books are over-rated, but they’re generally good.
I can’t think of very many classics I think are badly written, but I’m not at all convinced by Catcher in the Rye.
Ah, but Catcher in the Rye is such an interesting study, no? I’m pretty sure it’s not the first book ever to affect a young person’s voice, nor one to have a narrator so unstable and angry and unhappy with so little reason, but it was the first to become so famous, and it obviously struck a chord with a lot of people—maybe because it was one of the first expressions of suburban youth rage? Catcher in the Rye is complicated to assess in terms of craft, I think. It’s written in slang from a very specific era and a very specific part of the world. I can see how it’d grate on somebody, even seem fake, but I remember reading it and being startled and touched by its anger and humor and vibrancy, even as it seemed weirdly dated.
There are probably lots of women writers whose work should form part of the canon but who’ve been excluded and forgotten for the very non-objective reason that they were women and were writing about subjects that the literary elite didn’t think were Important:‘The systematic exclusion of authors who belong to identified minorities (racial, gendered, economic) seems to be one of the hallmarks of canon formation’ (Hentschell).
Oh, I agree on this point. The creation of the canon is the privilege of the empowered. But the importance of the subjects covered by romance isn’t at issue here; the rather dismal state of the writing, what we mean by standards of good writing, etc., are. I understand that subject matter is often tied to the quality of writing, but I’m doing my damndest to separate them, because though inter-related, I think they’re separate aspects of the issue.
Dalia: Re readers placing more emphasis on the emotional aspects of the book and not as much on the craft, could it not be that, in general, we’re not giving the author enough credit for *causing* that glow (through their craft)?
Lots of people buy books by authors like Cassie Edwards and Connie Mason, whose books are riddled with errors—factual, grammatical, logical, continuity: you name it, and odds are high you’ll find all these atrocities perpetrated between the pages of a single book of theirs. But they are generating enough of a glow that thousands upon thousands of readers love ‘em.
So no, I don’t think it’s always the craft that does it, though craft can certainly play a part. A lot of the time, though, it’s like saying that people like Twinkies because they’re well-crafted. Some people like Twinkies because they grew up eating them and have fond childhood associations with them, or because they’ve never tried anything else, or because they really, really like sweet things, or because they just plain like the taste of Twinkies and are convinced they’re the best damn things ever.
The reasons why we enjoy art (and food, and just about any other thing) are complicated, and the creator certainly has a role to play, but I think the consumer plays a huge part in the interpretation of the experience as well.
And if (returning to the Rita context) a judge had to choose between two books – the one with the yummy love story but some unfortunate stilted dialogue in some places or descriptive tags such as ‘her eyes were moonbeams’; and the one with the yummy love story as well as superior writing – why do we think there’ll be tension between which one to choose as award winner?
The tension lies largely in what people perceive as “yummy,” and people judging overwhelmingly based on “yummy.” Because when faced with “technically crappy but yummy” and “technically excellent but somewhat yummy,” people tend to swing for the former. It’s a natural instinct, to think that what we like is also what’s good or technically proficient. I’m simply attempting to advocate for a different way of looking at things—a more analytical view, if you will.
I do think though, that the lack of respect for the award seems to flow directly from a lack of respect not just for the judging process but the judges themselves. Because some think that being a published author is not qualification enough to judge the work of others. So, I see it as a problem bigger than the awards process and more linked to romance writing standards overall
“Lack of respect” is really charged. It implies lack of respect in ALL ways, when really, the only thing I find suspect in this is the judges’ taste. I’ve said this over and over, but I’ll say it again: having bad taste is not a moral or intellectual failure. It just means you have bad taste. It’s not necessarily meant to be pejorative, though it can be, in the same way saying “You have big feet” or “That dude’s balding” can be either descriptive or pejorative. I have bad taste sometimes. I own it. I don’t try to pretend it’s GOOD taste, certainly. When I give a book a grade, I try to indicate whether the grade was influenced by quality of the craft, by my prejudices/preferences, or some other factor entirely. I’ve read enough badly-written RITA winners that I suspect that mastery of craft isn’t perhaps the important consideration I’d like it to be.
Alison: The purpose of the award as stated in the contest rules is: “(…)to promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding romance books and manuscripts.â€
Obviously, some judges view that excellence as books that give them a fuzzy feeling, and others view that excellence as the best writing the genre has to offer. What determines an outstanding romance book is going to vary from judge to judge since there is no call to judge based on any specific elements such as those Robin mentioned above (which are exactly how I do judge).
Thanks for the clarification Alison. All I can say is: man, I wish that “excellence in the romance genre” meant more than “fuzzies and tinglies.”
Sarah Frantz: And I’m going to go on record as saying that I think Melville is a really bad writer. *Technically* bad, as well as boring as fuck. Can I understand why someone else might think he’s technically brilliant? Yes, but I think they’re wrong. Austen has received similar criticism—that her technical skill, her craft, is wanting—mostly because she only writes about the domestic. That is, because for some people, she’s boring as fuck.
That is, it’s not just that the warm fuzzies affect the way in which one particular reader reacts to a book, but the warm fuzzies can also dictate what a reader thinks of the book’s CRAFT, too
Sarah, I fully appreciate that the fuzzies dictate what a reader thinks of a book’s craft. I’m trying to persuade people to look at it another way, though, ye ken?
Also, see my comment above about separating content from craft. People who argue that Austen was a bad writer because she wrote exclusively about the domestic aren’t necessarily critiquing her craft, they’re critiquing her subject matter. We’ve moved towards broader and broader definitions of what constitutes worthy subject matter for literature, which I can’t help but view as a good thing, if only because it seems to correct for our prejudices.
Also also, your ability to appreciate why somebody would view Melville as technically brilliant even as you disagree with them lies at the heart of what we’re discussing here, I think. I don’t even see that level of awareness in a large part of the romance community. There’s more frequently a “well, this story doesn’t push all my buttons, so it’s just crap” or “this book makes me all warm and fuzzy, so it must be good” dynamic.
There’s a certain amount of subjectivity in terms of what’s technically good vs. what’s technically bad, but surely we can agree that there’s a certain minimum standard that most all books share, yes?
(As for myself, I have a really complicated relationship with Melville. I love him, but if I were honest with myself, I think odds are good that he’s over-rated in the canon. Also, dude’s INSANE. And I mean this in a clinical sense.)
I have no answers. Just observations. And Candy, do I think La Nora is “better†than Rousseau? I’m going to have to pass on that. Do we only think Rousseau is “good†because he says politically important things at a politically violent time or because his craft is good? Daniel Defoe’s craft sucks, in my opinion. But I think he’s an important writer, nonetheless, because he developed aspects of the novel (episodic writing, character) that have little to do with his ability to string words together in a sentence and make sure that his novels are logically consistent. Whose to say Roberts isn’t saying politically important things of her own and that she won’t be studied 300 years down the line. Or that the criteria of being studied 300 years on will have nothing to do with political statements, but will instead be focused on something else. Because I think her craft is excellent. And she has made technical and generic innovations in the romance. Who deems the value of “importance�
Actually, on further examination, I’ll have to pass on the Roussea-Roberts comparison, too. Because not only are their time periods and subject matter wildly divergent, but I haven’t read Rousseau in the original French, so I have no idea if any clunkiness is due to him or due to the translator, and my French isn’t nearly l33t enough to attempt it. (I’m lucky to be able to read the Le Petit Nicolas series without having to run for my Oxford Hachette…too often.)
But I don’t think you’re being fair to Defoe, in the same way as somebody making unfavorable comparisons between the crudeness of early tapestries and later works that had the benefit of the accumulation of knowledge and experience as well as modern technology and more refined techniques.
I also feel that we’ve switched the focus from technical proficiency to the process involved in canonizing works of literature, and whether romance novels deserve canonization, which, while worthy of debate, kind of makes my head spin a bit because I’m having a hard time as it is keeping track of all the different branches of this conversation. Perhaps more later! (But perhaps not. Because holy shit, there are a lot of comments I want to reply to.)
Victoria: This may be a strange question to ask on this site, but after reading the original post. . . Candy, I’m curious as to whether you consider yourself a “romance readerâ€, however you may define that. Or do you consider yourself a reader who loves the occassional romance, but it’s really not your genre?
Victoria, that’s an EXCELLENT question. I’ve been thinking about this just recently, actually, and got into a long conversation about this with Sarah, which we may post as an article some time this week. The answer is: I’m a reader. I’m a ferocious consumer of text. Lately, most of the text has been on-line, but I need text to concentrate and chew on in order to remain happy—or, indeed, sane. I read widely, mostly modern literary fiction, non-fiction (squealed with joy when a biologist friend of mine gave me a technical paper on the mechanisms of organismal transparency, actually—I haven’t been this excited about reading material in a long, long time, which makes me a tremendous dork), SF/F, children’s/YA, books by Old Dead White Dudes (and the occasional Old Dead White Chick) and romance. And of all these genres, none infuriate me and fascinate me in quite the way romance does. No other genre has a payoff so poor—I tend to love the majority of the other genres I read, but this is not the case with romance. I’m lucky to find maybe 5% of the romances I read exceptional in terms of story and craft. Yet I seek it out, anyway, and do so on a consistent basis. It’s hard to explain.
But more than that, something about romance makes me gabby as hell. I love me some SF/F and lit fic, but I don’t head on-line after reading an exceptionally good (or exceptionally bad) fantasy novel, or YA book, or whatever. Even when I hate the romance, or hell, even when I find it utterly mediocre, I find myself compelled to discuss it and dissect it. Not to say that I don’t enjoy doing it with other books as well, because I do, which was why I performed really, really well as an English major, but I didn’t conduct the sorts of ad hoc literary analyses on my own time on the books I read for class, y’know? Even though I tended to like ‘em better than the romances I read on my off time.
Jane: Ms. Crusie has it right in that this award is probably run just right for its purpose and that is to give an industry award. But for readers to take it seriously, a serious overhaul would have to take place, opening up the voting to individuals beyond writers, making bookstores and librarians, maybe even the press, invest personally in the outcome. Making the categories more trim and not including the very silly requirements about when sexual tension and sexual fulfillment can or cannot appear in the story.
That’s an interesting point. I think awards like the AAR Reader Awards perhaps have more of an impact that way. I do agree that the sexuality distinctions strike me as rather strange, too, and frankly, a way to Not Offend The Delicate Sensibilities of Some Judges What Think Fucking Is Filthy.
Jackie L: Sarah F is correct in saying that Nora Roberts is a better writer than Rousseau. His grammar and sentence structure, word choice and overly fulsome descriptions of nature were archaic even for his time! (Don’t mind me, I’m cranky—I hated the whole century except for Voltaire and some of the libertarians.) But that’s not what I said. I said LaNora is the best storyteller.
See above what I said about attempting to compare Rousseau and Roberts. As for Roberts being the best storyteller, I’m willing to concede that it might be so for you, and like I said, Roberts’ craft is generally rock-solid (much shakier in her older books, in my opinion, but every writer generally has to work through new-author kinks), but I don’t think it’s as masterful as that of some other romance authors I’ve read.
*shrug*
Re: the massive numbers of categories in the RITAs: I can see why we’d want to award prizes for the major sub-categories, because contemparies are such a very different animal from historicals (though I’d argue that most historicals published nowadays are contemporaries in muslin gown drag), but some of the requirements seem rather archaic and puzzling, like the one for “traditional romance.” What the fuck, chuck?
Jenny Crusie: But I still want to know why the Rita doesn’t have the clout that awards in other genres that are judged with equal subjectivity do have. I have friends in SF who tell me that the SF awards are such an old boys club that they only reward the traditional.
That’s probably true of the Hugos/Nebulas in the past, but I’d say in the past couple decades, they’ve done a decent job of awarding prizes to excellent, groundbreaking works—and the fact that Bujold, Asaro, LeGuin and Willis have won pretty consistently is a pretty decent indicator that they’re slowly but surely getting over their terror of girl cooties. Which is why I pay a lot more attention to the Hugos and Nebulas than the RITAs, though given that they awarded Best Long Historical to Kinsale in 05 gives me hope. It wasn’t Kinsale’s best, and it may not have been the best long historical published that year, but I can certainly understand why people would want to award it to her. And again, I want to make it clear that I’m trying as much as possible to separate “What I like” vs. “What I think is good.” If Judith Ivory had written a long historical that year and won, I might’ve probably disagreed, but I would’ve understood and respected that decision.
Nora Roberts: Jane, if you were buying what you were lead to believe was a straight historical romance, and suddenly, there were vampires dancing at Almack’s, I believe it would give you pause.
True enough, but if the author made it work, why the hell not? If the elements were introduced early enough and were made an integral part of the story, I don’t see how that would affect judging the story on its own merits.
It’s amazing to me—in a good way—that readers would have enough interest, or at least enough to say about a topic like this—esp one headed Why I Don’t Care.
Heh, I gave it a bad title—I was riffing on the title of Samuel’s post. It’s not that I don’t care about the RITAs. It’s that I don’t take it very seriously, and have serious doubts about its results and relevance to my purchasing/reading decisions.
Caroline: But then, I wonder, what awards ARE useful/important/helpful to readers? Any? None? Do awards that are reader-voted, like the annual poll at AAR, make the award more reader-oriented and thus more meaningful?
Speaking for myself, I pay special attention to who wins the Pulitzer, Man-Booker, Hugo and Nebula. These have most consistently netted books that I love.
Barbara Samuel: Craft does not take a backseat. (Who establishes those standards, by the way? The male literary establishment who’ve decided that the (originally female) form of the novel should be less about emotions and more about ideas?
Ah, come now, blaming the patriarchy is such a cop-out. Nobody here is arguing about standards that could be blamed on the patriarchy, such as the value of domestic issues or romantic love as worthy subjects of literature. I suppose the patriarchy could be blamed for the vagaries of grammar and spelling, since the ones in power are often the ones to set down those sorts of rules and men have held the reins for a long, long time, but c’mon.
And what’s with the assertion that the novel was originally female form? Whuh? I’m about as ragingly feminist as they come, but I’m not fond of baseless revisionism. Evidence, please.
I still get the feeling that a lot of readers responding here are suspicious of RWA standards and the RITAs in particular, and maybe not particularly familiar with genre standards. Is that my imagination?
If not, we’re getting a lot of outsider views of the genre, which will tend toward derision rather than a genuine embrace. I’m all for criticism and discussion as long as the participants genuinely love the genre under discussion.
Why does distrust of standards equate to being an outsider and/or unfamiliarity of genre standards? I’ve read hundreds upon hundreds of romances over the years—actually, thinking about it, I’ve probably read almost a thousand over the course of 19 years—and I co-run a website dedicated to reviewing romances and dissecting issues related to romances. I’m an outsider in that I’m not an author, but I’ve been an active member of the on-line romance community pretty much from the moment I found there WAS an on-line community, i.e. 1997.
Standards should be questioned, and the genre should always be pushed towards more rigorousness and excellence. Praise should be administered when deserving, but then so should criticism and haranguing.
As for whether I genuinely love the genre…I have a complicated relationship with it. I certainly feel passionately about it. I’m not sure “love” is the correct word sometimes, though it’s the word I use most often.
Marty: I work in Quality and if you are really evaluating a product whatever it is, the heart is never used to make judgements. That brings subjectiveness into the judgement so it is not impartial. The product shold be judged on strict guidelines which is why the Nobel Prize has merit. So until there are better guidelines as to how the RITAs are judged, I still won’t give it much merit.
And here we have somebody swinging to the OTHER end of the pendulum, and leaving me scratching my head just as hard. Dude, impartiality is about impossible when judging the arts. I’d argue it’s not even desirable. The arts are supposed to touch your heart, and the heart should be an integral part of judging. Just, y’know, not the sole part.
Wow.
Okay, judging in a category in which your entered:
Sure, you can see that the entrant doesn’t judge her own book. But how many questions and comments just here have there been about judges’ objectivity? About politics? Popularity? Giving the edge to friends? How many more would there be if Author X won in her category, and also judged in it? It’s opening a sticky door that doesn’t need to be.
Not going into the read for the categories again except to say Romance is diverse. The Ritas celebrate that diversity.
I do wonder about the word politics in conjuction with the Rita. Where do people see this happening? And how? I’ve never served on a board or committee, so I don’t know how those inner politics work. But I’ve been entrant and judge, I’ve won and I haven’t won Ritas. Politics hasn’t played a part in my own experience.
I’m not saying they don’t play a part—but I don’t know of it. I’d like to hear about someone’s experience of politics in the Rita process.
The Man Booker award judges are “selected from the country’s [Ireland’s] finest critics, writers and academics”; the Pulitzers are judged by academics and editors; the Nobel literature award by the Swedish academy. These also carry cash awards and other perks.
Does the fact that the RITAs are judged solely by other authors diminish their importance to society in general? That the winners only get a statue and no cash? The fact that anyone can enter, so there is no impartial ‘nominating committee’ that chooses finalists? I’m not advocating for any of these things, or saying they’re wrong, just wondering what, if anything, could be done to give it more mainstream credibility and stature.
I just think it’s an absolute shame that the RITA, the ultimate prize in romance, leaves so many readers cold, to judge from the comments here. Without meaning to take away from the honor of winning, wouldn’t it be even better if a RITA did for a romance what an Oscar does for a film (greater publicity, renewed distribution, increased public interest)? It would surely help readers if they could regard RITA winners as, if not THE best (best being purely subjective), then certainly among the very best romances of the year. And I daresay it would make the RITA, already a major honor, even more meaningful to the authors who win.
Jenny Crusie: But I still want to know why the Rita doesn’t have the clout that awards in other genres that are judged with equal subjectivity do have.
Candy had a well thought out industry savvy answer here, but I have to say for me that until I became a member of RWA I didn’t even know the RITA existed. Whereas I knew about the Hugo and Nebula awards because they put that nifty little gold star on the front cover of award winners. I have no clue about the inside workings of the SF awards, and I honestly don’t care about them. It’s enough for me to know that some people love SF so much that they spend time judging new books and giving them awards. That’s good enough for me. I’m not always compelled to buy the gold starred books, but I do pick them up and check out the jacket copy. It’s like the new and notable table at B&N or the shelf that says “Staff Picks.†There’s so many damn books out there I can use the help. I’m afraid that the RITA problem is that simple… who outside the industry even knows it exists? RITA winners need their publishers to put a little gold star on the cover of the book that says RITA winner. People may not buy the sucker, but I’ll bet they would pick the book up and consider it… and they wouldn’t care that there are 14 different categories or want to know how judges are picked… they’d just be grateful that someone somewhere cares enough about romance to pick a few good ones they might want to try.
leaves so many readers cold, to judge from the comments here.
I’m not entirely sure you can count extremely vocal on-line posters as an accurate sampling. *g* I’ve not found that readers’ choice awards or, indeed, bestseller lists actually contradict from the Ritas.
Or “contradict the Ritas”. Ugh.
And what’s RFG? Obviously I should know, but my brain’s not working so good.
Rabid Fan Girl.
Nora: You have a point about the judges. I’m not necessarily sure it’s that big a deal, given the size of the competition and the large total number of judges, but it’d look iffy, and sometimes that’s what matters most.
Caroline: As far as I know, the Man Booker isn’t Irish, and the judges aren’t necessarily selected from Irish people, though they no doubt sometimes are. Where’d you get the idea that it was? And personally, I can say that the fact that the RITAs are judged solely by authors isn’t the sticking point with me. (Can’t speak for others, of course; I think it might very well be for people like Jane.) I’ve gone on and on already about what would improve the credibility of the RITAs in my eyes, so I won’t repeat myself, but I’m definitely interested in hearing from everyone else.
No, I am fine with the RITAs, how they are judged, etc. I was saying that in order for them to have more relevance outside the industry would be to have the judges be more inclusive. I was also making further distinctions between the Oscars and the RITAs in terms of form, function, etc.
But, as I stated earlier, the RITA as THE industry award for writers seems to be working fine.
Caroline: As far as I know, the Man Booker isn’t Irish, and the judges aren’t necessarily selected from Irish people, though they no doubt sometimes are. Where’d you get the idea that it was?
Oops, did I mess up? I got this from the Man Booker Prize website:
“…the prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The Man Booker judges are selected from the country’s finest critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent excellence of the prize.”
So I guess I was wrong, it’s UK and Ireland. My bad. Sorry!
“I have no clue about the inside workings of the SF awards, and I honestly don’t care about them.”
Well, this is unfortunate. Because I will tell you anyway.
The Nebulas come from SF authors, so they are no-never-mind to me.
But the Hugos come from members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention.
I go to this con almost every year, so I get a Hugo nomination form, and a ballot after the nominees are picked.
But here’s the deal: I read very little SF and even less current stuff. If I chose to vote (and I don’t) I could pick names at random, based on no knowledge at all.
But I pay approx $130 a year to go to the big Con, so I am now an authority on Science Fiction and can effect the winner of the Hugos.
But I don’t vote.
Because it would be wrong.
Because I don’t read enough.
But it would be perfectly legal if I wanted to.
And if you want to talk about confusing categories? Please explain the difference between a short story a novella and a novelette. Because the Hugo has all three of these. They are arbitrary word counts, I think.
And how about the year they added the “Semi-pro Zine” category because no one could ever beat the fanzine Locus, because it was too professional. So it got it’s own category, and won that every year.
I am stumped as to why the RITAs are considered a less reliable judging system then this. This is my first year entering, but I was in the Golden Heart competition for many years and got regularly stomped into the ground.
And then, I won.
Although I complained bitterly about “That Bitch that gives me a 4”, which happened several years in a row, I never seriously believed it was based on any kind of vendetta against me. It was one opinion out of five, in a randomly chosen panel of judges. It happens.
The winning and losing of the contest was based on the panel of judges I got each year. When I got a set with likes, dislikes, sense of humor, and a skill set matching mine, I finaled.
I never got any sense that there was a secret society in Texas, making sure that my story lost because I was in the wrong chapter, had the wrong friends, or accidentally stole a chair from the reserved table of the RWA president at lunch, once.
It wasn’t always fun to lose, but I never felt it wasn’t fair.
I think, when we talk craft standards, and application of same, it is not as clear cut as you’d like to believe.
When I read, I do not have a problem with writers who have a minimalist style. Is no description bad craft?
How about purple prose?
Point of View violations?
Copy editing?
(Because my book’s editing is different in two different editions. There are some glaring typo errors in the US pb. I swear to God, it was fine when I let go of it. But do I deserve to be docked?)
Research?
Historical accuracy? (I forgot to put a chemise on my heroine. How many points do I lose? Should I write my consession speech?)
Judging is subjective. Always. Even in contests where you get pages of craft feedback, and there are very clear cut craft specifications, you will get wildly different scores based on who the judges are. One person’s wallbanger is another person’s ‘not that big a deal’.
It is ever thus, even in other genres.
If the winners of an award happen to match your personal taste on a regular basis, it may not mean that the other awards aren’t valid. It may be an indication of how your taste matches with the judges.
Christine Merrill
not getting a Pulitzer again this year…
Damned it I don’t feel pretty darn good about the Ritas right now. Good to know you don’t even have to have read the Hugo books to vote on them. Or nominate them, as far as I can tell from the rules. Daaaaaaaaamn.
If not, we’re getting a lot of outsider views of the genre, which will tend toward derision rather than a genuine embrace. I’m all for criticism and discussion as long as the participants genuinely love the genre under discussion.
Urg, I love romance novels, but sometimes I wish I could strangle some of the people who read and write them because of the passive-aggressiveness. Yes, we are all reading and writing in a genre that gets no respect a la Rodney Dangerfield, but that doesn’t mean that we have to shelter ourselves and each other like penguins in a blizzard. Ladies (here and everywhere), duke it the hell out! We got to keep the edge on romance novels in the face of uncaring publishers, shrinking word counts, and the general lack of genre respect. I love this site because its the only place where I see a break from the constant, sometimes insincere tea party/love fest and that leads to interesting and intelligent discussions. Brawl like drunken sailors on shore leave! We’re all better for it if we get a few knocks to the head.
Congrats to RITA winners—breaking through beyond the other million entries is an accomplishment—, but it really seems like this is just a pat on the back for authors and its really nothing that readers should get excited about. Of course, congratulate our friends and the like, but nothing more.
Caroline, if it’s the Commonwealth & Ireland that’s a lot of other countries too: basically the Commonwealth is a federation of many of the countries that used to make up the British Empire. I think ‘Life of Pi’ was a Booker winner (won something, anyway) and that was by a Canadian author.
Not that it matters, just FYI.
“Good to know you don’t even have to have read the Hugo books to vote on them. Or nominate them, as far as I can tell from the rules.”
‘Tis a pity, we’ve missed the deadline of March 3rd. Because I have 4 Hugo nomination ballots, right here in my office. My entire family goes to Worldcon, and none of us vote.
So you could have helped me fill them in. We could have created our own little voting block, based on ignorance and favoritism.
Which we would not do, of course.
Because that is not the way we roll, as romance writers. Right Victoria?
Christine Merrill
The Hugo length categories are indeed on word count, and are a bit arbitrary, but not as arbitrary as all that. A short story is a different beast to a novel, and requires different writing skills. It’s common for someone to be a good novel writer but useless at short stories, and vice versa. The same can be said of novelette and novella. The exact word counts where the boundaries are drawn are a bit arbitrary, but *having* those categories is sensible.
The Hugo isn’t a reliable indicator of The Best Whatever that year—it’s a reflection of how many people knew about something, and could be bothered to vote for it. And the bitching and moaning that goes on about how the Hugos are broken because they didn’t produce the result that someone wanted—well, it makes this thread look incredibly restrained. But by and large, if something won a Hugo, then it’s almost certainly good, and almost certainly going to appeal to a lot of people. And as such can be used as an indicator of whether it’s worth reading.
How much the Hugos are used these days as a reading list, I’m not sure. There seems to have been a drift away from that. But one thing that strikes me is that at least in the past if something won a Hugo, then it was generally still in print and readily available by the time it won, and often had another print run with “Hugo winner” on the cover. It happens less now with the tendency for the chainstores to cycle the shelves on a monthly basis, but there was a time when people outside the group that did the voting could see in the bookshop that something had won a Hugo or Nebula.
That might have to be a new tagline for Smart Bitches: “Come for the Dominican Bitches, Stay for the Man Titty and brawl like drunken sailors on shore leave.”
I don’t think that brawling is all the drunken sailors do on shore leave. Why leave off the naught bits?
I got this from the Man Booker Prize website:
“…the prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The Man Booker judges are selected from the country’s finest critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent excellence of the prize.â€
So I guess I was wrong, it’s UK and Ireland. My bad. Sorry!
The Commonwealth is made up of 53 states, including the UK, India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan.
Formerly known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth is a loose association of former British colonies, dependencies and other territories – and Mozambique, which has no historical ties to Britain. (from the the BBC website)
The rules for submissions say that
UK publishers may enter up to two full-length novels for a specific year. In addition, any title by an author who has won the Booker Prize and any title by an author who has been shortlisted in the last ten years may be submitted. Publishers may also submit a list of up to five further titles for the judges’ consideration.
So if only books published in the UK can be considered, and each publisher is limited in the number of books they can submit that means there’s a lot of pre-selection going on even before the books reach the judges.
Because that is not the way we roll, as romance writers. Right Victoria?
HAHAHAHA I’m picturing a whole line of us, walking through Worldcon in our A-line skirts and black sunglasses, the soundtrack from Resevoir Dogs blasting in the background. “Romance writers in the house, bitches!”
“A short story is a different beast to a novel, and requires different writing skills. It’s common for someone to be a good novel writer but useless at short stories, and vice versa. The same can be said of novelette and novella.”
And the same can be said of category length romance writers, vs. single title writers. Which is why RITA has some of its more arcane categories. You can do a more intricate plot, if you are writing a 100,000 word book vs. a 55,000 word book.
I’ve written a short historical. But if you combine my category with the long historical category, will my plotting look simplistic by comparison?
Note: the most appropriate category for my story, “Regency” disappeared this year. Which means my polite, English characters will be taking on gun-toting cowboys and Roman gladiators, armed only with drawing room wit. So it’s not as if there is a separate award for every posible type of romance.
Personally, I’m not caring too much about exact categories. Do not ask me to sort this out.
But I think if Hugo is being held up as a good example (with 15 categories on my ballot) we need to recognize that they create categories, just like RWA does, in an effort to give a variety of formats a chance at an award. The fact that they don’t separate the robots from the dragons doesn’t mean that they aren’t splitting a few hairs.
Christine Merrill
Beth said: “I have no clue about the inside workings of the SF awards, and I honestly don’t care about them.â€
Chrisitine said: “Well, this is unfortunate. Because I will tell you anyway.â€
No, no Christine… always up for hearing the inside scoop on how the awards are given… What I meant was that I don’t care about the inside workings as it applies to my habits when I’m in ‘search for a good book’ mode. That is to say that it serves its purpose for me just the way it is. “Here’s a pile of fifty books… look this one got a Hugo. Wonder what it’s about?â€
Of course I’m interested in any good insider info you can dish for discussion and edification purposes and love that you’ve taken the time to fill me in. Even so, I’m afraid that no matter how much everyone tells me about uninformed voter choices, weird categories and unfair politics… I’ll always be looking for a good book and industry awards, fairly chosen or not, are one way of wading through the myriads of offerings.
And what’s with the assertion that the novel was originally female form? Whuh? I’m about as ragingly feminist as they come, but I’m not fond of baseless revisionism. Evidence, please.
I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that Aprha Behn was the original novelist.
IMO it’s a dark, dark day in the Romance community when you suggest that readers who think that the craft of writing is undervalued in Romance are “outsiders†to the genre and further construct it as some kind of patriarchal acquiescence. Really, I can’t even be outraged because I’m just so . . . sad
Wow, I must have expressed myself very badly, because that is exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say.
It drives me crazy when craft is dismissed. There’s an assumption in some circles (readers and writers both) that giving attention to great craft means a book will somehow then lose emotional impact.
Craft is everything. Craft is the way we get the stories into the world. Period. It’s the only thing that matters in terms of writing excellence. And I’m not even going to honor the silliness of “craft” = “boring”. No.
I agree with you on Abe, FWIW. Brilliant writer, one of the most elegant craftswomen we have.
Christine: And the same can be said of category length romance writers, vs. single title writers. Which is why RITA has some of its more arcane categories. You can do a more intricate plot, if you are writing a 100,000 word book vs. a 55,000 word book.
Well, I wasn’t one of the people saying “there are too many categories!”, and that’s a large part of why I wasn’t.
I think the variety of categories can be a problem, but from the point of view of the “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” problem of who judges a category. I wouldn’t volunteer to judge a good many of the RITA categories (in the RITAS or any other contest), because I don’t read them and wouldn’t have an earthly idea of whether a book worked on its own terms. I could judge general craft, yes; but each genre and sub-genre has its own genre conventions that may not be apparent to those who don’t read/write within it. To give an example at its most basic level: it can be a love story, it can be beautifully written—but if it doesn’t have an HEA, or at least a happy-for-now, is it a romance? But if I judge within a category I write myself, there will be suspicion that I am biased. Even if I don’t have anything entered myself, well, I have my likes and dislikes…
served37—is it just my filthy mind, or does this random word generator have a bias?
Hey, thats why I like this place. Its nice to get a mental slug to the face so hard that Jane Austen feels it by a chick that writes traditional regency romances. Writing that drawing room wit tends to make for a lovely point-y tongue to give you a good kick in the pants.
Interesting story: my friend and I went to New Jersey to visit her family. We had missed Fleet Week by two days, and I’ve never seen her so disappointed.
Christine: you and your family could form a voting bloc for the Hugos, if you want, but good luck outvoting the thousands of other SF fans at WorldCon. Not to mention the fact that the ballot was vetted with titles beforehand—you’re not being handed a list of every SF/F book published last year. What’s the selection process behind THAT?
I’m not seriously trying that the RITAs are crooked or not a valid competition, by any means—just that I don’t think the judges as a body value craft as much as I think they should, and that they certainly don’t share the same tastes I do.
And by the way, if your manuscript is rife with typos, glaring historical errors that can be spotted even by n00bs like me and/or other sorts of problems, then absolutely, the judges are entirely within their rights to dock you, and dock you hard. And I’m talking real errors, not nitpicky inconsequentials like whether or not you mention your heroine wearing a chemise (if that were the case, we’d have to dock all authors, all the time for not having their characters go to the bathroom) or the couple three times words like “receive” are misspelled in the MS. No, things aren’t quite as clear-cut as I’m setting ‘em up to be, but the issues you’ve brought up have been largely straw men.
And Barbara: Yes, Aphra Behn helped pioneer the novel, and I read Oroonoko in college. But she’s not the original novelist. It’s not as clear-cut as that, because there was a lot of bitching and wanking and fighting between what constituted romances and what constituted novels, and a lot of blurring between the lines. Almost a century previous to Behn, Cervantes published Don Quixote, and a few decades after that, Madame de Layfayette and a buncha Continental types (including many dudes) were breaking new ground, and after those people and pretty much concurrently with Behn, Daniel Defoe and a few other authors whose names escape me because it’s been nine years since I’ve discussed this in depth with anybody were coming up with English novels and refining the form as they went.
I can appreciate that women have been undervalued in literature and their contributions have been woefully under-appreciated, but to call it an “originally female” form is, as far as I know, inaccurate. Those in the audience (Sarah F? Laura V?) who know a hell of a lot more should feel free to sk00l me if I’m wrong in this, because who knows if the information I received in a small Catholic liberal arts university in Portland was anywhere near correct, eh?
“Well, I wasn’t one of the people saying “there are too many categories!â€, and that’s a large part of why I wasn’t.”
Point taken, Jules. I was just piggy-backing off your example.
And there’d have been smileys after my post to you, Beth. If I hadn’t just poured a coke in the keyboard. It will not smile today.
But there is definitely a damned if you do, damned if you don’t quality to the whole judging process. IMHO, it is approx fair, and unfixable beyond this point.
Let us design an imaginary contest where anyone can vote for Best Romance of the Year.
I enter, as a new writer with a Regency historical with limited American distribution. (I’m not really traditional. There is sex in 1806. But some people don’t like me already becaue of the sex, and the missing chemise.)
I spent a portion of my promotions budget on the $40 entry free, and put the rest into cheap booze and lotto tickets, just like every other year.
To increase my chances of winning, I put I put strychnine in the Guacamole at the RWA national convention.
And damned if Nora Roberts didn’t eat in her room.
But Nora is having a bad year, and wrote her book while drinking cough syrup and typing with her feet.
Her distribution is wider than mine. The audience for contemporaries is bigger. Everyone knows Nora. No one knows me.
If the voting is wide open, and there are limited categories, my cats vote against me. My dog is checking his bowl before making a decision.
It is possible that I will write a book so vastly superior to Nora that I will win.
It is more likely that I will be beaten by Nora. And Jenny Crusie, Barbara Samuels, and Lani Rich, post-humously.
If there are five randomly chosen judges, there is a chance that some of them read historicals, and are giving me an edge.
If I am only competing against historicals, I may be moving up the pack a little more.
But if there are no awards at all, or I am competing against every other romance in the world?
I went out of print already. My chance to pitch this book was last year. Odds are you didn’t read it and are not voting for me. Things are not looking good for the sequel, since you didn’t read the first one.
I am SOL.
Do I, personally, think you should respect the RITAs? Hell yes.
But it you have better luck finding books you enjoy by using RT, AAR or the Hugos? Go with them and be happy.
I think all writers would prefer to be judged on content and not cover. But if an award or a review proves helpful to reader or to a writer’s sales, once in a while? That’s nice, too.
Just saying.
Oh Lord, the history of the English novel in summary. Let’s see how well I do.
Yes, people in France and Other Places in Europe were writing things that looked remarkably like “novels” in the 17thC. But they were called “romances”—not in the way we mean them—and, as Candy says, much bitching and squabbling ensued trying to label the difference between romances and the new-fangled and dangerous novel. actually pretty darned good about it.
Aphra Behn published “Oroonoko” in 1688. It’s remarkable in many ways (black hero, slave narrative, travel narrative, tragic love story, slave revolt, etc), and yes, it looked remarkably like what we would term a “novel.” But they didn’t have that term, so they didn’t term it that then. Feminists have reclaimed her as the first British novelist to get away from the trifecta or Richardson, Fielding, and Defoe and they might be right for all that, but it doesn’t have a particularly “female” form or “feminine” concerns.
Defoe’s “novels” shmushed travel narratives, spiritual autobiographies, and Newgate accounts together and came up with Robinson Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722), and Roxanna (1724). The last two are about prostitutes, Moll being low class, Roxanna being a high-class courtesan.
At the same time, but much less well-known, Penelope Aubin, Delariviere Manley, Jane Barker, and that wonderful wonderful woman, Eliza Haywood were doing their thing. And therein lies the rub. Why is Defoe known as a founder of the novel and these women aren’t? They should be. Aubin wrote domestic travel narratives, Manley and Haywood wrote romans a clef (very scandalous). Not sure about Barker. Haywood especially was better at re-energizing her career and reinventing herself than Madonna. She was The Shit. None of these authors really wrote about the domestic, so did they write a specifically “female” novel? Debatable, I’d say.
Then you hit the 1740s and you get Samuel Richardson with his drippy Pamela (1740), and Henry Fielding with Shamela and then Tom Jones. These were new and exciting and fascinating. And Richardson wrote about the domestic, from both the male and female perspective, and Fielding basically invented the English form of the picaresque novel.
And Fielding’s sister, Sarah, also wrote at the same time. One of the most popular novelists of the time besides Richardson and Fielding was Charlotte Lennox. And then there’s Tobias Smollet (more picaresque). And Laurence Sterne is just completely wacked out. If anyone “experimented” with the novel form, it was Sterne.
And women just….wrote. They wrote to sustain their huge families. They wrote to keep their abusive husbands afloat. They wrote because they had to. And that became a bad thing. Women who wrote were called prostitutes, and men who wrote were called writers.
It was “only” toward the end of the 18thC that things tended to settle down into the domestic “female” novel and the “male” novel that did other, more “exciting” things. But the first historical novel was not by Sir Walter Scott, but probably by Sophia Lee: The Recess told the story of that poor Mary, Queen of Scots and her persecution at her cousin’s hands.
And I don’t think that answers anyone’s questions, except to say that it’s always in flux. But the absolutley basic canon of the early novel is still mostly men with Austen thrown in at the end, and it shouldn’t be. But does that make the novel a female form? I don’t think so. The English novel is an 18thC form, no doubt about it, but I don’t think it’s “female” or “male,” much as feminist critics may beat me for it.
Laura V., Candy touched on Catcher in the Rye’s “classic” qualification—that it was the first novel to explore teenagers as 1) something other than miniature adults and 2)capable of, well, angst. I don’t think it was all that great as a literary work either, but at least it was exploring new territory.
More preaching to the choir now…
CITR got a lot of heavy criticism and bad publicity because it was “obscene”—heck, it’s still banned today. But though that’s part of what led to its popularity, I daresay that if a woman had written it and (especially) it was about Harriet instead of Holden, it wouldn’t have “classic” status today. It probably would have gone the way of Kitty, by Rosamond Marshall. After all, aside from “only women” identifying with female protagonists. men boozing and screwing is life, fast and hard. Women boozing and screwing is smut.
to call it an “originally female†form is, as far as I know, inaccurate. Those in the audience (Sarah F? Laura V?) who know a hell of a lot more should feel free to sk00l me if I’m wrong in this
I’m glad Sarah’s already covered this from an English lit point of view. My area was medieval Castilian literature, so although out of solidarity with my Golden Age colleagues I’d stand up and defend Don Quijote‘s right to be considered one of the first, if not the first, European novel, I don’t know a huge amount about the development of the novel. If we’re talking about prose works, then there are the romances of chivalry and, in Spain, the late medieval sentimental romances, but they’re novella length and often include non-prose elements such as poetry and letters. Which doesn’t mean that they’re totally different from novels, because you can get epistolary novels. Anyway, those had male authors. There are also the picaresque novels. The Lazarillo de Tormes is possibly a bit short to count as a novel, but it’s earlier than Don Quijote. Other picaresque novels which are longer include Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache and Francisco de Quevedo’s El buscón. The Guzmán de Alfarache is long, and was published before Don Quijote, so I suppose it might have a good claim to being one of the first European novels too.
However, hundreds of years before the first European novels there are the Japanese The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, which were written by women, and also Chinese novels.
I found a power point presentation about the history of the novel here, which is (a) brief (b) gives useful dates and summaries and (c) includes further links to online resources.
At my private non-denominational research university in Chicago, we were taught that the first novel (not in English, obvs) was The Tale of Genji in the 11th C. Which was written by one or maybe two women. But unlike SarahF, I am not a literature professor, so this is just what I was taught, many years ago.
Christine, your book may be out of print, but eHarlequin claims to have sent me a copy. Had I read your comments here before I ordered it, I would have bought several more and handed them out to friends.