We’re days away from RWA, where authors will be pitching their manuscripts and leading or attending sessions on craft and career, editors will be taking pitches and appearing on panels talking about what they’re looking for in the future – and what’s coming out from their houses very soon.
Some folks will be trying to figure out what the Next Big Thing will be, and others will be hoping their book IS the Next Big Thing, as they try to land a spot on the 2013 or 2014 publishing schedule. There’s always talk of trends, fads, niche markets, and established sub-genres that are experiencing growth or contraction in sales. And, of course, many of us (hi!) are looking for news of upcoming awesome books to read.
In short, there’s a whole lot of people thinking and talking about the future, either a few months from now, or a few years from now.
But I’d like to ask you about the future. Whether or not you’re attending RWA, I’m curious: what do YOU think the trends are right now, or will be soon? What books do you want to read? What have you enjoyed recently that you want more of? We’ve been looking at a LOT of 2010 books the past few weeks – has that changed your opinion about what you want, or don’t want? Genres, niches, whatever – I’m curious what you think about the future of romance, in the next few months, or the next few years.
@Lauren, your post sounds like a clumsy sales attempt.
I’d like to see more humor in romances and less humor in paranormals. I’m so over the know-it-all and yet adorably clueless heroine. No thank you.
Amen sister, that’s how I feel too, at least for full length novels. It seems to be hard to combine tons of hot sex with believable plots and relate-able characters for an entire book. Romance novellas with hot sex tend to work better for me.
I agree that steampunk romance seems to be a new trend, and one that I like. I’ve noticed books with Greek myths and dragons too. I keep hoping that the vampire craze has run it’s course, but it’s still going strong.
@quichepup AM means Asian male and WF means white female. I’m not a big romance reader, but like others mentioned, I’d like for historical to be set in different locales with different characters instead of nobility. I write short stories for fun, (yes Asian male white female pairings) and came up with a large number of unique historical locales (one in America in 1950s featuring a Jewish woman and a Korean male) and character mixes. Wish me luck in writing.
Word: look42
I would like more mixed race couples also but including all races. The world around us is so diverse and it’d be fascinating to read of a black hero and heroine from India (know a couple like that and the family crap is unbelievable).
Also, I’ll echo the LESS SEX!! I miss the build up of emotions nowadays the H/h are getting it on way too soon and in way too much detail.
And humor? You made me laugh and you’re an automatic auto buy.
Early-mid 20th century please—American or European, doesn’t matter. There’s just so much interesting stuff going on from “new women” to World Wars that alter the way gender relations play out.
I think similarly, if contemporaries are really contemporary, we’d have fewer manly men heroes and a lot more of the struggle of really educated women (who have lived their own lives for 5-15 years post college) with the sort of man-children who are in their age bracket. It’s not The Millionaire Tycoon’s Blushing Secretary as much as it is The Steady Advertising Agent’s Once-Divorced, World Class WOW Player. (And I just reread and thought I sound tremendously bitter, but I honestly think you could make an entertaining story out of the situations my friends and I find ourselves in on a weekendly basis. And Lo! The comedy also requested above.)
More things that I’d like to see:
1 – Non-traditional gender roles that are presented matter of factly. I’d love to read a book where the heroine makes more than than the hero and it’s not a big deal to either of them. Or where he chooses to stay home with the kids and it’s not a big sacrifice. I wasn’t a huge fan of The Chase by Erin McCarthy but I did like that Evan wasn’t threatened by Kendall’s success as a racer and that caring for his family was more important than his career and that it wasn’t a big deal.
2 – Enough with the Alpha Males! I like reading about sexy, confident men, but I am so sick of these testosterone crazed men with steely gazes and incredible stock portfolios and enormous dicks. Where are the gentle, easy going heroes? Have they all been devoured by macho CEO werewolves?
3 – More books, especially contemporaries, that don’t end with babies. Or with marriage for that matter.
4 – No more sadistic killers written from the killers pov. I hate that in romantic suspense – passages written from the villain’s pov take me out of the story and give me a bad case of the icks.
5 – Lots of well written books about believable, interesting characters who fall in love and make it work. I care more about that than any sub-genre or setting.
Arggh. Stupid tags.
This is what I meant to post:
giggle. i believe i know that couple. giggle.
@cleo, I agree, no more villain’s POV. It’s completely reduntant, I always skip those pages, who cares what he/she thinks or does to get to the heroine.
Keep the regencies but make them (and other historical periods) more substantial. Get rid of the fru-fru plotlines, the slapstick comedy and the silly and long rhyming book titles (or borrowed song/movie titles). Also dump the modern way of talking for a more authentic sound to dialogue. I cannot stand a historical h/h speaking sounding like a modern American. Throws me RIGHT out of the book.
As Shakespeare said… “More matter with less art!”
SF and epic fantasy romance would be awesome, with proper worldbuilding.
Can I ask a question about this?
What does everyone think about historicals, perhaps set around the Regency era or slightly before, but taking place in other countries/cultures besides the UK and America? I’ve been dying for different perspectives and a different set of historical markers than only those in the UK and the US—for more stories set in France and Belgium and Italy and Spain or even Denmark or Russia (even if some of the characters are English or American).
But is anyone else interested in this or do you think this would not draw you in at all?
This! So much of this! I’d also like to see some shameless heroines who are comfortable and confident in their sexuality and who don’t need some alpha with a Mighty Wang to come (heh) along and school them in the pleasures of teh sexxoring. I want heroines to be okay with their sexuality without needing a man to give them permission.
Maybe for once we could have the heroine be the experienced one who blows (heh) the hero’s mind with her mad skillz, which she acquired as a result of practice and experience, rather than having magical, innate instincts. I am soooo tired of reading about the hero who is shocked by the amazing awesomeness of the professional-grade BJ his virgin love interest has just performed. Yeah, she’s completely inexperienced, but somehow she just KNOWS exactly what to do. Give me a break.
Wow. That paragraph was just chock-full of innuendo. I need to get my mind out of the gutter. Also, sorry about the outburst; that rant wasn’t completely expected.
1. Mmmmm…. Steampunk.
2. Now that the 20th century is so last century, how about romances set 1900 to 1950? There’s such a goldmine there. Wars, Depression, Women’s Sufferage, Prohibition, Flappers, the Influenza Epidemic.
#3. And in that vein: yes, romances that relate to their times. Say what you will about the old skool, you usually learned A LOT about the time period they were set in.
Dawn Green—I love the OUTLANDER books by Diana Gabaldon, too. One book that reminds me of this series is A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness. It’s the first book in a series, and the second one comes out in 2012. It’s a thick book, too…and I really like the hero/heroine.
The Thing I Want Most (Thank, Courtney Milan) is: More middle working class people of any race!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I expect at least a few people agree with me. Some days I get tired of magical unexplained money in historicals, and people who are super rich and take so much for granted in contemporaries. I want a shot of realism in contemporaries. I want less brand names. I want less pedigree. I want not every hero who went to college to have gone to the Ivy League.
Other wants include:
smart funny heroines and heroes
contemporaries (maybe historicals too) relationships that are partnerships
geeky smart men
people who are good at their jobs (Nora Roberts is good at this)
fewer babies
multi-ethnic relationships
I’ve read and enjoyed several dystopian YAs in the past year, and would love to see something like an adult Hunger Games. I know that some urban fiction qualifies as dystopian, of course, but it seems like a lot of UF is also paranormal—and there’s just too much paranormal right now! I have a sinking feeling that steampunk is the Next Big Thing, and that there isn’t going to be a great enough variety in that genre to sustain it long.
Also, after watching Falling Skies Sunday night—how cool would an aliens take over the planet romance series be? Aliens in romance are usually the heroes, it seems. How about making them the villains, and the romance element takes place among the resistance?
I do love the Regency period with dukes, marquesses, etc, and I love the series books. However, I would love to see more “regular” heroes & heroines ( governess with parson, or
store clerk with dairy mad, for instance). I also love the HISTORICAL historicals, with some accurate events in the plot.
I saw THE TUDORS once or twice, and the history was DREADFUL! They actually had someone married to the WRONG person in history.
I do like paranormals, but I LOVE time travel books, and I want to see more of the TTs. I love contemporary books, too. especially in a series.
For those looking for meatier, different settings in their historicals: http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com/
I love to see the variety, and length, that authors can play with now that e-publishing is become more and more an option. Connie Brockway’s new novel will be a case in point, I think. 🙂
I like paranormals a lot: fantasy, horror, and romance are the three genres I read in, so it’s a chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter situation. Outside of romance, it takes a lot for me to read a book without some supernatural element involved. That said, I’m, like, the only woman in the world who doesn’t find either vampires or werewolves* a turn-on, so I’m okay with moving away from that—though I would absolutely read romance featuring demons or superheroes or aliens.
I also like explicit sex. 😉
That said, I’d love more 20th century romances—or 20th-century UF, actually, which has been a thing I’ve been considering for a while—more confident and experienced heroines, more comedy, and fewer babies. Fewer “settling down” HEAs in general, actually, perhaps because that’s an idea of happiness I have some trouble relating to.
*I actually cannot read about animal-form shapeshifters these days: too much time on the Internet, and what has been seen cannot be unseen. ARGH.
I really like what Nightwriter said….Iess series, more modern SciFi without crazy alien tentacle sex, and different types of historical. I liked the idea someone had about the early 1900’s. Or what about the ‘60’s? So many revolutionary things happened in that era. But don’t make it too historical – if I wanted to read history, I’d pick up a history book.
LMFAO.
Count me in for:
—historicals set in the wider world
—early twentieth-century romances
—good sci-fi romances
—Greek mythology/ancient history
—historical fantasy
I agree with more early to mid 20th century settings. Even the 70s is ripe for stories.
As I age I want more time travel , send characters back in time with the sense they have now and a 20 year old body and turn them lose for a do over lol.
@rebyj
I’m still waiting for time travel romances that are little different from the usual time travel romances, such as having – say – a Victorian-era character travelling to the Elizabethan period; a Medieval-era charcter to Ancient Greece, or a Georgian-era character travelling to Edwardian period. I’m really bored with the present-past/vice-versa or present-future/vice-versa set-up.
Agreed on:
-multi-racial romances, with more than just one Black and one White character (there are more options than that, y’know, publishers)
-longer page counts for less rushed endings
-leaving-paranormal-stuff-in-the-paranormals
-more realistic contemporaries with less slut-shaming, and more rom coms!
-better history in historicals… with less supposedly-realistic slut-shaming (every time I read a heroine complain about what huge whores all the other ladies are because they have affairs and oh, no, this heroine won’t ever do that, I want to scream)
-wider range in historicals, for location, time period, and characters
-the death of everything-as-a-series; sometimes I don’t want to read about the hero’s fifteen best buddies sequel-baiting
-less sex, as Lisa said, please please please!
-EVERYTHING CLEO SAID, times one billion; cleo, you’re my new favourite person (especially the non-traditional gender roles and non-alpha males)
-everything dreadpiraterachel said in response to what cleo said
In urban fantasy, I’d like heroines who actually are strong, as opposed to the glut of heroines who are supposed to be amazing but need rescuing by a hero when it’s convenient to the romance.
To be honest, I’ll pretty much go anywhere if the author can take me. Sheikhs, billionaires, rakes – as long as they’re real. One of the best books I read recently had all the accepted tropes and yet made the story so delightful, so real, that I loved it – Caitlin Crews’ “Shameless Playboy.” (retitled “The Disgraced Playboy” in the US – why?)
I wouldn’t mind seeing a return to gothics, if handled well. And Regencies, god do I miss regencies.
I’d love to see more books set during such different time periods, events and locations as Ancient Egypt, Australia Outback, the American Space program, World War I and II, outer space, superheroes and heroines.
Basically, when there is a trend, don’t overplay it. Publish good writing with fantastic characters that I care about and a storyline that doesn’t give me a migraine or make me wince at the stupidity. Do the editing that all professional books deserve, checking facts, spelling and grammar.
added94: I’ve added at least 94 more books just reading SBTB and DA this month.
I love Historical and Contemporary Romances. I would like to see longer books that are well written. I wish Judith McNaught and LaVryle Spencer were still writing. I think that Lisa Kleypas, Madeline Hunter, Sherry Thomas, Meredith Duran and Diana Gabaldon are the best authors writing today. I wish more books were like the Outlander series. Well written and grabs your attention.
I am not into Paranormal, witches or vampires.
Give me a good Romantic book (with sex) and I’m a happy camper.
Am I the only one who’s enjoyed the Historical Novels (with Romance) of Judith Tarr?
She wrote King and Goddess (about Hatshepsut of Egypt), Eagle’s Daughter (about Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire), and the fantasy/historical Alamut series (set during the Crusades with Elves in Love, but one’s Christian and one’s Muslim).
Let’s see now…
Ditto those who would like to see more realistic historicals and longer wordcount. Also more stuff set in the late Victorian period, specifically the London of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. Love the clothes, the atmosphere, the potential for steampunk-y tech.
And now to my biggest personal peeve: I am sick, sick, SICK of rakes. Regency rakes, Georgian rakes, Victorian rakes, and hot contemporary cops/soldiers/businessmen/Special Forces types/whatever who’ll shag anything with a pulse. It often seems that just about every romance hero has to be some kind of sexual marathon winner who values quantity (and plenty of it!) over quality.
I’d really like to read about a few mature heroes who don’t need to have the hormones and sexual drive of desperate fifteen-year-olds to be appealing. Anyone else with me here?
spamword: time58 No, he doesn’t have to do it 58 times a night to keep this reader happy!
Oh, oh, one more thing! I would love it if authors stopped writing characters who act like so much as considering an abortion is a sign that someone has absolutely no worth as a human being. I’m so sick of heroines being incredibly offended when asked about it, of heroes seeing it as the one true sign that a woman is a Gold-Digging Whore(TM), of no one, regardless of how little they can afford to feed themselves, let alone any potential future children, even thinking about whether it might possibly be a half-decent idea. I’d love to see a story in which a heroine had an abortion and didn’t spend the rest of her life punishing herself for it, or in which a hero’s ex had one and he didn’t spend the entire book hating her for ruining his life.
@LizW65: hell yes on the rakes! I cannot stand them. What annoys me the most, actually, are the ones who aren’t rakes but whose authors label them as such just because it’s supposedly sexy or something? Not to me, it’s not.
I’ve read several romance novels recently (all new releases) that ended abruptly. Conflict resolved? Boom! THE END! If this is a new trend, I don’t like it. I don’t need an extended epilogue with babies or anything, but can’t I have a few pages to enjoy the hero and heroine’s happiness?
Niveau said
So. Fucking. True. You just became my new favorite person, along with Cleo. I hope any authors and editors who frequent this site are taking notice!
As someone who won’t see fifty again, I’d like to see more mature main characters, especially the females (the older hero is less uncommon). Give me some baby-boomer women who’ve earned their gray and don’t mind wearing it!
As an author, when I have submitted my works, I have been told that they were well-written, different and cutting edge (interracial historicals without slavery and historicals written without England and Scotland as the background, and interracial romantic sci-fi). Agents and editors have told me that the READER wants the routine and the FAMILIAR. So who is fibbin’? To get my works published, I turned to an ebook press. They are the only sector taking chances on the different. They appreciate the unusual.
Coming at it from a libraryland perspective, here…
Adults reading Young Adult (YA) literature is not going away anytime soon. Expect to see things like the Hunger Games trilogy to continue to do well. Even if you’ve already come of age, the coming of age novel (bildungsromance) appeals to all segments.
I am sick of paranormal myself. But, paranormal will continue to appeal because there’s a lot of “who am I in this scheme of things and can I love this other species/gifted person” due to the bildungsromance appeal above.
The romantic bildungsromance, it’s all about the bildungsromance. I love saying bildungsromance.
The erotic romance isn’t going anywhere soon, either. We wimmens has come out of the closet and embraced our sensual side. The discretion of reading erotica on an e-reader will only increase consumption.
I’d like to see more contemporary romantic suspense – I’m an adrenaline junky. I’m particularly attached to Suzanne Brockmann, Cindy Gerard and the over-the-top-so-far-it’s-ricockulous Tara Janzen. I like the interplay between members of the teams and that characters can be developed over a series of novels before they have their HEA.
I’m hoping to see more contemporaries with the “gamma” hero. The guy who is neither an alpha nor a wimp. Just a regular gentle dude. The hero and heroine are a team instead of one saving the other. Nora Roberts writes these well. Gamma guys rule.
I’ve spent some time wondering if the saga might make a comeback. That might be less romance and more historical fiction.
I religiously read the monthly briefings from trendwatching.com. Two hot trends right now are Generosity and Random Acts of Kindness. A writer or publisher that can tune in on that and run with it in some way could do very well. No creative ideas from me on that one, just know it would hit a chord with consumers of all types.
spamword: john89 as in “it’s been a busy week on the street”
I would love to read more contempories both the gritty kind and the light and fluffy kind. I swear I only get to read about three or four decent ones a year. I would like to see more multi racial romances in contemporary/paranormal romances as well however what I don’t want to read is more unrealistic historical romance. Women dressing in mens clothes was not tolerated, people who married those of other races were shunned, and very very rarely did people marry outside of their class. I love well done historicals, unfortunately they also are few and far between.
Anna’s post confused me. I thought that the Gamma hero were ones that where just a breath away from being a sociopath. Like some of Anne Stuart’s heros are. Her Gamma sounds more like a Beta boy.
I’d like to see more beta boy heros myself. I
Would like to see more Rom coms myself, but not holding my breath. Humor is so subjective and hard to do. What some may see as a humorous female others may see as a ditz.
What y’all said about multi-racial couples, non-alpha heroes. Confident, experienced heroines with plenty of simmering emotion and attraction before getting busy. Less detailed play by play. More steampunk, science fiction, futuristic elements, fewer shapeshifters. Settings and time periods other than the usual suspects. Okay, publishers, here’s your free market research!
Niveau said
DreadPirateRachel added
Oh, thank you. I read a really good story in fanfiction once ….I think it was Dr. Quinn?… that had another female character making that choice, and it was BRILLIANT. And that character was still a decent human being and a good mom afterwards.
I wish I could find that story again. It was awesome.