AKA: Why you shouldn’t let someone else define your dreams
In case you didn’t infer it from my post yesterday about the Quest, the very first novel I wrote was a romance novel. This is a story I very rarely call my first novel, even though at the time, I was trying to figure out how to seek a publisher for it. Fortunately, just the thought of a query letter terrified me, or even how to appropriately write and ask for submission guidelines (because back in those days, people did things like that), so I never got around to submitting it anywhere.
Fortunately, I never did. It was probably about 25k worth of sloppy drivel. I don’t know how many words because this was almost 15 years ago when I didn’t understand things like word count. I can almost guarantee I don’t have a copy of it anywhere any more. Though I do have remainders laying around of what I tried to make the story into over the next decade or so.
I abandoned it. The entire thing. Even when I started to improve my writing craft, every time I tried to go back to it I would give up on it again. It was never because I didn’t like the story. I still love the basic concept and I still think it would be a great story in the right hands.
It was because every time I would talk about it with someone, they would wrinkle their nose. “Romance? Like those crappy books at the newstand with Fabio on the cover?”
Because there’s this stigma associated with romance novels. And I get that. Some of them are really bad. But guess what? So are some science fiction books, fantasy, literary novels…every genre (or non genre) has bad books. There are bad self-help books, bad cook books, bad atlases (okay, I don’t know about that last one, but I assume there has to be…I mean, odds say at least one exists, right?).
But I still let the responses deter me. Someone would say “what’s the story about?”
And I would say “Well, Girl A meets Boy A, and after some interference from friends and some bad dates with other people, they realize they love each other”.
And they would say “So what’s the story about?”
It’s taken me a long time to recover from that and reconcile that is what the story is about.
I’m still really picky about the romance novels I read. But I’m also really picky about any book I read. And I’ve decided…if I want to write romance stories, I should do it. (As long as I don’t have to give up the ridiculously over-powered angels and hero stories I write ‘on the side’ 😉
If I try it a few times and decide I don’t like it, I’ll be moving on. But at least if I walk away again, I’ll know it’s because I want to and not because someone else turned their nose up at me.
Have you ever let someone else deter you from something you knew you really wanted just because they had an opinion?
During the entire month of April, I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. The alphabet will be my motivation, though the content of the posts will be very similar to what regular readers are used to. Check out the link for more amazing bloggers, and enjoy April!
I was just telling another fellow blogger this – I think that a romance novel is successful when it captures all sides of the relationship between the two characters…not just the physical side. If the intimacy and sexual tension are the only aspects driving the book forward, then characters will probably seem, well, not very deep or complex.
I understand where you’re coming from. My first novel was also romance and it was really hard for me to balance everything so I abandoned it too. I would like to finish it some day though because I still really love the story and the characters.
For me, I try not to let other people’s assumptions and opinions deter me from writing something that I am really interested in. 🙂 And the best part is proving all of them wrong…that a romance novel CAN be good!
~Wendy Lu
The Red Angel Blog
First of all, yes, there are bad atlases. I mean, there was one in the 1780s that insisted there was a channel of ocean separating America and Canada into two continents.
Second, I had this argument once about romance novels and pointed out that some of our undisputed classic novels are *just* romances. I mean, “Jane Eyre”? “Pride and Prejudice”? (I could go on.) There’s no shame in being in the genre.
Thirdly, romances are just fun. It seems to me that the easiest way to ensure a good supply of well-written ones is to stop discouraging good writers from attempting them.
Which book-length comment is to say: “Please, I want to read your romance when it’s done?”
I would LOVE to say that I don’t let others opinions deter me from my writing, but sometimes I do 🙁 I get discouraged by the novels that my cuz tells me is being sold and I automatically think what I write will never get picked up. But then I still write what I want, anyway. I just take a few days to gripe about it and consider not writing realistic YA, but then I wake up and realize that’s just what I do best.
I get discouraged easily, though not as easily as I used to. Now it’s the opinions of people I respect that matter. When my boyfriend tells me something I want to do is a bad idea, it hits hard. But he loves me, so I take his advice. I’m done being discouraged by people I don’t respect.
You’re right, all genres have books that are terrible. I wish people would get past that, and judge a book by its merits rather than its marketing location.
My favorite romance novels are the ones that have something else in them too. It’s not all just boy meets girl and kissing and stuff. I like a little more meat surrounding the sex.
Aww, there is nothing wrong with writing romance. My first finished novel and nanowrimo win was a romance novel. 😉