Not every guy is 6'5 with a ten inch dick
I read a fair amount within what is considered the paranormal romance genre, that is, a mix of romance and paranormal elements. Sure, most of the paranormals in the last few years has been vampires, and those books are still going strong (although some people are tiring of them), but writers are branching out to other paranormal creatures.
I don't read much within the straight romance genre itself, although no one should poo poo any genre that is half, half of all books published. That is some kind of huge publishing power, there is a lot of money to be made for all parties concerned in the romance genre. But a lot of people do dismiss the romance genre out of hand, calling it trashy, among other things. Perhaps there are trashy books out there, but that's true for any genre.
I see time and again it said that romance novels, and this would include paranormal romance, are about romantic relationships, which are inevitably going to lead to sex at some point. Ah, sex, we all like that, and we like reading about characters having sex. I haven't got a good basis for comparison between paranormal romance and straight romance, so these thoughts (which are the thoughts of a well-informed reader, not any kind of industry expert) are really going to be more about the paranormals, except to say this: if romance accounts for half of all books bought, and let's be honest, women are the vast, vast majority of readers of romance, then this is something that is important to women. Men who wanted to please women would do well to take notice of this.
But this gets me to my gripe (and hence the provocative title of this post). To step back, this week, I read a book called Mysteria (Book 9 of my 50 book challenge), a collection of 4 novellas in a shared world/town called Mysteria, somewhere just outside of Denver, and filled with all kinds of magical (and even some nonmagical) folks. I was getting what I expected from the stories, but by the time I read the last story in the book, the P.C. Cast novella, I actually found myself getting rather annoyed (and ended up not enjoying her story at all, a surprise to me, since I've enjoyed some of her novels in the past).
And it got me to thinking about what was really at the heart of my annoyance. One reason I have enjoyed paranormals in the past is that they weren't as formulaic as straight romance (which really has a contract with the reader that it needs to fulfill). The paranormals, being the new kid on the block, seemed to have more leeway to explore story and relationship, the latter especially so because after all, these women were having relationships with all kinds of nonhuman creatures.
But over time, it seems that the paranormal genre has in many ways molded itself into a formulaic mold, and at times I find myself becoming increasingly dissatisfied with it. It's not so much the stories, it's the men in the stories. I haven't read the Anita Blake books, so my first serious relationship with an ongoing vampire series was Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. These have been wildly successful, and the first several were really entertaining to read. But I've actually kind of given up on them, because of the men. And other writers have fallen into the same mold with their men, including the stories within the Mysteria collection.
All their men are rich, 6'5" (or taller), with ripped abs, pecs and arms, and (presumably, based on so many descriptions) 10 inch dicks, who know how to use them (along with their well-trained tongues). They're all drop dead gorgeous, many with long, tawny, curly hair. They're all apparently dissatisfied with their standard drop dead gorgeous female counterparts. Probably the one thing many of them lack is the necessary geektitude to appeal to a braniac like me - too often they don't have much in the way of complicated personalities. And that's another thing about a lot of these books (which I actually like): the women are often smart, normal women (despite cover art to the contrary at times), and oh goodness, Thor (because these guys are never named David, with probably the sole exception of David in the Weather Warden books) of the Blue Eyes, Ripped Abs, and Enormous Hardness is in love with them, at first sight, and he is all consumed with her!
Okay, I get it that these books are meant to be fantasies, and these male characters represent the writers' fantasies. Hell, mine, too! Who wouldn't want a rich, tall, stacked, well hung man with mad skills in the bedroom and a brain to fall madly in love with normal, average (overweight, middle aged) me. I mean, what town do these men all live in (because they're certainly not in Austin) - I'll pack my bags and move there tomorrow.
I'm smart enough to know this is fantasy, but after a while, I find I've become bored with this particular fantasy. The commercial success of these books leads me to believe I may actually be in a minority, though. And as long as people women are buying these books, the fantasy will go on. I want a little more variety, a little spice, and yes, a little more realism in my fantasies. After all, I can't eat Kobe beef every night, sometimes I need chicken. Maybe even a little pork or tofu.
That last point may sound contradictory to what fantasy is or should be, but I have to think that women who spend so much time in the fantasy of the Viking love god who loves them and no others for all eternity (since many of these characters are also immortal) must inevitably face disappointment when they emerge from their lusthaze and look at the man across the table from them. Or for some of us, there is no man across the table from us, and that reality becomes that much more painful.
But really, why can't there be fantasies about middle aged, 5'11 balding guys with average incomes and average appendages? Can't these guys be sexy, don't they have something to offer us? Isn't is far more likely that's the man we're going to end up with? Yes, people read to escape their realities (one reason, anyway), but that doesn't mean that the Average Joe can't be presented in such a way that he becomes the fantasy. Come on, let's here it for the average guy! Sometimes (as I've certainly found out in some past relationships), he can really surprise you in a lot of good ways.
There are a few books I've come across out there like that - one that comes to mind right away are the Succubus books by Richelle Mead. The primary guy that our sad, mistreated and yet likeable succubus is in love with is just a guy, a cute guy, but just a guy. Like any guy we might see going about our business. I love these books because their story is so damned complicated, which makes it that much more real. (A little too real at times for me, but in the end, I feel that things will work out well for our girl and boy.) We've gone on a journey over the course of several books with Seth and Georgina, we've gotten to know them as people, including their faults and insecurities, their hurts and happinesses, and we've developed relationships with them (and the other characters in the books as well - in the last book, I was very sad for how things went for Maddy).
Relationship - that is what I'm looking for, both in my books and in my real life.
If the relationships are just as important as the fantastical elements in paranormals, why have so many of them become little more more than about fulfilling physical fantasies? More and more often, perhaps at the demands of readers or publishers (just a guess, I don't know), the main couple hops into the sack right away after one or two meetings, and the story becomes a series of transitions meant to get these two people back into the bedroom, or the kitchen counter, or the woods, or where ever, and less about us discovering who these people are. They've become situational pornography. I am strongly of the belief that in the real world, those kinds of relationships just don't work out, for the very reason that the couple is too busy having sex to really take the time to get to know each other.
Now, it would be hubris for me to suggest to a writer what story they tell - they have to tell the story that is in them. But as a reader, I'm not ready just yet to give up altogether on good, complicated (paranormal) romances. But I am looking for more writers like Richelle Mead (and a shout out also to Rachel Caine), who have stories in them that allow me to learn about their characters, and fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other, instead of just going along with them as a voyeur on their Romp Around the World tour.
I don't read much within the straight romance genre itself, although no one should poo poo any genre that is half, half of all books published. That is some kind of huge publishing power, there is a lot of money to be made for all parties concerned in the romance genre. But a lot of people do dismiss the romance genre out of hand, calling it trashy, among other things. Perhaps there are trashy books out there, but that's true for any genre.
I see time and again it said that romance novels, and this would include paranormal romance, are about romantic relationships, which are inevitably going to lead to sex at some point. Ah, sex, we all like that, and we like reading about characters having sex. I haven't got a good basis for comparison between paranormal romance and straight romance, so these thoughts (which are the thoughts of a well-informed reader, not any kind of industry expert) are really going to be more about the paranormals, except to say this: if romance accounts for half of all books bought, and let's be honest, women are the vast, vast majority of readers of romance, then this is something that is important to women. Men who wanted to please women would do well to take notice of this.
But this gets me to my gripe (and hence the provocative title of this post). To step back, this week, I read a book called Mysteria (Book 9 of my 50 book challenge), a collection of 4 novellas in a shared world/town called Mysteria, somewhere just outside of Denver, and filled with all kinds of magical (and even some nonmagical) folks. I was getting what I expected from the stories, but by the time I read the last story in the book, the P.C. Cast novella, I actually found myself getting rather annoyed (and ended up not enjoying her story at all, a surprise to me, since I've enjoyed some of her novels in the past).
And it got me to thinking about what was really at the heart of my annoyance. One reason I have enjoyed paranormals in the past is that they weren't as formulaic as straight romance (which really has a contract with the reader that it needs to fulfill). The paranormals, being the new kid on the block, seemed to have more leeway to explore story and relationship, the latter especially so because after all, these women were having relationships with all kinds of nonhuman creatures.
But over time, it seems that the paranormal genre has in many ways molded itself into a formulaic mold, and at times I find myself becoming increasingly dissatisfied with it. It's not so much the stories, it's the men in the stories. I haven't read the Anita Blake books, so my first serious relationship with an ongoing vampire series was Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series. These have been wildly successful, and the first several were really entertaining to read. But I've actually kind of given up on them, because of the men. And other writers have fallen into the same mold with their men, including the stories within the Mysteria collection.
All their men are rich, 6'5" (or taller), with ripped abs, pecs and arms, and (presumably, based on so many descriptions) 10 inch dicks, who know how to use them (along with their well-trained tongues). They're all drop dead gorgeous, many with long, tawny, curly hair. They're all apparently dissatisfied with their standard drop dead gorgeous female counterparts. Probably the one thing many of them lack is the necessary geektitude to appeal to a braniac like me - too often they don't have much in the way of complicated personalities. And that's another thing about a lot of these books (which I actually like): the women are often smart, normal women (despite cover art to the contrary at times), and oh goodness, Thor (because these guys are never named David, with probably the sole exception of David in the Weather Warden books) of the Blue Eyes, Ripped Abs, and Enormous Hardness is in love with them, at first sight, and he is all consumed with her!
Okay, I get it that these books are meant to be fantasies, and these male characters represent the writers' fantasies. Hell, mine, too! Who wouldn't want a rich, tall, stacked, well hung man with mad skills in the bedroom and a brain to fall madly in love with normal, average (overweight, middle aged) me. I mean, what town do these men all live in (because they're certainly not in Austin) - I'll pack my bags and move there tomorrow.
I'm smart enough to know this is fantasy, but after a while, I find I've become bored with this particular fantasy. The commercial success of these books leads me to believe I may actually be in a minority, though. And as long as people women are buying these books, the fantasy will go on. I want a little more variety, a little spice, and yes, a little more realism in my fantasies. After all, I can't eat Kobe beef every night, sometimes I need chicken. Maybe even a little pork or tofu.
That last point may sound contradictory to what fantasy is or should be, but I have to think that women who spend so much time in the fantasy of the Viking love god who loves them and no others for all eternity (since many of these characters are also immortal) must inevitably face disappointment when they emerge from their lusthaze and look at the man across the table from them. Or for some of us, there is no man across the table from us, and that reality becomes that much more painful.
But really, why can't there be fantasies about middle aged, 5'11 balding guys with average incomes and average appendages? Can't these guys be sexy, don't they have something to offer us? Isn't is far more likely that's the man we're going to end up with? Yes, people read to escape their realities (one reason, anyway), but that doesn't mean that the Average Joe can't be presented in such a way that he becomes the fantasy. Come on, let's here it for the average guy! Sometimes (as I've certainly found out in some past relationships), he can really surprise you in a lot of good ways.
There are a few books I've come across out there like that - one that comes to mind right away are the Succubus books by Richelle Mead. The primary guy that our sad, mistreated and yet likeable succubus is in love with is just a guy, a cute guy, but just a guy. Like any guy we might see going about our business. I love these books because their story is so damned complicated, which makes it that much more real. (A little too real at times for me, but in the end, I feel that things will work out well for our girl and boy.) We've gone on a journey over the course of several books with Seth and Georgina, we've gotten to know them as people, including their faults and insecurities, their hurts and happinesses, and we've developed relationships with them (and the other characters in the books as well - in the last book, I was very sad for how things went for Maddy).
Relationship - that is what I'm looking for, both in my books and in my real life.
If the relationships are just as important as the fantastical elements in paranormals, why have so many of them become little more more than about fulfilling physical fantasies? More and more often, perhaps at the demands of readers or publishers (just a guess, I don't know), the main couple hops into the sack right away after one or two meetings, and the story becomes a series of transitions meant to get these two people back into the bedroom, or the kitchen counter, or the woods, or where ever, and less about us discovering who these people are. They've become situational pornography. I am strongly of the belief that in the real world, those kinds of relationships just don't work out, for the very reason that the couple is too busy having sex to really take the time to get to know each other.
Now, it would be hubris for me to suggest to a writer what story they tell - they have to tell the story that is in them. But as a reader, I'm not ready just yet to give up altogether on good, complicated (paranormal) romances. But I am looking for more writers like Richelle Mead (and a shout out also to Rachel Caine), who have stories in them that allow me to learn about their characters, and fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other, instead of just going along with them as a voyeur on their Romp Around the World tour.