Heroine Doe

What do you look for in a romance heroine? Or the heroine of a space opera, or of a quest fantasy? What kind of heroine always makes you want to read further?

Does she need to be an orphan, or have a big happy family, or a mean and awful family?

Should her eyes be amethyst or only ever brown? Can she ever be conventionally beautiful?

Is she spunky? Angry? Sweet? Cynical? Kickass?

Can she physically defend herself? Does she have cool specialties?

Is she lonely? Vengeful? Weary? Angry?

What are the characteristics that, if you were given them in a blurb, would make you want that novel immediately?

What kind of heroine do you wish you were reading about right now?

Types of Masculinity

What does it mean, to be a man? To be masculine? What does it mean to be a man who is the hero of a romance novel?

Romance readers, including me, often talk about "alpha" or "beta" heroes as two generalized types. The alpha can be seen as a protector and/or a provider (rich in money or at least in skills) as well as a person with a need to dominate a relationship, or at least romantic situations; often the alpha is depicted as physically large and strong and far more attractive than the norm. The beta can be equated with the "nice guy" who might or might not be the most muscular or beautiful man the heroine has ever met.

What needs do those two basic types of heroes meet for readers? Are there possible alternative models of masculinity that could satisfy readers? How do market forces affect what's available? How do reader expectations affect what sells and what writers write? How do types of romance heroes mirror what society finds normative?

Do the alpha and beta models of masculinity allow for truly equal male/female relationships? And how do those roles intersect with female alpha and beta characters in fiction?

Genre is the Highest Form of Literature

I think genre fiction is the highest form of literature. I really do. If "highest" means most important to humanity. How's that for a sweeping claim? Romance, fantasy, mystery, and science fiction. Those are the highest literature out there.

For one thing, look at history. Today, Dickens is "literature." To contemporary readers, he was cheap "escapist" entertainment. So longevity, I feel, is an important part of what makes a particular novel "important" or "not important", "commercial" or "literary"...and I'm already tired of all the air quotes. So I'll stop with those.

Fiction is literature. Literature is fiction. Stories are stories are stories. Every reader reads every story in a different way, through a different lens, for a different purpose. I can get just as much out of a good mystery as I can out of a novel about some white man's midlife crisis; more, actually, since I'll finish the mystery. The really important stories don't wear out. I think genre is the best vehicle for those stories. Coming of Age/Finding Yourself; Fighting Evil; Finding Family--those are all a lot more fun when they happen in the midst of aliens attacking, or hot sex, or trying to solve a murder.

Genre has longevity. People like genre, and they read a lot of it, so it tends to linger; think of all those copies of Harry Potter novels piled up like walls. Think of that pulp adventure story people like so much, The Iliad (which is also kind of epic fantasy), or that fantasy romance that people still talk about, starring Rama and Sita. Genre, it sticks around. The sub-genres shift, but the basics are still there.

Genre tends to use its tropes to address issues of current social concern, even if it does so thematically and not directly; for that reason, it will always be an important historical resource. You can learn an awful lot about, say, gender roles in the 1940s just from reading golden age private detective novels. Or how people feel about technological watersheds from reading science fiction. Fiction can be a useful comparison to nonfiction of a given time period. Add to that the entertainment aspect of genre, and you get more longevity.

Plus, genre tells the stories that are important to us, under the surface. Genre fiction is today's mythology. Genre fiction is in us, not just from the books themselves but also from television, movies, games...certain stories are there, and we use them to make shapes out of our lives. We swim in a genre sea. Certain stories will continue to be there, forever and ever, amen.

And that's why I think genre is the highest form of literature.

The Journal of Popular Romance Studies, First issue!

The Journal of Popular Romance Studies has published its first issue! If only this journal had been around when I was in graduate school...but no, then I never would have gotten around to writing novels.

So far, I've read A Little Extra Bite: Dis/Ability and Romance in Tanya Huff and Charlaine Harris’s Vampire Fiction, by Kathleen Miller. Abstract: "This essay examines Tanya Huff's Blood Price and Charlaine Harris's Dead Until Dark through the lenses of Disability and Feminist Studies to suggest that in these works disability functions as a reclamation of the female body--which has often been viewed as 'always and already' deformed--even as it contributes to the reinvention of the vampire romance genre."

I found the essay fascinating because I didn't know much about Disability Studies as a discipline, and now I'm excited to know more. I was intrigued by the ways the two books worked with and against the idea that these heroines are imperfect simply because they're female, as well as because of their damaged sight or telepathy; their otherness is then heightened and explored when contrasted with their powerful, immortal partners. Read the article to learn more.

There Are Six Bodies in This Relationship: An Anthropological Approach to the Romance Genre, by Laura Vivanco and Kyra Kramer, has some really cool ideas in it as well. I never enjoyed the fact that I'd read the French theorist Foucault, until now, when it proved useful!

I was also very happy to see Pamela Regis' review of Historical Romance Fiction: Heterosexuality and Performativity, by Lisa Fletcher, as I've been thinking of reading that book.

I can't wait to read through the rest of the issue!

Fanfiction and Feedback

I've been meaning to post about fanfiction for a while, not really in connection with recent online discussions of literary fanfiction. Instead I want to talk about one particular reason why people write fanfiction. They write fanfiction for feedback, and for community.

I've been involved with fandom since I was a pre-teen. I read my first Star Trek fanzines in middle school and was unimpressed, I think because the stories didn't resonate for me. At that time, fanfiction was on paper. You had to be "in the know" to even know the stories existed, much less to know how to obtain them. (I learned through a club, and through conventions.) If you wrote fanfiction, you did not have the distribution that's possible with fanfiction that's posted on the internet. You were writing for a very limited audience.

Some fanzines were published in series. If your story appeared in the first issue, and anyone bothered to comment on it, and the fanzine had a second issue, months or even years later, you might get a sentence or so of feedback. When I wrote fanfiction in college, that feedback was like gold. No, platinum. Because I was writing for myself--I love writing--and to explore aspects of the off-the-air television show over which I obsessed, but I also craved discussion. Partly of the show, but more and more of writing.

By the time I was in graduate school, in the early 1990s, fandom was on the internet, mostly in forums and mailing lists. I joined a mailing list and we began to exchange stories via email. Longer stories were posted to the list in parts, usually ending in dramatic cliffhangers.

Feedback was often instantaneous. Even if you posted your story in the middle of the night, someone, somewhere, was awake and reading. Long discussions might be sparked by a story, on all aspects of the writing, not just its relation to the show's canon. In fact, often the stories were very, very far from reproducing episodic television format. Those interested in writing for its own sake found each other quickly, and formed strong bonds. I learned it was all right to geek out about writing. I wasn't the only one.

That was what I loved most about writing fanfiction. I enjoyed writing for the paper zines--I couldn't afford to buy them, but writers received contributor copies--but it was the quick, sincere feedback on the mailing lists that was most valuable to me. If not for those mailing lists, I might not be a professional writer today.

Marriage of Convenience or Not?

My current novel is not a Marriage of Convenience. I'd been thinking it was. In my mind, for many months, I've been calling it "The Werewolf Marriage of Convenience."

Alas, I was wrong. My desperate desire to write a Marriage of Convenience obscured the reality. My characters know each other too well for their marriage to be one of convenience.

I think one of the major aspects of a Marriage of Convenience story is a focus on the hero and heroine (or whatever other gender pairing/grouping you choose) getting to know each other. They've been forced into intimate proximity, and have to make the best of it. If they already know each other, that can't happen, unless there's an additional layer: for example, they knew each other once, but have been separated for years; or for another example, they didn't know each other as well as they thought, because one of them was actually a spy the whole time, or harbored a secret deep angst, or was actually an alien.

In my story, the characters met in The Moonlight Mistress when they were both held captive by the villain. They're both werewolves, and both want werewolf children, so after their escape, one talks the other into marrying (very Marriage of Convenience!). They make sure they are sexually compatible before marrying (not very Marriage of Convenience) and know something already about their partner's basic personality, clearly exposed during their captivity (ditto).

The trick to this story, then, won't be the things they don't know about each other. I think it will have to be what they don't know about what they do know. (I know what I mean!)

The tensions in the story will have to revolve around what their flaws will mean for their marriage. They'll have to learn the depth of those flaws. They'll have to learn to accept and live with flaws they already know about.

So...maybe it is a Marriage of Convenience. It just has one extra layer. What do you think?

I'm thinking I'm going to think about it some more, while I work on a favorites list of marriage of convenience novels.

Related Post:
The Intricacies of Marriages of Convenience.

Reading our Grandmothers

Jessica of Read React Review, one of my favorite blogs, recently mentioned that she had never read Jane Eyre and had decided to do so. I and several others volunteered to read or reread it along with her. I'll be posting on my re-read Friday, May 14th through Sunday, May 16th, and hopefully will manage to put in links to some of the other posts, as well, as they appear - Jessica's post is now scheduled for Sunday, May 23rd.

Because of the re-read, I started thinking about "the classics." I'm not going to try to define "classics." That way lies madness. Instead, I'm going to muse on the idea of there being "classic" romance novels; or maybe I should call them "precursors." Pamela is often cited, and Pride and Prejudice, and of course Jane Eyre. Why are these important to modern romance readers and writers?

To me, Jane Eyre doesn't fit the formula of the modern romance novel; if I had to slot it into a modern literary genre, I'd choose women's fiction instead, because in addition to Jane's relationship with Edward Rochester, the book includes complex relationships with her family, in more than one iteration. Rochester gets a lot of press, but the book is not about him, it's about Jane. (And Gothic romance, and social commentary, and feminism, etc..)

However, fitting into modern genre conventions has nothing to do with why these precursors are important. To me, as a writer, a large part of their importance relates to the genre tropes that modern romances have in common with these books. Certain plot elements in precursor books still resonate today, and are still being used and recreated. How many modern romance novels include the hero and heroine misunderstanding each other, as in Pride and Prejudice, or falling in love without realizing their beloved has a major secret, as in Jane Eyre? Or Byronic heroes, like Jane Eyre? (She's more of one than Edward Rochester, I think. She's so tormented and angry and prone to dark fits of the soul!)

Writers keep using these novels' ideas, reinterpreting them and dialoguing with them. Reading precursors, and also reading their modern descendents, to me is a form of conversation, us in the now with our sisters/mothers in the past (or fathers, in the case of Pamela). If you haven't read these novels, you can't follow the conversations. Reading them is as important as talking to a grandmother.

Among the classics I've never read are Wuthering Heights and Fanny Burney's Evelina. Evelina will probably be the next precursor I read, though it will probably be awhile before I get to it. How about you? What precursors/classics do you love, or have never read, or would like to read?

Related post:
Reading for the Writer.

Making the Paranormal Real: Boundaries and Consequences

This post was originally written for Midnight Moon Cafe.

I was a reader and writer of science fiction and fantasy long before I read romance, and in many ways my reading tastes still reflect that early influence. I tend to favor paranormal romances that have dense worldbuilding that makes sense to me and holds up to questioning. I think, in general, that's a good thing, because anything that can contribute to the realistic/true feel of a story means the reader is less likely to be thrown out of their imagination and into the cold. True, a paranormal romance must focus on the relationship between hero and heroine, but their conflicts can seem much more real if the world in which they live is fully realized. In urban fantasy, which often tends to series format, a well-developed world is even more necessary, and should grow more complex over time, so the readers (and writer) don't become bored.

To me, one of the keys to creating a world that seems real and layered is to ensure that the world has boundaries. And that when those boundaries are trespassed, there are consequences.

It doesn't matter if the paranormal character is "traditional" (vampire, werewolf, ghost) or a creature you've created. As with any other character, you have to decide what they want and why they can't have it. Those issues can be tied tightly into the paranormal aspects of both the character and her world. Barriers to achieving their goals might be supernatural or magical as well. For example, what if the hero can only live in sunlight and the heroine can only live in the dark? Those limitations instantly generate an external barrier that yields conflict, which yields plot. There's a reason the "he's a vampire, she's a vampire hunter" setup is so popular!

I think the more integral the paranormal elements are to the characters and their problems, the richer the story can be. If their problems are "normal" problems, then why make the characters paranormal at all?

Characters with paranormal boundaries to cross means the stakes (wooden ones, even!) can be even higher for them. A vampire's failure might mean not only death, but eternal torment. A werewolf might not merely lose her boyfriend, she might accidentally eat him. The consequences can significantly ramp up the story's tension. Overcoming them can result in a more intense payoff at the story's end.

Finally, boundaries and their consequences are important as turning points in the plot. The characters might have a single significant problem to overcome at the book's climax. Leading up to that, the characters can face subsidiary problems, all of them related to the paranormal worldbuilding elements. First, the hero is freed from the tree where he's been imprisoned. Second, the heroine demands payment for freeing him – he must pay her a portion of his soul. He doesn't remember they were once lovers and she gave him part of her soul; he refuses. Third, the heroine begins to die because the hero hasn't complied. Each boundary causes a problem for the characters, and they must find a way to cross it – or avoid crossing it – and survive the consequences.

Related Posts:
Paranormal Appropriation.
Choosing Your Paranormal Creature.
Why Werewolves?

History as Fantasy

In many ways, writing historical fiction is like writing fantasy. And reading historical fiction is like reading fantasy.

In one genre, you have to look up a lot of tiny details to make the reader accept that the world they're reading about is real/true. In the other genre, you have to make up a lot of details to make the reader accept that the world they're reading about is real/true. In both cases, those details have to be sprinkled into the text in ways that make sense for the story and don't distract the reader from the story, either. In both cases, the details have to hang together.

Both genres have similar reading protocols, as well. Fantasy readers can lose their suspension of disbelief if some part of the fantasy world doesn't make sense to them. This will vary according to how critically the reader reads, or what story elements are more or less important for them.

Historical readers can lose their suspension of disbelief when a historical detail in the story is inaccurate. This varies according to the reader's historical knowledge; for instance, if you know a period very well, you might catch slips that a less-informed reader might miss. And some readers can accept slips, because historical details or period-appropriate diction are less important to them than the story as a whole. Occasionally, the reader might lose their suspension of disbelief because, even though the historical details are accurate, they do not believe in its accuracy because they believe it contradicts something else they know - and that, too, can be a problem of how details are used and presented, part of creating believable architecture for an imaginary world.

Worldbuilding techniques cross-pollinate.

Related post:
Historical Detail in Fiction.

Romance Series-Itis

Series-itis: there's entirely too much wordcount devoted to reminding us what happened to the hero when he was a minor character in a previous book, and setting up various other characters for their roles in future books, not to mention the obligatory mentions of previous romantic couples in the series.

I'm not sure why I like and continue to read series of linked books when what I really want is for the romantic couple of one book to go off to the jungle after their book is done so I don't have to find out that they're pregnant or that they just had twins or how happy they are now while in the middle of someone else's adventure. Their settled happiness is boring, and sucks all the lovely tension out of the current book.

And also, all the linked characters in such a series have to be Happy Together, or if they have any interesting disagreements, they must be resolved so we can eventually see them be Happy Together ("oh, he changed so much after his marriage to Julian's cousin's ward, you know the one who escaped France under the auspices of the Purple Pumpernickel--you mean Arthur is the Purple Pumpernickel? And he was in love with her? Oh, poor Arthur. Well, maybe he can find another wench, now that he's unexpectedly come into his title through that bizarre great-great-aunt accident.")

All that niceness gets a little wearing after a while. And if they're all so friendly, that means, again, that old characters have to take up space in each book that should belong to its hero and heroine. Series-itis sufferers often replace the quite useful unnamed flat character in order to shoehorn in someone from a previous or future book.

Judy Cuevas' Bliss and Dance use a better approach. The first book ends with the two brothers still not entirely settled in their relationship, and is resolved somewhat with very occasional letters in the second book. Brief, to the point, shows character change.

Related Post:
Ultra-Brother!

Where Are the Older Heroines?

Where are the older heroines in romance novels?

Not there. Not often. Not that I've seen.

And by older I only mean, like, getting close to forty. It seems to be okay for romance heroes to be forty or above - though I've noticed the author may let you know only once or twice and then not mention it again - but heroines? Not so much. Fifty and above? Even close to fifty? Where are they? Are they there, only hidden away in specialty imprints?

I wonder if this will change, now that the world's population is aging? Or if there's some ingrained marketing belief that post-fifty people are assumed to want to read about people younger than themselves, much as kids are assumed to want to read about kids who are a little older than themselves?

My favorite romance with a post-fifty heroine is Stitch in Snow by Anne McCaffrey.

And as a side note, I'd love to read a romance novel with a heroine for whom age is a feature, not a bug. Who's perhaps happy she's grown in wisdom and self-knowledge, because it gives her more resources to fight the vampires.

What do you think?

If you have examples of romance novels with heroines past forty, please share them! I think at this point I'd even take past thirty-five.

Why Not Twentieth Century Historicals?

Why are so few (print) romance novels set in the twentieth century?

If you go to a bookstore and look at the section labelled "Romance," certain things are there and certain things are not. With the exception of occasional outliers like Harlequin's line of 20th century "decade" books-- a line of categories that some bookstores didn't carry, and which was then closed down--historicals seem to include only a few periods.

The highest proportion of historicals set in Britain and Europe are set in the 19th century, with the Regency era far surpassing the earlier Georgian period (technically, Regency is still Georgian, I know--but in Romance the distinction seems to be made that way). Medievals seem to be a much smaller slice of the market, as are Victorians. Sometimes, you get something set in the Renaissance, mostly in Italy, or in France during the Revolution. (There are always exceptions, and I love exceptions, so please tell me your favorites!)

American history seems to consist of the Civil War and the "western expansion" era of the late 19th and sometimes very early 20th century. I have seen some paranormal authors, for example Susan Krinard, write books that take place at least partly on the US East Coast in the 19th century, but that isn't common. Occasionally someone writes a book set in the American Revolution, usually including some intersection between Americans and British. Suzanne Brockmann got away with some WWII content mixed with contemporary in some of her Navy SEALS romance/suspense novels, but I note that she's stopped doing that some time ago; her current series is all contemporary. And that is mostly it, at least that I can think of.

Why is this? Who decided? Are more current time periods--the 1920s through, say, the 1970s--seen as less interesting? Are writers simply not producing books set in those periods, or is it that publishers don't want them? Have they tried them, and they don't sell? Is it just too weird for people to read about a period they lived through, or that their parents lived through? Is the recent past too close to us, and does it disrupt the fantasy aspects of the story? Do we know too much that's disturbing about our recent history?

Aside from all those issues, it may be part of the problem that one researches a romance partially by reading other romances to see the shape of the genre, and there are few predecessors for romances set during more recent historical periods (what about novels contemporary to those periods, from the 1960s and 1970s, for example?).

Or could it be the fault of readers that 20th century historicals aren't popular? Regular readers of, say, Regencies, acquire a basic grasp of that time period. In relation to periods in which one never lived, what if the majority of readers don't want to learn about a new time period, since they're happy in the one they've chosen?

Since we're well into the twenty-first century now, perhaps it's time to think more about writing books set in the twentieth.

Pondering the Mail-Order Bride

I had another thought about Western romances.

Does the reason the "mail-order bride" plot is so popular in Western romances have anything to do with the idea that marriage is linked to civilization? In that case, marriage could be civilization, and imposing it upon two people can be likened to imposing a farm onto a wilderness, or law upon a den of outlaws.

True, the mail-order bride isn't usually forced legally to marry, but she often takes that action under force of circumstances. Circumstances, interestingly, that usually arise in the East, supposedly a place of "civilization."

Is there a subtle commentary going on here, that the "civilized" world isn't, and that the new, improved civilization is the looser, freer world of the frontier? A commentary also, perhaps, on the European historical, particularly the rigid Regency or Victorian, versus the "new" world of America?

I am probably reading way too much into this.

Related post:
The Intricacies of Marriages of Convenience.

Basics of the Western

So, Westerns. What are the basic elements of a Western? There are the two plots: 1) a stranger comes to town and 2) someone leaves town, heading for a new place. A subsidiary plot involves surviving in the wilderness, whether that's physical (making a go of a farm or ranch) or emotional (surviving in a corrupt town) - both come under the category of Civilization versus Wilderness. And, usually, there's some kind of moral conflict going on, whether it's personal (fighting an enemy) or social (fighting outlaws).

There are also, often, a lot of issues relating to representation of Native Americans in many Western romances. I've been looking for some critical sources about this issue, so if you know of some, please let me know!

In romance novels, the major conflict must always be the relationship. So in a Western romance, the basic conflicts are usually represented on a personal level. I think that's why there are so very many Western romances involving an Eastern woman (stranger) traveling to a Western town, where she is often a civilizing influence on a wilderness man, who might be rough-mannered, or an outlaw, or even a civilizing influence on the wilderness himself.

Various elements of the Western genre work really well with the structure of a romance novel. Westerns provide a setting and a framework for stories; romances provide a plot structure. The two mesh easily together, like romances with mystery/thrillers.

One thing I think might be specific to Western romances is that the setting can also be a character. Think of Western movies, and all those gorgeous shots of sunset-lit rock and flowing plains. Very often, the stranger character in a romance, usually the woman, falls in love with the landscape she's met as much as with the man. Often, the man himself is revealed to have a deep love of the landscape in which he lives.

I also find it interesting that Western romances take a genre that's heavily gendered as male (think of the Western movies you've seen) and bend the civilization aspect of the genre towards making a personal home rather than a law-abiding town; making a home is usually gendered female in our society. When the woman's goals come up against the man's in a romance, even if he's a rough and tough hero, usually she comes out the victor in the end, "taming" him, even if on the surface she remains the "little woman." Conventional as some western romances can be, they can also be subversive.

My Favorite Girls Dressed as Boys - Fantasy Edition

Fantasy novels are rife with girls dressed up as boys. I'm not sure if it's because there are so many female fantasy readers versus so many male fantasy heroes, or if it's a result of a common romance-adventure trope sliding into its modern subgenre, or a combination of both, or neither.

Anyway, here are some of my favorites in the fantasy genre.

Ellen Kushner, The Privilege of the Sword: notable in that the heroine doesn't really want to be dressed as a boy, and learn to fight with swords. This changes. I think this is one of the best examples of integrating cross-dressing into the novel as a whole, so it's integral to characterization, plot, and theme. An excellent review by Yoon Ha Lee. Here's another at Green Man Review.

Lynn Flewelling, The Bone Doll's Twin: takes cross-dressing to an extreme. The heroine is magically disguised as a boy (to be the image of her dead twin) from the time she's a baby; if it's discovered she's female, and might fulfill a prophecy, she'll be killed. Until she's a teenager, she doesn't know what's been done to her. It's a dark novel with some horror elements, and I think the best of Flewelling's work. The sequels, when the heroine has been returned to her own female form, are lighter in tone with a more epic fantasy feel.

Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hawkmistress!: I enjoyed this book a great deal in high school, but I suspect it might not hold up for me today. The heroine disguises herself as a boy and takes to the road, earning her keep using her telepathic gift with birds. I remember being very disappointed when her sex was discovered, and thought the novel suffered after that.

Tamora Pierce, Alanna: the First Adventure: a middle grade/young adult novel in which the title character takes her brother's place in learning to be a royal page. A classic example of the form.

And let's not forget Eowyn in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King. It's a small part of the whole, but a most satisfying part.

What about you?

Related Post: My Favorite Girls Dressed as Boys, Romance Edition.

Why No, My Face Is NOT Red

Back in December, I was involved in a discussion about (I paraphrase) how to get used to using "naughty" words in your writing, when they weren't in your everyday vocabulary.

"Naughty" words should be treated just like any other words, as tools to get meaning across, to communicate meaning as accurately as possible.

For instance, do those particular words suit the story you're writing? If your character wouldn't say or think the word, then you shouldn't use it.

I think a key to using transgressive words beneficially is to make those words, whatever they are, work for you. If you have to work to use them, reach down deeper into your unconscious, then they become a feature, not a bug.

It's excellent writing exercise. Think of a sexual word you have never used, or perhaps a sexual act you've never written about, and then use it in a scene.

You might uncover more than you bargained for by transgressing your own internal boundaries.

Worthy Transgressions

People have been talking for a while about how there's more erotica being published in both print and electronic formats, and how more people are reading erotica and talking about it, and how erotica is getting more and more explicit and transgressive.

transgression: (noun) an act of transgressing; violation of a law, command, etc.; sin. Or, in the case of published erotica, exploring the limits of societal boundaries regarding sexual acts.

Is there any way to gauge appropriate levels of transgression? (I am aware of the innate humor of that question!) If we progress in huge leaps, will we leave our readers behind? He did what with what in a what? Why? If we progress in tiny, shuffling steps, will the readers grow bored with reading the same acts over and over again? Oh, good grief, not another ménage à neuf.

If writers are exploring the boundaries, how far is too far? And is that really the relevant question? I think the real question might be, how far it worth it to go outside the boundaries?

I think, in story terms, it's the boundaries that are of the first importance. You can't transgress unless there's a boundary in place. If those boundaries aren't set up in the novel or story, then transgressing is meaningless, and fails the "why do we care?" test of fiction.

Say the story is set in Regency England. It's a big deal if one character deliberately ignores another on the street. In a contemporary novel set in, say, New York City, that act would be much less meaningful. If, however, one contemporary character was peacefully walking along 6th Avenue and another character ran over and sniffed her buttocks, then there would be conflict. In a science fiction world where all of the dog-descended aliens sniff each others' buttocks in greeting, not sniffing would be the transgression.

To say it another way, I think the effective degree of transgression in a story is directly related to the boundaries the writer sets within that world. If those boundaries aren't set, then transgression might momentarily shock, but ultimately not serve the story.

If the world is contemporary and local, it's a bit easier to relate to the boundaries, as we carry them within us; then the craft issue moves on to the next stage, using the transgression effectively by making it uniquely relevant to the characters and themes of the story.

If the transgression doesn't serve the story, then I think it's pointless. At least in the stories I am most interested in reading.

Grit Under My Boots

If I'm reading a historical novel, or for that matter, a science fiction or fantasy novel, or a romance, or any other genre, I want to feel the grit underneath my boots.

Even in a shiny futuristic city where everyone wears white because nothing is dirty, I want to see the dirt. Because the dirt has to be there somewhere. Someone has to be cleaning up that shiny city. Maybe it's robots. But somebody takes care of the robots, or the robots have artificial intelligence, and I want to know how they feel about their role in making the city shiny for the humans.

Or in a historical, I want the dirt. If the story's about rich people, I at least want hints of what their servants do and think, and how the rich people think about those issues. I understand the story's not about that, but I still want to know, just enough to fill the place in my brain that suspends my disbelief.

If I don't get the grit, or even the hint of grit, I feel the lack. The world isn't real to me, and thus the story can't be true. By "true" I mean that it speaks to me, that there is a truth to the story I can feel deep down. A story with truth is honest. It doesn't ignore the realities of our world: gender discrimination, racism, classism, human rights. Even in a book that's meant to be an escape, I want to know it's possible, in the imaginary world of the book, to address those issues. If they're ignored too completely, it's like the door of an enclave slamming down: you're not allowed in here.

Introduction to Steampunk

I'm visiting the Romance Junkies Blog today, so please stop by!

Tomorrow at my own blog I start six days of posts about television adaptations of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy Sayers.

#

Steampunk Recommendations

Comics:
Fullmetal Alchemist is a wonderful Japanese steampunk series, available as both manga and anime.

Also in comics, Lea Hernandez' Cathedral Child and Clockwork Angels. Phil and Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius can be read for free online.

I really love The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. And so should you.

Style:
If you'd like to get a good overview of steampunk fashion, check out Steampunk Workshop and the Flickr photo pool.

A quick guide to Steampunk style.

Do It Yourself is part of the fun, but if you want to spend money, try these fine vendors:
Clockwork Couture.
Victorian Trading Company.
Steampunk jewelry and accessories at Etsy.com.

Television:
The Wild Wild West was full of improbable gadgets. I prefer the tv show, not the later movie...though the movie might have sparked new interest, so who knows?

Books:
I'm going to focus on earlier examples of the genre for the most part.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick.

The Hollow Earth by Rudy Rucker.

Last, Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale is a much newer book that has some wonderful imagery and ideas, and includes a delicious male/male romance. I read this book wanting more of it, and still want more of it.

More?
Steampunk Month at Tor.com.

A post by Meljean Brook that's an introduction to steampunk.

Done? Then move on to Dieselpunk.

I wonder when someone will start a trend of "SteamPink"?

Three Takes on the Marriage of Convenience

I recently read, in succession, three new books by Mary Balogh, a perennial favorite of mine in historical romance. The three books about three sisters each featured a Marriage of Convenience plot, and each one approached that basic plot from a different angle.

Warning: there are some plot spoilers in this post.
First Comes Marriage was the most traditional. The heroine's teenage brother, Stephen, has recently learned he's heir to an earldom. He and his sisters must enter aristocratic society, for which they are woefully unprepared. The hero, Elliott, is to be Stephen's guide, and since he needs to marry anyway, decides he will marry Stephen's oldest sister. The oldest sister carries a torch for another man, so the widowed middle sister, Vanessa, proposes that she should be the bride. The two marry fairly promptly and the story goes on from there.

Then Comes Seduction uses avoidance of scandal as the motive for marriage. The youngest sister, Katherine, was attracted to the hero, Jasper, but unbeknownst to her, he had drunkenly wagered that he could seduce her. He almost succeeds, but then his conscience stops him; he takes blame on himself and the matter is hushed up. However, three years later, they meet again, and he is attempting to court her when the scandal is revived and they are forced into marriage. This one features a mixture of plot elements: a burgeoning ambiguous attraction before the marriage combined with revelations of character that happen afterwards.

At Last Comes Love features the oldest sister, Margaret. In book two, the man with whom she'd been in love married someone else. In this book, he's widowed and back in England. Meanwhile, the scandalous hero, Duncan, has just over two weeks to marry for monetary reasons that also relate to the scandal in which he was involved years before. Again, Balogh combines elements of circumstantial forces (inconvenient lies, need for money, feelings of desperation) with courting; Margaret is attracted to Duncan, and demands to be courted, as both would like a "real" marriage to ensue. I still consider this book to be a Marriage of Convenience, because they are married long before the book is over, and numerous complications arise afterwards. To me, the essence of this plot is making something good out of circumstance, and this book definitely fits into that category. In some ways, it's similar to the second book but taken one step farther.

I'll be very interested to see if the fourth book in this series, featuring Stephen, also features a Marriage of Convenience plot.

Related posts:

Intricacies of Marriages of Convenience.

Why I Love the Marriage of Convenience Plot.