Last week I was having a masochistic moment and decided to browse through the romance novel section at Barnes & Noble. Since my novel is considered to be a 'romance', I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at my book's potential shelf mates.
How bad could it be?
It was bad. I found myself surrounded by covers of tan men with greased up pec muscles bursting through their shirts and fair maidens with long, windblown hair looking completely unaware that their enormous boobs were on the verge of busting out of their bodices. It was nearly impossible for me to visualize my glasses-wearing, book nerd heroine sitting next to those visions of romantic perfection. Heck, my character would roll her eyes and snort out a laugh at the Fabio wannabes on either side of her.
I'm not one to poo-poo another author's creation (as authors, we should be respectful and constructive when critiquing each other's work) but, to be honest - I don't like romance novels.
Standing among those books made me want to scrap my novel or shelve it indefinitely in an effort to save it from sitting alongside them.
I like to think of the book I'm writing as the 'anti-romance romance novel.' It's about quirky, goofy, self-effacing characters that are trying to navigate their way through the murkiness of life and love. One of my best friends told me that I was the "right kind of weird." If that is true, I've passed that weirdness along to my characters.
The stories I write are for people that don't get carried off into the sunset on a white stallion to live in a castle far, far away. For people like me, romance means getting coffee in a cafe, sending love messages through social media and cheap dates at food trucks. Yeah, okay, I admit that I do miss the days that my Grandmother spoke of when people dressed up for dates, received flowers for no reason and sipped martinis in dimly lit supper clubs while listening to crooners. But let's be realistic, those days are long gone and not likely to return (such a shame).
I write for the ordinary gal and guy that are hoping for someone special to come into their lives. They want someone they can be themselves with. They want to play video games, browse bookstores, go on hikes, watch horror movies while snuggling on the couch with a blanket and a giant bowl of popcorn, cook dinner together and not care that it's served on mismatched plates, drive around town listening to 80's hair band music and yell at the TV together while watching baseball or football games. That's the perfectly imperfect world we live in right now.
An escape from daily life is nice and I know that is where the bodice-ripper novels come in but there is something to be said for identifying with characters and the situations they are put in. Relating to those two things can make us feel like we aren't alone in the world and that someone wrote a book just for us (Wow! That sounds just like ME!).
That's pretty special.
Smiling,
~ Valeka
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