Lynn Raye Harris

Or not. Diana Peterfreund had this quiz on her blog and, being a LOTR fan, I just couldn’t resist. I’m working on the thesis today, so not sure I have time to write an intelligent post (assuming I usually do, that is–no, no, don’t tell me the truth!). A quiz shall have to suffice.

Tomorrow, exciting news, I’m off to hear Lee Goldberg speak at Kapolei Library. It’s a drive in traffic for me, but my Wednesday group is going to be there, so I figured I’d make the trek.

And now my pointy-eared self must settle down to business……

Elvish

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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Academia and popular genre fiction seem to be polar opposites. And yet, I often find complementary facets when studying one or the other. This past week, I finally got off my behind and started working on my master’s thesis in earnest. Part of the process was to refresh myself with the literature I’d been reading for the past year. I picked up Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Much of VW’s writing is dense and takes time to digest, it’s true. But Room manages to go by rather quickly. There is much between the pages to recommend the book, however I want to concentrate on a particular passage.

[...] It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

And this susceptibility of theirs is doubly unfortunate, I thought, returning again to my original enquiry into what state of mind is most propitious for creative work, because the mind of the artist in order to achieve the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in him, must be incandescent. [...] There must be no obstacle in it, no foreign matter unconsumed.

In other words, a writer must not browbeat the reader with an agenda, or even break into the narrative to allow strong personal feelings to intrude. For example, Woolf uses Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Bronte puts her own feelings about a woman’s role in society into Jane’s head at one point, and Woolf argues that this breaks the genius of the book.

Not sure I entirely agree with that, but I do see the point. Writers should be careful to bury agendas deep. I read a romance recently by an author I love who failed to bury the agenda. While I agree with her, I got tired of being beat over the head by all the characters talking about and being consumed by this agenda. What must readers who don’t agree with the author have thought?

I think we should use our fiction to further our worldview if that’s what we want to do. After all, our fiction comes from within us and our worldview colors what we write. But, we must take care to bury it deeply, to not allow it to overcome the characters and their story in the pursuit of bashing the reader over the head with an idea. Let the idea evolve naturally, feed it in small spoonfuls, and you may just win over more people than you irritate. Woolf would disagree entirely, I am sure.

What do you think? Do agendas have a purpose in the story you write? Is it bad to include them or worse to leave them out (assuming any of us can really do so)? Where is the line between preaching a view and merely having a character espouse a view?

Terry over at I See Invisible People wants to know what I think about the new Harlequin line aimed at NASCAR. She used to be a member of RWA once upon a time, and we used to lament the babies/cowboys/brides thing back then. She wonders why Harl/Silh doesn’t just publish good books and forget about chasing trends. If only it were that easy.

Unfortunately, I think chasing trends (or trying to create them, I suppose) is probably here to stay. I even understand them now (God, I’ve been corrupted!). It isn’t the trend so much as what the writer does with the trend (or hook). Yet I think this kind of trending tends to make romance novels look as dumb as some people (not romance readers or writers) think they are. From the outside, you just know someone’s in the store going, “NASCAR?” with a disgusted look on her face. How many people read that USA Today article and smirked? I’m sure I know a few of them.

Personally, I am not interested in reading NASCAR romances. I acknowledge their right to exist, and other peoples’ rights to read them, but they don’t trip my trigger. I don’t know a damn thing about NASCAR other than Jeff Foxworthy’s absolutely hysterical impersonation of a driver talking about the race (believe that’s on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVD).

Susan Elizabeth Phillips was successful with football heroes. Rachel Gibson and hockey. But we didn’t start seeing a line of books with little footballs or hockey sticks on the covers. Personally, I think writers should be allowed to take chances. I think someone out there can even write an awesome rock star romance.

I think branding these race car books is premature. If they tank, will editors say, “You can’t write a race car hero. Race car romances don’t sell”? And just because the article points out that X number of women are NASCAR fans doesn’t mean that X number of women are also readers. That’s like having a lawyer line because X number of women are lawyers. No guarantee of success.

I would read a race car book if there was a buzz about it. Just like I read SEP’s football books and RG’s hockey books when I am interested in neither sport. Why? Because there was a buzz, because people were excited and saying, “Oh, you have to read this!” And they were right because both those writers made something very fine out of what was then considered taboo–sports heroes.

But Harlequin is only in a testing phase, with a mere 3 books for 2006. Seventeen are planned for 2007. So it may not last. Lines are folding, others springing up in their place, some lines expanding, others contracting. I don’t think the future of NASCAR romance is assured by any stretch. In fact, Kristin Nelson over at Pub Rants was talking about the waning popularity of the chick lit novel. The chick lit novel, people. Who ever thought that would happen?

Apparently, paranormal and romantic suspense is the hot property now. And how. Debut author Allison Brennan hit the NYT extended list with her romantic thriller novel. I don’t know everything by a long shot, but I’m guessing that a first time novelist published in PBO doesn’t usually hit the NYT. This is a fantastic achievement and it certainly indicates what the buying public is interested in right now. Does that mean we should all run out and write thriller romances?

So, bearing in mind this is all my opinion and I’m interested in the free exchange of ideas, what do you think? Are you interested in NASCAR romance? Do you think it’s a good idea? Would you write it if asked? Does it make the genre look dumb? Should we care? Is it just another trend passing through or does it have a shot at being around for a while?

Addendum (found this at Booksquare and couldn’t resist):

We are sorry to report this. Very sorry. Because, and we must be brutal here, there is very little variety one can introduce into what we believe (and math is not something we do in public) will be 20 books (or 22 stories, if we have our anthology-counting right) about love and NASCAR. That is too many. It is gimmicky and silly and why can’t at least five of those drivers really be baseball players?Such is our mood that we’re not even going to be nice to the poor person who wrote the article.

First off, there’s either the most blatant cribbing of cover copy we’ve ever read or the mooniest book description we’ve ever read. Then comes the final two paragraphs, which we note because they make no sense — this is the result of throwing something out there without a follow-up. Always have a follow-up. We don’t care that sometimes editors chop off the ending. Our limited patience has reached the end.