There\u00a0are\u00a0folks\u00a0who pride themselves on being\u00a0open-minded and accepting.\u00a0 I like to consider myself one of those folks.\u00a0 However, within the live and let live tribe, there are a bunch of members who only accept something if it meets their rules and regulations.\u00a0 They think they're open-minded but in reality, they're the opposite.\u00a0 These are people who only want to accept what they find acceptable.\u00a0 Yes, Virginia, I'm talking about card-carrying members of the PC Police.\u00a0 I'm gonna call 'em the PCP\u00a0because I think the name fits.\u00a0 Lord knows, they often act like they're high on something. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Too many of them are reader-come-latelys.\u00a0 Yeah, they might've\u00a0been well-intentioned enough back when they started reading romance.\u00a0 But they hung around with the wrong crowd.\u00a0 They listened to the wrong sermons and soon enough, they started believing them.\u00a0 And the young PCP converts were tapped as missionaries - sent out to convert others and convince them that the only good romance, the only acceptable romance was new romance.\u00a0 Older romance was written in the wrong style with the wrong plot elements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes,\u00a0 Kathleen Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers (guided by talented Avon Books editor Nancy Coffey) created a genre.\u00a0 It wasn't a genre where you might pick up a book on occasion and read it.\u00a0 It was a genre that\u00a0compelled readers to buy another book so they could start it the second they finished the last.\u00a0 It was a genre that\u00a0incited and inspired a generation of women. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps that was all very well - then.\u00a0\u00a0And those women who devoured romance novels like Christmas candy?\u00a0 Well, they didn't know any better. Besides,\u00a0Woodiwiss and Rogers and the writers who learned from them were all the readers had.\u00a0 But this is a new day.\u00a0\u00a0There are a horde of writers who've learned the rules and write the proper stuff.\u00a0\u00a0If a\u00a0writer is tempted to wander off the true path\u00a0 --\u00a0she better not.\u00a0 The PC Police will get her.<\/p>\n
Do they have an APB out for me yet?\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If they don't they better issue one because I'm about to lay some truth on the readers of this blog.\u00a0 It's the kind of truth that clears the system of the Kool-Aid that writers and editors and publishers of the PCP have been force-feeding readers for far too long.\u00a0 It's an earth-shattering, life altering truth.\u00a0 Are you ready?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the PC Police, there are still writers who\u00a0cut their teeth as readers of the ground-breaking work by Woodiwiss and Rogers.\u00a0 Some of us discovered those books at local libraries,\u00a0 long\u00a0after they'd been\u00a0published.\u00a0 And some of us love them still.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The work that\u00a0incited a new genre\u00a0and inspired a generation can\u00a0do the same again.\u00a0\u00a0The style and plot elements of a Woodiwiss or Rogers romance have been declared incorrect and offensive by the PCP.\u00a0 But I understand the power of a good mind trip and I believe that many readers, like me, read romance in order to get inside the heads and the hearts of the hero and heroine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those who decide\u00a0such things have decided that writers must\u00a0show, not tell.\u00a0 Well, I am\u00a0an indie writer who is proud to claim the traditions of writers who created our genre. \u00a0One benefit - and it's a big one - of being an indie is that the one who decides such things with my books is\u00a0me. And I've decided that if writers\u00a0want to stop this generation from putting down a book to watch a TV Show or movie, they'd better show AND tell.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
To paraphrase\u00a0The Duke of Eden <\/a><\/em>- writers had better show and tell or (continue) to say fare thee well to our readers.\u00a0 Romance grew into the blockbuster genre because\u00a0our readers preferred to be reading a love story than doing most anything else.\u00a0 And that was back in the day when the only real distractions from reading were TV and movies.\u00a0 Today the internet which has opened the doors to careers for indie writers like me has also\u00a0opened the floodgates to a world of distraction.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0If we want to do more than\u00a0cater to\u00a0readers who pick up our books sometimes - when they have time, then we better forget the Kool Aid\u00a0and offer the wine.\u00a0 Readers\u00a0can pick and choose their entertainment with You Tube and become part of it with Twitter.\u00a0 If we want to inspire a new generation\u00a0so much that they turn away from other entertainment, then we'd better learn an old lesson.\u00a0 What created our genre was writing that\u00a0carried readers into the minds of the characters and made the readers part of the story.\u00a0<\/p>\n But given the excitement level of the other distractions, we won't engage the readers as much as we have to unless we throw out all the mis-rule of the PC Police.\u00a0 And that means that even the holy grail of the PC Police must be breached.\u00a0 (Yes, AOFM, I'm gonna say it - you better sit down.) SO WHAT IF A BODICE RIPS?\u00a0\u00a0 Let's rip\u00a0some trousers too.\u00a0<\/p>\n No, I'm not advocating rape.\u00a0\u00a0What I am advocating is that we stop throwing the baby out with the bath water.\u00a0 There's a world of difference between some use of coercion\u00a0or even force and rape.\u00a0 There is both dark fascination and universal appeal to situations where\u00a0desire is\u00a0inspired\u00a0against our will, against common sense, even against our morals.\u00a0 They may be presented straight up involving the hero using his superior strength to prove to the heroine that the desire is mutual.\u00a0 Usually, in a Woodiwiss book, that got answered by the heroine using her superior wits to show the hero that the love was mutual as well.\u00a0 The dark side of desire may be presented as a joke, like I did in A Faerie Fated Forever<\/a>. It may show up\u00a0in a shoe is on the other foot fashion (involving the hero) as in A Golden\u00a0Forever<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The dark side of desire may also show up in a dozen different ways. And, yes, bodices may be ripped.\u00a0 But it worked in early romance because those writers carried the reader inside the heads and hearts of the character.\u00a0 It would never, ever, work in grammar school level work where writers are only showing.\u00a0<\/p>\n I guess what I'm saying is let's\u00a0lock up the PC Police and tell writers that they'd better learn to be as smart as our readers.\u00a0 It's harder to mind hop but doing it well opens the keys to\u00a0all the cages.\u00a0 Doing it well means that nothing is off limits.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, there you have it. I've advocated the end of \"Show, Don't Tell\" and a return to the era of ripped clothing and no holds barred enticement - even if force or coercion is involved.\u00a0\u00a0I'm sure the PC Police have an All Points Bulletin (APB) Out for me now.<\/p>\n On second thought, they've probably skipped the nicety of getting legal process.\u00a0 I bet they've given a shoot on sight order.\u00a0 I'll have to pull out the heavy ammunition.\u00a0 Yes, when the PC Police show up and draw their guns I'll have to........... have to............\u00a0 rip my bodice.\u00a0 They'll faint dead away and I'll skip right off into the sunset -- but I'll take my readers with me, right inside my\u00a0devious little brain.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u00a0are\u00a0folks\u00a0who pride themselves on being\u00a0open-minded and accepting.\u00a0 I like to consider myself one of those folks.\u00a0 However, within the live and let live tribe, there are a bunch of members who only accept something if it meets their rules and regulations.\u00a0 They think they're open-minded but in reality, they're the opposite.\u00a0 These are people who ...continue reading \"So What If A Bodice Rips? 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