He can't even HAVE a tattoo? WUWT? For heaven's sake. Have they taken a look at the arms of the so-called Greatest Generation? Tattoos are hardly alternative on men. Granted, none of my men have tattoos (well, Soul!Sucking Demon boyfriend did, but I mean my dh, my dad, grampies, etc.), but still. My f-i-l has a tattoo. I'm pretty sure at least one of the b-i-ls has a tattoo. And for goodness sake, a lot of construction workers have tattoos.

Hey, maybe you could make him a guy whose backstory includes having to have a tattoo removed, in order to get a job?

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I think we've decided that he's going to be simply an artist. Maybe working with glass, or metal.

Feh. I want to go get another tattoo myself, in protest.

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I personally know a very sweet tattoo artist that loves his wife and kid to death. I bet he would have a great story.(you'd probably want to make him a bit more "straight" than that particular guy, appearance wise, but it is a craft that the good ones devote time to...his apprenticeship was only a bit shorter than my college.) In other word, the publisher is a judgmental fogey and I bet the 18-34s would think your book FG.

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I can't write corporate rich guys or sexy construction workers forever.

Um, I don't regularly strip total strangers of the male persuasion naked, but I feel qualified to report that one of these categories is notorious for tattoos, and the other is catching up fast. Do romance editors never go to the beach??

I mean, maybe you would draw the line at porny tattoos on construction workers, although the people who did work on my father's house when I was 10 did not.

Artists also -- tattoo city. Possibly also dreads, those giant enlarged-hole era-piercings, and tongue rings. Anyway, most of the artists I run into.

I know romances often take place in a "never mind the details" alternate reality, but sheesh.

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In other word, the publisher is a judgmental fogey and I bet the 18-34s would think your book FG.

Being 4 years outside that demographic, and only a handful of years behind the Baby Boomer women, I think that easily goes past the age 49.

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Okay...my bad. See why statistics get messed up sometimes. Anyway, the publisher can come in from 1964 now...he's probably just heard about the cigarettes the jazz musicians are smoking, too. So, it's hard to Cinderella with tattoo guy. Is that the only fantasy there is?

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Roamnce has all kinds of "rules". No sports guys, for one. Yet Susan Elizabeth Phillips wrote a couple of bestsellers with football players.

Musicians and actors are another no-no.

But this is why chick lit caught on, I think -- younger readers want a little more variety and realism. Romance heroines can never *ever* smoke a cigarette (the horror!), but chick lit heroines can, for instance.

Also, it's not so much my publisher as my editor who objected, and she also happens to be a very good friend. I love her to death, but her idea of sexy and mine aren't always the same. And I really feel like telling her that no matter what she thinks about a particular hero, readers aren't always going to share her squicks *or* her turn-ons.

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That's just lame, Amy.

t tries to convince plot bunnies to veer a little more toward the historical fiction hutch

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Though I have to admit that one failing of realism in my not-quite-a-WIP anymore is that Jack doesn't smoke. Very unrealistic for him not to. But my father just died of lung cancer, dammit. I just can't put a pipe in my hero's hand.

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No sports guys, for one.

That way lie groupies, is the thinking I bet. Which, yeah, fair cop. I suspect published romance is not a fan of groupies.

Romance heroines can never *ever* smoke a cigarette

In the annals of people who have never seen Now, Voyager (1942). Helloooo, nurse! Sexiest cigarette evar, and I haven't smoked a cigarette in my life.

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