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.
That's just lame, Amy.
t tries to convince plot bunnies to veer a little more toward the historical fiction hutch
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.
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.
Romance 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.
That's whack. My fantasy guy would be a tattooed musician (and, in fact, my husband is one, though he also has a boring corporate job.)
This is probably why I don't read romance novels.
My ex-husband is a public artist [link]
This means he gets to be all artist-y with drawing and making models and stuff, then all professional with appearing before city boards, then all buildy with climbing on structures and welding shit up with jeans and a t-shirt on. It was lots of fun hanging out in that world plus he was brilliant and fun (also fucked up, hence the no longer being married). It might give you more scope than the average architect or artist you would be stuck with.
Roamnce has all kinds of "rules". No sports guys, for one. Yet Susan Elizabeth Phillips wrote a couple of bestsellers with football players.
I remember Betsy lending me one in which the hero was a professional hockey goalie with a horseshoe tattooed right above his pubic hair. I don't remember much else about the book, but the tat and the hockey descriptions made me happy as hell.
Musicians and actors are another no-no.
What the FUCKING fuck....?!??!?!?
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.
Talk about your untapped markets.
Dude,
I don't know one artsy woman that doesn't want at least one of those...to be in an artistic couple(cough) VictorNThessaly (cough) (except they are both poets, but, otherwise, you feel me on this, right?)
And Victor is going to think I've abandoned writing to embarrass him full-time or something, but they are a good example, in this instance, because, to my knowledge they are not all TedNSyllviaforevah!1!
I find the prohibition on tatoos in romance novels intriguing. We've seen a gradual change in attitude about them on TV and in movies, from actors getting visible tatoos to an entire show about the lives of tatoo artists. So while the visual media is embracing this "counter culture" where the tatoos are actually
seen,
the non-graphic print media is still holding out despite the fact that no one would even see the tatoo! Even the military hasn't gone so far as banning all tatoos, you just can't have them visible on certain areas of the body.