But then finally I received a review that I guess you could say was less than glowing. This review comes from Queer Magazine Online and is one of my favorite reviews I've received. I thought the reviewer brought up some interesting points about what they didn’t like, as well as what worked for them.
The final line of the review really made me happy: "Lovestruck" is a light afternoon read, but there's little more to it. It reads like one of the author's straight romances only with a change of sex"
Now I know that last paragraph is not really meant to be praising, but I feel it is. That was my goal all along with Lovestruck and I wanted to thank the reviewer for pointing out that Lovestruck feels much a straight romance, but with two main characters who just happen to be of the same gender.
This post is not about dissecting this review, but more about how GLBT romance seems to be on a very different level than straight romance. And I really can’t figure out why it has to be.
My goal when writing Lovestruck was to pen a traditional romance where two people fall in love, but happen to be of the same gender. My characters' sexual preference doesn’t make them who they are and it wasn't something necessarily central to the overall plot. My two main characters, Barbara and Jenny, do discuss their attraction to women and being lesbians, but it's not the primary focus.
When discussing romance, there's mentions of sub-genres such as historical, contemporary, urban fantasy and so forth. But when it comes to GLBT romance, it's treated an entirely different genre all together. And that's where I'm confused. Why when it comes to GLBT romance, it's a whole different type of entity and must be treated separately from the romance genre as a whole?
I love reading and writing GLBT stories as well as straight ones. Not only do I have a romance coming out between a man and a woman in August, but a lesbian historical romance. I've also finished writing another romance, which I hope to publish as the second book in my Lovestruck series, featuring two men in a relationship. As I wrote these three very different types of stories, I was more concerned about building up the attraction and understanding between my couples. I really didn't want to focus so much on their sexual preference and how their desire for a specific type of person makes them what they are.
And honestly, whenever reading a straight romance, you never see the hero or heroine having these long conversations together or deep internal musing about being heterosexual. But in GLBT romance, at least from my point of view, there's such an emphasis on the characters' sexuality and sexual preferences. Is this supposed to be the true focus of GLBT literature, especially in romance?
Maybe it's because I'm a straight woman that I can't understand the constant mention or the sometimes angst a character goes through with their sexuality in gay romance. I'm in the belief that two people will fall in love not because of their gender preference but for that person that come to care for under the skin. After reading Deidre Knight's Butterfly Tattoo, it became so much clearer to me. I then wanted to write a book with these same ideals Deidre had written.
The romance genre is about love, in all shapes and forms, and when it comes down to it, the initial attraction between the two main characters at first is because of what they see on outside. But this initial attraction changes into love for a person's mind, personality, being and who they are deep in their soul.
My belief is that GLBT and Straight romance should go hand in hand with these same reasons.
17 comments:
Was that review comment more about the relationship power dynamics in your book being the same as one would find in a straight romance? That's a huge reason why I read m/m - I am so, so tired of the power dynamics between men and women in straight romance.
My characters' sexual preference doesn’t make them who they are
The thing is, it's a PART of who they are that does need to be acknowledged and handled with care. Sure, gay romance doesn't all have to be angst and coming out stories, but there are gender and sexuality dynamics that do set them apart from straight romances. For instance, the idea that "someone is the man and someone is the woman" is one that often pervades gay romance written by straight authors. That's a trap that needs to be avoided. Otherwise, what's the point? You might as well just read a story with a man and a woman.
If all you have to do is a "find" and "replace" and swap your he/she with she/she or he/he, you are missing something fundamental, something unique to same-sex romance and the LGBT perspective.
"I'm in the belief that two people will fall in love not because of their gender preference but for that person that come to care for under the skin."
I think this is your problem.
That can be true--and is for bisexuals and pansexuals--but I find a lot of straight women who are completely icked out by girl parts. You may love a person, you might super-care about them, but if you don't love what their bits are, it'll be a challenge to get aroused.
You can't really boilerplate the heterosexual experience, change names and parts and expect it to be GLBT. Think about the basic milestones of heterosexual love--it's not just falling in love and having sex. It's marriage. It's children. It's public acknowledgment of your coupleship.
At this time, you don't get that in the GLBT experience.
You should also consider why people are reading GLBT literature. A lot of straight women are reading it. Why is that, do you think? Is it because they love the heterosexual trope so much but want more breasts or is it because it is fundamentally different?
I'm not going to say you won't have a market for what you write. Obviously you do. But if you want to understand why GLBT people make remarks like that and why some are offended, dig in a little.
Chris: But how is a MM romance different from a straight romance? How do the power dynamics differ?
Mala: I believe that the sexual preference does have to be acknowledged but not so obsessed over where it takes over the entire story.
How do you a know an author who write GLBT has done their job well by not treating their two MM or two FF as a man and woman?
Clancy: I think when you read romance, you have to enjoy the sexual bits. Why is MM romance so much more acceptable then FF? Just because there is not penis but more of an emphasis on the vagina?
I totally agree with you that the milestones of love, whether it be hetero, by or gay is everything that it involved from the courtship to the HEA.
I think if you have to ask "But how is a MM romance different from a straight romance? How do the power dynamics differ?" that's part of the issue right there. Men are men. One of them does not magically turn into the girl in the relationship when those men are gay. Just as, with two women, one isn't suddenly the aggressive "guy" in the pairing.
How do you a know an author who write GLBT has done their job well by not treating their two MM or two FF as a man and woman?
Again, you should be able to discern two women or two men. If you can swap out "Lisa" for "Leonard" with no fundamental difference in the character's POV, that's problematic.
KB: Mala summarized it neatly:
I think if you have to ask "But how is a MM romance different from a straight romance? How do the power dynamics differ?" that's part of the issue right there. Men are men. One of them does not magically turn into the girl in the relationship when those men are gay. Just as, with two women, one isn't suddenly the aggressive "guy" in the pairing.
While there are power dynamics in all relationships, in m/m romances, you aren't starting with all the crap of "Man = strong smart protector and Woman = weak stupid helpless" that are hammered into us societally. (Unless of course, the romance is basically a straight romance rewritten with a man substituted for a woman.)
I think the criticism is fair, and something you should give serious consideration to.
On the other hand, I don't agree with the assertion that there are no power dynamics in m/m or f/f. Different power dynamics, sure. Anyone who claims that every heroine in an m/f romance is weak, stupid, or helpless is insulting my favorite genre. I take umbrage!
In most of the f/f I've read, one character is much more feminine than the other. But it isn't like m/f. Katie, you wouldn't write a historical novel without researching the time period. Same idea applies here. It can't hurt to learn more about the lesbian experience before you build that kind of character.
The issue isn't m/m vs f/f--the story in question was f/f so I used that as an example.
As fun as it is to play the slash goggle game, many guys don't want to suck other guys dicks either.
Unless you're asking why m/m is more popular than f/f at the moment, which I have several notions of why which really does have to do with the fact that it's Straight Women buying it and most of them have an instinctive attraction to a penis.
Writing a man like you'd write a woman is really cheating yourself out of the experience of seeing the world through a man's eyes and understanding why it's different and how.
Same with writing GLBT just like a straight relationship--you're really not looking at the world through the eyes of your character.
I know this doesn't have very much to do with what you're discussing, but I just wanted to say I applaud you for handling criticism so well. Whereas some people would get angry or depressed, you use it as a learning experience. I think thats awesome!
I agree with your sentiment that it's wonderful to read a fluffy romance occasionally where the queer angst isn't center-stage in the sense of the "Oh God, I'm gay and society doesn't approve! However can my romance survive?" However, there is something intrinsically different about almost every queer relationship as opposed to its straight counterpart beyond that concern about being forced to the fringes of our culture.
Compared to the stereotype, some women are naturally more dominant, some men naturally less so, and perhaps due to societal conditioning or perhaps due to nature, people often form bonds with one whose assertiveness level offsets their own. That is NOT the power dynamic most queer readers/writers will be referring to.
What is meant seems to be more along the lines that a guy will expect of another guy (pig bottom or power top, swishy femme or daddy bear) a certain amount of equality and respect, a lack of assumptions about who will do the dishes and cooking and grocery shopping and who will mow the lawn and clean the gutters. There often will be a certain amount of competitiveness between them and a power struggle of sorts even when one's surrender is inevitable because it's who he is and how he expresses desire sexually and emotionally. (Obviously this is meant only in a romance novel sense, not in the sense of two guys ready to go at it with no strings or emotional involvement.) With women establishing a romance with other women, there is some of this too. Even more so sometimes than with m/m, I think the lesbian experience involves an important establishment of equality or power dispersal beyond one adopting the "male" role. In order to achieve the emotional intimacy so intrinsic to an f/f romance, there has to be an understanding reached about one's expectations of another and the avenues for meeting basic household needs, how they will each provide room for the other to express her true nature in a way a man would likely be unable to offer them.
From an erotica standpoint, it's worth noting that a lot of GLBT sex is similar to straight sex in limited ways. It's not as simple as one person penetrating another. If what every straight couple wants most in the bedroom is different, queer couples differ even more dramatically from each other. Just from an f/f standpoint, stone butches, often those who present as most masculine and would seem simplest to slot into the m part of the m/f trope, are so uncomfortable with their female body and experiencing female pleasure that they would rather their lover fellate a strap-on than give them direct stimulation. From an m/m standpoint, there are supremely macho, dominant men with hairy chests and classic rock in the stereo of their pick-up truck whose deepest longing is to come home every night to the pretty-like-a-girl twink who's going to plow them. There are so many rich, complicated layers of queer experience that to focus on only the most stereotypical m/f dynamic in an m/m or f/f romance seems to be missing a grand opportunity for artistic freedom that goes beyond standard gender ideals.
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I think one thing you have to look at when it comes to GLBT and M/F is how you personally relate to the different sexes.
I'm a straight woman who's had a fair amount of relationship time with men. They can be my best friend, we can get each other, we can enjoy each other, but there are fundamental differences in how we approach things. There is a distinct difference and I dare say, a bit of a wall there to really knowing the other due to those differences. I personally like that as it makes for some entertaining moments as well as challenges.
And I think this is what comes out in m/f that doesn't come out in f/f or m/m.
But then think of how you are with women. It's totally different. You can be far more intimate with a woman without any sexual connection. There's just something there that you get each other. The relating is on a different level.
So if you have two women together or two men together it's going to be different than m/f. It just is.
It doesn't mean that the love itself is different. It just means that the expression of it is going to manifest in different ways.
Personally, I prefer to read GLBT romance with a power differential. Mainly because it's more interesting. If you have two people in which one is strong in some ways but the other is in other ways, it cancels each other out and they are bland to read. IRL it's probably a dynamic that makes for a better or easier relationship, but for reading, it's boring.
Or that's how I think anyway.
First I think you need to define the difference between m/m or f/f romance and actual GLBT lit.
I don't read same-sex romance for a realistic portrayal of gay life. Just like I don't read heterosexual romance for a realistic portrayal of male-female relationships.
I support GLBT issues, but I don't feel the need to incorporate them into my entertainment. Just as I don't feel the need to incorporate real-life marriage issues, politics, or other current events into my entertainment. I just want a break from reality.
Also, to be fair, many gay relationships and some lesbian relationships DO have the same power dynamics as m/f relationships, so the whole power-dynamic argument doesn't work for me.
So I'm with you, Kate. I don't really see the point of the criticism. Given that we're discussing romance, an escapist genre not known for its adherence to fact, AND given that gay relationships can be just as varied as straight ones, the "You're not writing *real* lesbians!" (or gay men or whatever) argument seems moot to me.
I won't apologize for feeling that way, and neither should you.
(KC leans onto the edge of her seat, engrossed in all the comments). This is absolutely fascinating, you bring up such a great question KB.
As an avid reader of mainly m/m (and a few f/f) I think what I most like about same sex romance books are the relationship aspects and the lack of m/f power struggle. As a reader I tend to navigate more towards GLBT books that are not like straight romances, I'm not really sure why.
I'm very much in agreement with anonymous, because it eally does take a thick skin and very open mind to be willing to not only 'listen' to criticism, but be open to it enough to learn from it. Is there a market for this or any other type of romance we may be reading at the moment? I say yes. You nver know what may appeal to the masses at any given time. I'm just pleased to see that romance writing has evolved over the last 20 years to include just about every fantasy we can conceive. Bravo!
I'm with JenB. The variety of power relationships between m/m, f/f and m/f are many and various. As soon as you say something along the lines of "GLBT relationships are different to straight relationships for these reasons" you lose me.
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