Monday, June 20, 2005
Round Hole, Square PegCan I just say how frustrating I find it that romance authors and organizations find the need to classify every single thing? So much time is spent on discussing just what a romance is and isn't and it's usually that a romance isn't whatever they don't like or don't write.
One of my chief annoyances is the whole HEA thing. It doesn't bother me that people want a happily ever after, it's that people don't seem to understand or believe that happily ever after doesn't necessarily mean that the heroine has to marry the hero at the end to be happy.
So far, my books have ended with the hero and heroine together. That's what the story has demanded and that's how I wrote them. But I also think that you can have a happy ending with a heroine who achieves a goal. She finishes a job or discovers something new about herself. There is a romance in the story, but perhaps at the end, she and the hero discover that they aren't right for each other and move on. Or maybe the hero dies. Life is full of twists and turns and I don't get how those of us who write romance are always supposed to pretend otherwise.
There are those who say that a non hero and heroine get together at the end makes the book chick lit. But I don't think so. And here's where I do the same thing I'm complaining about - but I think chick lit and romance are two very different things - not better or worse, just different. Chick lit is not about romance. There may be romance in it, but it's not the core of the story.
Oh I'm blathering, but this is my blather for today. I've got a million of them.
