Note from Jean: This article first appeared in the March 2000 issue of Romance Writers Report.

WRITERS WHO DARE, AND THE EDITORS WHO LET THEM

Who dares to break the "rules" of romance, and what happens when they do? Is there a price to be paid? Is it harder to do now than in the past?

I asked these and other questions of some of the authors who've written the books we remember, the ones that take our breath, that make us whine "But So-and-So did it, why can't I?" I also interviewed some of the editors responsible for these risky "books of the heart." Apologies in advance that time and space limited my ability to use every wonderful word or speak with all the authors and editors who have risked the wrath of the marketplace to re-define our genre.

Why Do Writers Want To Break The Rules?

First of all, let's define our terms. For the purposes of this article, I posed a variety of elements considered risky: heroes who aren't tall/strong/handsome/admirable, unpopular settings, artists, athletes, adultery, interracial relationships, two-hero books, older woman/younger man, etc. Authors write them at their own risk. So why do they do it?

Elizabeth Grayson: I've never set out to break the rules, I start out to tell a story. In the case of So Wide The Sky, probably the most fully realized of the two-hero books I've written, I felt that because the heroine-an Indian captive being returned to the whites-was caught between two worlds, she had to be caught between two men as well. Each man represented a choice the heroine has to make. Actually, choice is what is behind each of the two-hero books I've written. That the heroine has a choice-because she's grown and changed in the course of the novel, she is capable of finding happiness in more than one situation, with more than one man.

Justine Davis: I'm not sure I can answer that, because I don't think I was really aware of breaking the rules. I'm not sure I even knew there were rules. I was simply writing the story I had to write. If I was aware that I was outside the 'accepted' boundaries, that came afterward-mostly when other people told me and asked how I got away with it.

That's not to say I didn't realize that in, for example, The Morning Side Of Dawn, with its double amputee hero, I was dealing with delicate subjects, or that I didn't have doubts about writing the book, but it was mostly because I wasn't sure that I, as an able-bodied person, could do the job that deserved to be done on the story...what it comes down to is that you tell the story that's inside you, and if it requires breaking some so-called rules, then so be it.

Patricia Gaffney: I assume the rule you're referring to now is the one about making sure the hero is heroic. That's a good rule, especially in genre fiction, where characters are often asked to be larger than life. Why would anybody break that rule? Probably because it's begging to be broken. Writers push against their characters' boundaries all the time, it's what makes fiction unpredictable and non-generic. If every hero was Dudley Do-Right, we'd be so bored we'd have to stop reading books.

So then it's a matter of degree. How far should we go? How far is too far? Apparently Sebastian, the hero in To Have And To Hold, balanced on the precarious edge. Some readers thought he was an insufferable jerk who raped the heroine and deserved jail time instead of happily ever after. Others said he was a complex mix of nobility and weakness, the heroine was ultimately his match, and by the end he redeemed himself.

When I was writing him, I didn't think about what readers or even my terrific editor were going to make of him. This may be controversial, but I believe as writers we have no responsibility, moral or otherwise, except to the truth of our story. To that, though, we owe everything. We tell it as if it were true; we buy into it; we swallow it whole. We commit. And then if someone criticizes it we say, "Don't look at me, I'm just telling you what happened!"

That's an illusion, of course, but it's a good one. When you're in the grip of the illusion, you become immune to your own hypercritical judgment, never mind anybody else's. When the truth of a story grabs you, all you can do is give in and go for it, and be grateful for the temporary obsession. What you write under that spell can't help but be passionate and heartfelt and true. And make no mistake, it will provoke a reaction--but you can't think about decorum or political correctness or good taste or editorial guidelines or your mother's bridge club or the romance bulletin boards or the bestseller list or the RITAs. All you can do is tell your story true.

Jennifer Crusie: Well, in the beginning, I was too dumb to know there were rules. So my first book showed the heroine going on lots of bad dates and almost killing them. Later I found out that cranky heroines weren't high on any editor's wish list, but Sherie Posesorski at Harlequin was an open-minded woman and bought it anyway. Then later when I got a better grip on the craft, the stories I wanted to write dictated the breakage.

For example, I wanted to write an older woman/younger man story, not realizing that those are supposed to be death on the market. So my editor (who was great) and I wheeled and dealed-I wanted a sixteen-year age difference, she wanted a six-year difference, we compromised on ten-and then HQ left any mention of the age difference off the back cover which took care of the marketing problem. The heroine as artist taboo was pretty much unbreakable for me at HQ, but Bantam took my painter heroine without blinking, so that must be just a rule at HQ, although I had a pretty gutsy editor at Bantam so it may have been her.

Now that I'm at St. Martin's, I'm having a wonderful time because Jennifer Enderlin is a goddess. In my first book there, my heroine committed adultery and Jen never said a word. In the second, my heroine fell in love with her ex-brother-in-law, and Jen kind of moaned into the phone, but she let me give it a try and then said okay to the finished book; I'm pretty sure I took a couple of years off her life. Then when I pitched the latest book, I said, "It's about two sisters who make a pornographic movie," and she said, "Does it have to be pornographic?" and I explained the theme to her and she sighed and said, "Do it." And then as the book developed, the porn part faded into background and it became a book about family so nobody's going to picket us after all.

But I think it says a lot about Jen that she keeps buying these risky books, even though I know she must dread my pitches above all others. In the book I'm working on now, the heroine has an affair with somebody before she moves on to the hero, and Jen was positively cheerful about that: no adultery, no brother-in-law, no porn; it was a real relief.

Patricia Potter: [I broke rules] the first time because I didn't know any better. I didn't know there were such things as rules. I read an article about the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900 and thought, gee, what a wonderful idea. Wonder why no one else has done a book on this? I found out why when it was published. No one wanted to read about China in 1900. But Tracy Farrell, my editor, liked the idea, too, and supported it. After the book sank like a stone, however, the publisher became a great deal more careful about exotic climes and time periods. I might have ruined China forever for Harlequin Historical writers.

Still, I loved the book and the theme: a hardbitten American Marine major and a pacifist proper English lady caught in the whirlwind of an unexpected war, and it will always be one of my favorite conflicts. I'm glad I didn't know any better.

The second time I did know better. After all, I had the other book as an example. But it was an idea that had been buzzing in my head for years and simply exploded. The time period was World War II and the hero was a German spy. My publisher rejected it, but Karen Solem and Carolyn Marino at Harper bought it. Although it received great reviews and was a RITA finalist, it too did poorly in sales. Marketing simply had no clue as to what to do with it. But it remains my favorite book, and I would do it again in a moment. It has been reprinted once, and I have hopes for a future revival.

Pamela Morsi: I didn't know the rules. I began writing without knowing anything about RWA. I never attended a class or a workshop. I just read lots of romances. I loved them, but they seemed to be not exactly what I wanted. There was lots of high adventure, but not much introspection. Long on plot and short on character. So when I started writing, I wrote the part that I enjoyed (the characters) and left out the thing I didn't care for (the plot). It wasn't at all intentional.

In Simple Jess, the hero is mentally handicapped. Initially the publisher stepped way back from that book. They thought it was a mistake. They thought it would be controversial and they didn't support it. The sales people literally pitched to the buyers saying, "Well, I've got this, if you want it you can have it." Readers hesitated over it, too. Even people who had been my fans for years indicated to me that they "didn't think they were going to like it". Sales were very slow. Ultimately the book has done well, the feedback that I've had on it has been tremendous and every bit of it positive. But it could have easily been a major commercial flop.

From my perspective it is the best work that I have ever done. Not for anything in the world would I have chosen not to do that book. If I could go back and write something light and funny that flew out of the bookstores, shot to the top of the list, won the RITA and made me a mainstream crossover hit, I wouldn't do it. Success cannot be quantified by sales figures. Now don't get me wrong. I don't write just to be fulfilled. I am the sole support of my family and have two kids in college and a handicapped one at home. I need every dime I make. But as long as I can afford to live, I've going to write the books that I believe that I'm supposed to write. And the rules be damned.

How Did Editors And Readers Respond?

Carolyn McSparren: My first book had a hero and heroine who were grandparents. Harlequin Superromance editors were amazingly gutsy people even to consider this book. They liked it, but requested extensive re-writes twice, and when my editor finally called to say they wanted the book, she added 'But..." All I heard was the 'but..." I didn't even tell anyone I had sold for a couple of weeks because I didn't believe it. I did further rewrites, and the book that was published as The Only Child was a darned sight better than the one I submitted first. I can't believe they took the time and effort to work with me that closely over a book that definitely didn't fit the norm.

Davis: Leslie Wainger never even blinked when I wanted to make Sean a hero (Left At The Altar), and she was right there with me with Dar (The Morning Side Of Dawn.) I've done two actor heroes, supposedly verboten, and she never questioned either, at least not to me. My Signet editor, Hilary Ross, loved my futuristics-I'd still be doing them if it was up to her.

The reader reaction has been phenomenal. I still get letters on The Morning Side Of Dawn, more than four years after its publication, and used copies of Lord Of The Storm are going for amazing amounts of money. And my editors have loved the books-if there's been a problem, it's in the high echelons of the publisher, and I suspect a direct result of those blessed marketers, who have no idea what to do with books that have, as Denise Little put it, "an odd little kick in their gallop."

Crusie: Strangely enough, no reader has ever reacted to any of the risks. Evidently they never noticed them. The editors all took aspirin and crossed their fingers. I remember my Harlequin editor said she went into her office and closed the door and prayed that she wouldn't lose her job when my first book came out because it was so different and she was responsible for it. That worked out well, and so has everything else. It's that time right before the books come out that my editors watch their entire careers pass before their eyes.

Suzanne Brockmann: I've done some rule-breaking on a number of books: a 53-year-old hero, an African-American couple, a dying child, writing in the POV of secondary characters-and I've gotten absolutely no negative reactions from readers. The best letters came after Harvard's Education -- both from African American women, who thanked me for getting the characters and story right, and from white women, many of whom wrote to tell me that they picked up HE with trepidation. They'd never read a romance with black characters before, they said, and feared they wouldn't be able to relate. Well, they did relate. Completely. Because -- guess what? People are people and love is love and skin color really doesn't matter!!!!!

One rule I haven't been able to break in series: the language rule. My TDD Navy SEALs have a much cleaner vocabulary than most real life SEALs!!!! And when the guys are alone together, I can usually get my editors to bend the rules a very little bit. But just a little.

Judith Arnold: When I first pitched the idea for Barefoot In The Grass (the heroine is a breast cancer survivor who had a mastectomy) to my editor, she was quite negative about it. She feared it was going to be a "cancer" story. I kept telling her it was going to be a love story, but she was apprehensive. Super had published books that dealt with cancer in the past and they'd tanked. I know people don't read romances to become depressed and fatalistic. They read romances because they want to get caught up in the passions and challenges of characters who inspire them. And that was the kind of story Barefoot was going to be-but my editor apparently had her doubts.

But once they made the commitment, they supported the book 100%.

Morsi: Mixed. Some editors, especially early on, couldn't imagine that what I was doing would work. My first contest the judge wrote in inch high letters. This Is Not A Romance! Things have changed, but not completely.

Readers have been divided as well. I have a lot of fans who just adore my stories. And from the beginning my sales have always been strong. But there are many romance readers who are very traditional. They want strong, handsome warriors and heroines that are beautiful and feisty. My stories are just not for them.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Nearly all my readers will tell me what their favorite of my books is, but they're all different! The variety of these responses gives me an enormous amount of freedom. Now I write exactly what I want to write-knowing ahead of time it will be someone's favorite book and someone else's least favorite. That's very liberating to a writer.

The Trickle-Down Theory:
Does Successful Rule-Breaking Give Others A Chance Or Is That Reserved For The Already-Successful?

Jennifer Greene: I think this is a terrible misconception we keep passing on to ourselves-and that the younger editors believe no differently. And it's wrong. Good books make new trends. Good books also make an author's career, whether it's a first book or a 30th. There is a relationship in publishing right now in what authors are allowed to do-e.g. most of the time, an author's supposed to 'start' with a safe book before trying a tougher one. But I didn't, and I can name more than a dozen (award winning) authors who didn't. Write a good book; there'll be a home for it. How to sell a tough subject to an editor is a completely different problem. In my opinion, that's the source of the misconception-too often, we assume that the problem is whether we can break the rules, when the real problem is how to approach a (controversial) subject with the editor and readers.

Jo Beverley: Actually, I think new writers can often get away with risky books more easily than successful ones. The publisher doesn't have to invest as much in them; there's not as much career momentum being put at risk. However, by the very nature of things, new writers are generally not as good as experienced, successful authors. Therefore they may not be able to pull off a risky story. Another aspect is that a new writer who presents with a risky story may not really be in tune with romance.

Therefore, her risky story is in fact one that's way outside the romance genre and she may not realize it. A successful romance author has proved that she understands the genre and is in tune with it.

Mary Jo Putney: Every now and then, someone does something completely different that is such a success that it opens the door for a whole new subgenre. When that happens, we all benefit. However, there is a lot of pressure, subtle and otherwise, for successful authors to keep on doing what they're known for, so in many ways it's the newbies who have more freedom, if they write an absolutely smashing book. But there are a lot of variables here. An author who built her reputation doing offbeat stories will probably have more freedom to continue doing that as her audience grows because her readers expect it, while someone who has been more traditional might have trouble getting something accepted if it's very different from her usual work.

Gaffney: If anything, I think it's the opposite. How many successful, proven authors can you think of who are taking big chances? J. D. Robb comes to mind, but not many others. Success comes with the temptation, often publisher-sponsored, to repeat yourself. The challenge for the author who's arrived is to take more chances, not keep doing what made her successful in the first place. But that's probably another article.

Morsi: I believe that new authors have much more latitude to take risks and be daring than authors with track records. With a recognized name and proven sales, publishers become very narrow in what they will allow. They don't want to risk the value the author has to them. If Margaret Mitchell had lived to be an old lady (80 something these days) they'd be saying to her, "Write us another Gone With The Wind." There is no way they would let her do Interview With A Vampire. By the same token, if Anne Rice came in with a proposal for a Civil War Saga, her editor would look askance. That same house, however, might allow a new author with no following and very little money paid upfront to do a very quirky tale. Imagine it: Civil War Vampires: Bats On The Battlefield.

Have the "rules" changed since you started writing?

Davis: I have to confess I don't pay all that much attention; I both write and read what I like. The only rule I consider inviolate is the happy ending-or perhaps more correctly the satisfying ending, since they're not always completely happy, with everything neatly tied up.

I do find it frustrating that wonderful stories have to be "disguised" somehow, not from readers, who have learned to decipher the "code words" in, say, a back cover blurb, but from those marketers who don't know how to market books that don't fall neatly into established niches. They seem to think, based on their own often stereotyped perceptions of romance readers or women in general, that we need them to decide for us what we want to or should read. I've heard them state with great confidence that "Oh, women/romance readers don't like to read that stuff," as if we were all cookie cutter types with identical taste.

And sometimes all the editor's faith in the world can't overcome the power of the bean-counters. If there's anything that hasn't changed since I started, it's that. And, surprisingly to some, I'm sure, my perception is that the biggest risks are taken first, in one form or another, in category. It just makes a bigger splash when it's done in single title.If you write the book well enough-and if you don't betray your readers-I think editors will be receptive to most ideas.

Beverley: Rules do change, which is why I don't really see them as rules. They're conventions. They're what people think is working. But they're in constant flux, so it's always worth trying something different, just in case. I hate to see authors self-censor, and say something can't work or won't sell without trying.

Whenever there's a rule or convention, I think it's worth looking at it closely. There is always some reason, but once we understand the reason, we may be able to come at it in a different way.

Greene: Yes, but consider that category and the romance genre is immediate, evolving, not supposed to be static, so those rules are supposed to change all the time-and do. Right now we're in tight-rule times. In a word, blech. But we've been here before. This is always cyclical (or it always has been).

I've broken every rule there is that I can think of in romances. My first book was about artificial insemination. I had one heroine married to a gay man. Done sexual abuse, an alcoholic heroine, mixed race, hero in a rock group, artistic heroines, two books covering impotence.

The rules are different today...but that is always true. Every three years or so, the rules change, so what's taboo today just gets replaced by another taboo down the road. However, I believe (strongly) that the writer's view and understanding of this needs to be the same-if she wants to sell. We're not writing in a closet. We're writing to readers, and in romance, we're specifically writing about what immediately interests and concerns women right now. That's why the taboos change. If you want to break a rule, you can....but you can't do it well, and you can't sell it well (I don't mean just to an editor, but to the readers themselves, the people who matter) unless you understand why readers object to that issue...and then handle that problem in the writing. You develop a relationship with your reader from page one. You break trust with her, you're dead. That has always been true, always will be (in my opinion.)

So the issue of breaking rules isn't about doing something that's tch tch-or politically incorrect-but that our first job is always to reach our readers at a level they want.

Potter: I think there's a great deal more latitude with language, occupations, hero types, point of view, etc. Most editors will say you can do anything if you do it well enough, and I think that's true. I believe we often trap ourselves by believing there are rules where none exist. Jane Smith says an editor didn't like her musician book, so we all assume this editor-and perhaps all editors-do not like musician books. It might well have been that the editor just didn't like that musician book, or it might have been just that particular editor's hangup. Yet the warning spreads among us like the plague. I have heard that particular "rule" many times, and then I picked up Sharon and Tom Curtis's great musician book, The Golden Touch.

We take every rumor as reality, every workshop as gospel, and every piece of gossip as true. I think that too often this keeps us, not the editors, from stretching the boundaries.

Brockmann: I think that lately the rules have become more restrictive and tighter, particularly for the series romance industry. There's been some belt-tightening and falling numbers and that makes for a really conservative outlook. Go with the tried and true. Get more traditional. I'm very lucky that I introduced my series about very gritty Navy SEALs when I did, in 1996.

Morsi: I think the style of writing has changed a lot. We are so dialog-heavy these days it's like we've all got Elmore Leonard Disease. Pacing is getting faster and books are getting shorter. Things like settings, character types, plot preferences are what I call "fashion" items. Things come into fashion and go out of fashion. If you want to write about a jock and they aren't buying jocks now, just wait, next year or the one after, all they'll be buying is jocks.

Arnold: Publishers don't pull these notions about what does or doesn't sell out of thin air. They study what has sold or not sold in the past. They're in the business of pleasing readers. If Superromance, for instance, published five romances that dealt with cancer and all those books sold terribly, can we blame Super for assuming readers don't want to read romances dealing with cancer? The only way they'd consider publishing another romance dealing with cancer is if it's written well enough to overcome the readers' natural aversion to cancer stories.

Maybe there were fewer restrictions in the Eighties. But many of the romance publishers in the Eighties are out of business now. Surely that means something.

Phillips: I hate thinking about "rules." The topic makes my hyperventilate! As writers, we are responsible for defining our genre, not the editors. Obsessing over following the rules might get you a gold star in "rule following," but it won't get you on the bestseller list because your manuscript will lack that special spark. I never saw myself as a rule breaker or a risk taker. I saw myself as a writer who wanted to write a book that was absolutely true to the characters I had created. I also bore easily and had no interest in writing characters that have been done a thousand times before. Dallie Beaudine, in Fancy Pants, was my first jock. When I created him, I didn't say, "Hmm... Let's think up a hero who'll break the rules." Instead, I was captivated with that Texas "voice," I knew something about golf, the character started talking in my head, and that was it. I honestly didn't know jocks weren't allowed. (In defense of editors, writing about American sports can limit foreign sales.)

Did The Risk-Taking Pay Off Or Did You Pay A Price?

Arnold: Selling Barefoot was a struggle, but my agent and I were committed to the project, and if Super hadn't published it we would have submitted it elsewhere. But I certainly didn't pay a price for fighting so hard for the book. If anything, I think Super has more faith in me than before-if I tell them I can deliver an optimistic, funny book about a breast-cancer survivor, they now know I can pull it off.

As for the risk-taking paying off...the response I've gotten from readers is all the answer I need. Yes, it paid off.

Grayson: I accepted years ago that breaking the rules might cost me and ultimately decided that telling the stories I wanted to tell was worth the risk. On the other hand, editors, booksellers and readers who "get" what I am trying to do have been tremendously supportive. Breaking the conventions and writing at the edges of the genre is not for the faint of heart.

I do think you pay a price by doing "different" things. You limit your options of publishers and readers. Your build within the marketplace is slower and more precarious because you are harder to define.

One of the ways we define authors is by: "If you like X, you'll like Y." That's tough to do if you aren't like anyone else. People who do a great job writing within everyone's definition of romance are the people who move up quickly and steadily. We've all agreed we like pizza; these authors are making exceedingly delicious pizza.

I think of people who habitually break the rules as more of an acquired taste. One that may never please as many people, but one that will delight and become addicting to the people who do have a taste for what we do.

Phillips: The price I paid was a small one. As a groundbreaker, there was no clear sense of how to package what I was doing so readers would know what they were getting. The less than successful packages I had on my early books definitely had a negative effect on my sales. It took a number of books to work out the packaging problems, and a lot longer for readers to find my books than I'd have liked. (I'll always wonder what would have happened if Avon's fabulous cartoon covers had been invented in 1987!) But I wouldn't change a thing. Those frustrating career years were ones when childrearing was my first priority anyway. If my career had soared early, I'd have been more torn than I was. Frankly, I don't see a lot of risk-taking going on right now, so I can't say I've seen anybody suffer for it.

I don't advocate risk-taking for its own sake. I don't even think writers should think of it that way. I think a writer should simply feel as though she's being true to her voice. If that leads her into unexplored waters, so much the better. Risk-taking is, at its best, simply finding your true voice.

Some things I've heard writers label as "risk-taking" I've thought were just silly. A writer, for example, gets so fascinated with her research that she decides to front load her book with it and labels that risk-taking. I don't think so... Don't confuse bad story telling with risk-taking.

McSparren: The risk-taking paid off in that The Only Child sold well and was nominated for a RITA as best first book. I wanted so much to justify Harlequin's faith in me. I hope I did. As our readership matures, I think there is a place for mature characters dealing with real problems. I realize that the RWA survey said most readers read for fantasy, but to my mind, it must be fantasy grounded in a reality with which they can identify.

Putney: I can't take credit for conscious risk-taking. Some of the offbeat books didn't perform brilliantly saleswise (stories set in India really are hard to sell!), but overall, I think the variety has helped me. I think I can get away with what I've done because I'm a real romance person at heart: I'm fascinated by relationships, I care intensely about getting those two people together forever and a day, and I adore happy endings. If that's true, I think a writer can get away with some unconventional elements in the story.

Greene: Yes, the risk-taking has a wonderful payoff, and yes, I've paid some high prices for doing it...years ago Charlotte Lamb/Sheila Holland gave me some advice: that she writes three books for the reader and then one for herself. I'd modify that. In my opinion, all books need to be for the reader-there's no reason that makes sense to mess with that.

But readers seem more accepting of an 'off the wall' idea if you've proven yourself to be a reliable author for them, and if the specific 'off the wall' book still satisfies the elements they expect from you. That trust between author/reader is the one rule you can't break.

From the Editorial Eye:

Four editors and one experienced former editor who's now a successful agent address the topic from the viewpoint of both series and mainstream houses.

What motivates writers to break the rules? Is it inconsiderate to their readers?

Leslie Wainger, Executive Senior Editor, Silhouette Books: It's interesting how some authors never break the "rules" (though I don't care for that word.) They intuit what a classic story is, what they love to read and write, but they make it feel brand new and never want to push the envelope. Other authors want to do only that from Day One.

The best rule breakers know and respect and love what's at the core of category, what speaks to the readers. If they respect that, they can do seemingly strange things and have a lot of latitude.

We publish such a variety that readers can find whatever they need. Experimentation keeps the genre fresh, brings in new readers who might have thought they didn't like romances, and keeps existing readers feeling challenged.

Damaris Rowland, former editor, now president of her own agency: I think writers break the rules when they get bored with what they've been doing for a while. Or when they feel they're ready to take on new challenges, do something fresh, scary, and thereby grow for having risked it. I think it's a natural growth of being a creative entity. Almost all of the writers that I've worked with, both as an editor and an agent, have gotten to that place where they had to do something "new."

My sense is that readers follow their favorite authors wherever they go. They might like some books better than others but if they know they're going to get a wonderful reading experience and that trust has been established that they will, then I think the reader welcomes the "new" while still having, perhaps, their "old" favorites.

Paula Eykelhof, Senior Editor, Harlequin Superromance: How you look at this depends, in part, on your perception of what the "rules" are. To what extent are these "rules" defined by the genre-and by each individual series? One important point I'd like to make is that in genre fiction you're dealing with readers' expectations (which include the much-maligned "happy ending")-and I suppose that's what we really mean when we talk about "rules."

Romance writers are (like all genre writers) manifestly writing for an audience, a readership. As a writer of series romance, you need to strike a balance between your own individual interests/needs and those of the reader. That balance varies from writer to writer and from book to book. As I've often said, of series romance in general and Superromance in particular, you should give your reader what she expects-and what she doesn't. That's how our stories remain fresh and interesting; it's how our series remain exciting. And I do believe that readers crave both-the expected or familiar and the unexpected, the risky, the unusual.

For example, Margot Early's The Keeper is a classic "reunion romance"-but it's so much more. Among other things, it features a hero with a mental illness, yet he's a man who is in no way diminished as a hero. So for readers, the reunion aspect of the story is familiar; the hero's problems (as an element in a romance novel) are not. In Judith Arnold's Barefoot In The Grass, we have a story that is, in certain respects, a romantic comedy-and we have a heroine who is a breast cancer survivor. Here, familiar romance elements are the context in which Judith Arnold honestly and realistically explores a situation-the possibility of breast cancer-that is genuinely frightening for readers.

Another point worth mentioning is that there are all kinds of readers. It's a mistake to think of "the readership" as a monolithic, somehow single unit or to think of romance readers as consistent in their tastes.

Finally, editors are frequently asked what prospective authors should avoid. My reply is usually that at Superromance we don't like to issue lists of don'ts and restrictions. For every "don't," I could give you an exception-a story that used a "forbidden" setting or background or situation and became a success, found its readership.

What considerations and forces must editors deal with in deciding whether to allow the risks? What part do the "marketing gods" play, and has that role changed over the course of your career?

Audrey LaFehr, Executive Editor, NAL/Dutton: I don't really feel any restrictions from any other departments or from our publishers. That said, an editor shouldn't be alone in her desire to publish something risky. If I love a book and it seems risky, it's important to get the reactions of others to see if they feel the same way. It would be unwise of me to proceed if I'm the only one who likes it because chances are that reader reactions will be mixed, too.

It makes an incredible difference to get positive reads and support outside editorial-sales, marketing, subrights. It's not possible on every book, but in the case of a special or different book, it's essential. Then the whole company will push the book and bring to it a more creative approach.

As to the issue of so-called rule-breaking, it's not really a case of rules, anyway, but we do see some patterns. For instance, in mainstream, books set in publishing generally don't do well, nor those set in the arts like opera, or theater.

I don't think a wise editor ever goes out looking for a risky book simply for the sake of risk-it's that we read something we love and are willing to go to bat for it. What authors see as rejection because of risk may not be that at all-more likely, the rejection comes because the book is just average in its execution. A risky book has to be better than average.

As to marketing, I really feel no pressure from marketing at all. They have no influence over acquisition. In nonfiction, it's different-they're often involved before the book is ever bought. We wish we could forecast sales performance and make the publishing process predictable, but it's just not possible. You can't market books like anything else-they're not boxes of Tide. This has always been a very unpredictable business because the meeting of art and commerce is trickier than soap.

Eykelhof: First and foremost, we make our judgment based on the quality of the writing and the storytelling. We question whether a particular book is a risk worth taking. Does the story expand the reader's understanding/compassion-enlarge her view of the world-while at the same time providing her with a completely satisfying romance? Does the story strengthen/expand the genre and/or series?

We ask how integral the story's "risky elements" are to the story itself. It should, ideally, be impossible to imagine the story without them. At the same time, we don't want to publish "issue" romances or strictly problem stories, in which the characters are defined by their problems. Keep in mind that one of the hallmarks of our books is depth and complexity of characterization.

The marketing staff-in this house and in others-do get a lot of unfair blame. I must admit that they've rarely, if ever, taken us to task for publishing books with "risky" elements. However, they might ask us not to emphasize those elements in cover copy, and in such a case, we'd try to allude to them subtly. That way, we're drawing readers-arguably more readers than we might otherwise get-to the story by pointing out the classic/traditional/expected aspects of the plot and characters.

Jennifer Enderlin, Executive Editor, St. Martin's Press: Publishing is ultimately a gamble, no matter how you slice it. Belief and intent are the two strongest forces in the universe. If you believe in the story, you take the risk. No publisher or editor wants to hold a writer to the same-old, same-old because they think it will be more "profitable." On the other hand, sometimes writers come to an editor with an unappealing idea. When the idea is rejected, the writer thinks she is being "held back." When in fact, the house simply didn't like the idea.

It's not so much the "marketing gods" as it is the "market gods." What I find holds sway over a writer's career is the response to her books in the marketplace.

 

Rowland: I think editors always look for whether the "new" story works in a compelling way. If it does, they are delighted. Where there might be problems is if an author moves into a new genre; say, begins writing mysteries all of a sudden. Then I think using a pseudonym has to be considered. Or else a career plan has to be in place where the author knows she is increasingly going to write more suspenseful novels because that's what she's discovering she writes best and loves to do, and the editor helps marshal the forces within her company to let the sales and marketing departments know that this is the direction the author is heading in. Then, each book becomes more fully realized as it moves more completely toward this new genre. Interestingly, now that I'm an agent, I feel I have more of an impact on how to communicate what my client is trying to do. I believe planning careers is very important and because the agent/author relationship is so directly one on one, the opportunities for good, fruitful conversations should be exploited. Marketing, to me, depends almost entirely on where an author is in her career. The higher up the list she climbs, and she's obviously climbing because the numbers are getting increasingly better, then the more marketing support she will get. Sometimes an author will roll in who absolutely knocks everyone's socks off and the house will get behind her in a fabulous way. They will go for broke because of their faith in this author's voice, and a big career is launched. I've seen it work brilliantly and I've seen such efforts result in one big nada. But I think most houses are very smart about this and have had previous, similar successes when they go for broke, and thus know how to make it work. But even with an absolute unknown author who gets marvelous marketing support, it's still only a step on the way to bigger and better things. Marketing support should always be a part of a long term plan for that author. So, again, I think it's very good to know what your goals are and to try and reach them within fairly realistic steps. And yes, some houses market better than others in certain areas. Wainger: I've never had marketing tell me I can't buy a specific book. My marketing person really likes my line and tries to help me capitalize on the risks when we take them. I don't gauge a book on whether it's risky or not, or whether the author is established or not. I just look at the book on its own merits. I certainly don't think only established authors can take risks. You just have to work hard to make the whole package attractive and give the book the best chance possible. Sometimes you must soften risky elements in the packaging-for instance, you refer to the tragedy in their past, but you don't say that their child died. I don't ever lie to readers, and I try to be sure the tone of the packaging fits the story. But you have to balance that with not turning people off before they give the author a chance. Sometimes you have to be creative. Setting, for instance-you don't want it to be a negative if it can't be a positive. Readers aren't reading for a geography lesson, and political issues can be deadly. Something like Northern Ireland, for instance, will de facto turn off a lot of people. So I ask authors to think about making up a country, so they can deal with the same issues but not trigger hot buttons by landing on the "wrong" side. It's not our job to take those positions-it's our job to make people happy. If setting or teaching a lesson or making a statement is your main interest as an author, then you shouldn't be writing romance. Your biggest consideration should be these people's emotional lives. The characters and setting and issues have to first of all work as a romance, and they have to deliver the emotional kick that our readers want. Do you think successful breaking of rules trickles down, opening up opportunities to authors newer on the totem pole? Rowland: Sure, I think successful breaking of rules trickles down to others. Publishers are the biggest copy cats going. But they also know that trends don't last too long, and that only the really talented authors with something original to say will last. So they may jump in with whatever the trend du jour is, but they'll also get out as soon as they realize it isn't working any more. Those who break the rules do it in such a way that it works. If other authors can learn from the masters and improve their work by virtue of the masters' influence, great. That's how we all learn, by imitation. But the imitation has to stop somewhere, and lead to something new in the work of the author who is being "influenced." Otherwise, it's just a cheap imitation, which, yes, will often make publishers money, but not for a long term. Wainger: I often hear, "But So-and-So did it"-and my response is, "Yes, but So-and-So did it really well." That's all that matters-end of story. The book has to work on its own, not because it came after someone else's success. Eykelhof: Well, yes and no. As I've indicated, we make these decisions-whether or not to publish a "risky" book-primarily on the basis of the book itself. LaFehr: Actually, I think new authors are in a much better position to take risks. For an established author to try a departure book is difficult. We're locked into a certain sales expectation, and a departure book that doesn't live up to that expectation can force a rebuilding mode. No publisher (or author) wants to be in the position of having to rebuild what was already a successful track record. I encourage authors to think creatively to expand their horizons without disappointing their readers. Readers want to know what they're getting. You go to the bookstore in the mood for a certain type of read just like you go to your favorite Italian restaurant expecting a certain type and quality of food. If instead you find dim sum on the menu, you're going to be upset. That doesn't mean that you don't like to eat a lot of different things, but if you pick up Jo Beverley for a totally pleasurable, sexy romp and it reads like an Oprah pick, well, it might even spoil your weekend. A writer who wants to do a departure book may be happier, but the readers may not. A writer is free to go wherever she wants, but she needs to understand the impact on her career. Freedom has a price. For a writer who really wants to go in a different direction, a pseudonym may be an excellent choice. Then the name tells the reader what to expect, and if you want to clue in the readers that J.D. Robb is Nora Roberts, for example, or that Amanda Quick is Jayne Ann Krentz, it's not difficult to get that word out. You don't want to hide the connection to previous work, unless you're trying to hide a bad sales record. If you have a risky book and it sells big, we get lots of copycat books-for instance, a book like Diana Gabaldon's. Outlander wouldn't have sold had it not been done exceptionally well. But its success doesn't mean an average attempt at a similar story will get published, or sell well. Do you perceive that it's harder to rationalize risk today? Do time and experience make you more or less risk-averse? Wainger: Some risks work, some don't-but it's worth finding out. You can do strange stuff if you satisfy the basic expectations of the genre and give the reader an emotional kick. With a book like The Morning Side of Dawn by Justine Davis, it wasn't difficult at all to rationalize the risk of a double amputee hero-Dar was just such a man, such a hero. Even with new authors, if the book is good, I'll take the risk. Two prime examples are Alicia Scott's first book, in which the heroine was an ex-prostitute...not your typical romance heroine. But the book was good, so I just concentrated on marketing it the best I could. Another example is Sharon Sala-when I bought her first book, she had, I think, only Meteor Kismets in her background, so she was largely unknown. Her first book was Annie And The Outlaw, and it's chock full of risks-a hero who talks to God and is 150 years old, a heroine who dies and comes back-but the book still chokes me up, and I'd risk it again in a heartbeat. Another example is Maggie Shayne's Out Of This World Marriage. The heroine really is from another planet, and we didn't try to hide that on the back cover copy. You just have to pay attention to packaging. It's a great title that has meaning at more than one level, and the cover was gorgeous. But at heart, it's a marriage of convenience story where the hero has to marry her to keep her safe. It's an unusual story that also has great hooks. LaFehr: Regarding a book such as Pat Gaffney's To Have And To Hold, it wasn't scary for me at all because it was so beautifully done. On one level, I knew Sebastian would be controversial because he was so cruel, but that gave his redemption its power. I can't imagine wanting her to change it. In the final analysis, what's always most important about risk is that writers have to pull it off. Pat pulled it off. As to trusting oneself, I'm lucky in that my personal taste tends to be very commercial. I like big commercial books, and if I find one, I'm in seventh heaven. But sometimes you love a book and it doesn't sell. I've never taken heat for that because everyone in publishing has had that happen. This is a very forgiving business-and for an author, once or twice won't kill you. We recognize that it could have been the packaging, the timing, any one of a number of things. If an author's previous book tanked and I've got another one of hers that I believe in, I go in saying, hey, we know she's a good writer, let's don't blame her because we don't know for sure what happened-let's try again. If it happens over and over, well, that's a different story, but once or twice isn't the end. Something writers might want to consider, too, is that even if a really wonderful book bombs, that book of the heart she feels is her best work ever might still have a shot. If the author keeps going and keeps building, the book can be repackaged and reissued and have a second chance. I think we're basically optimists in this business-we're always looking so far ahead-in fact, we're now scheduling 2001! Enderlin: Risk can equal a big payoff. Every publisher wants that. Publishers make gambles every day. We wouldn't have a business if we didn't take risks. Time and experience make you more comfortable trusting your own judgment. Eykelhof: Barefoot in the Grass did have a real impact on readers. It worked so well because the emphasis was on the heroine being a breast cancer survivor and rediscovering her strength, in part through the love she shares with the hero. Fay Robinson's A Man Like Mac is a sensual and very realistic depiction of the relationship between a paraplegic hero and an able-bodied heroine. In a dramatic story by Rebecca Winters, Until There Was You, the heroine discovers that her grandfather was a Nazi war criminal. In Peggy Nicholson's You Again, an unusual comedy-fantasy-romance, the heroine's consciousness enters her cat's body. Karen Young's A Father's Heart features a hero falsely accused of sexually molesting a high school student while he was a principal; the accusation is enough to ruin his life, costing him his marriage and children. In Margot Early's You Were on My Mind, the heroine has amnesia and (realistically) does not recover her memory; the hero's father has Alzheimer's and in a lucid moment asks his son to commit a mercy killing. These are only a few of many examples I could mention-all stories that take some degree of risk with content and in a few cases, technique. Central to each story is a strong romance and, as I've mentioned, a positive and ultimately uplifting view. Most of what's considered "risky," particularly as far as content is concerned, has to do with real-life situations that could, and in many cases will, happen to every reader. The illness and death of loved ones, for example, is something that will happen to us all. Teen pregnancy is, unfortunately, hardly an unusual situation. People suffering the results of violence, as Mac McCandless does in A Man Like Mac-that's not unusual, either; we all know someone it's happened to. We're told that one woman in ten is going to get breast cancer. And so on... The thing about these "risky" books is that they make more demands of the reader; they also repay her commitment to the story. They make certain assumptions about readers and about romance fiction. The usual bromide is that romance is "entertainment" and "escapist"; in fact, though, these books entertain by allowing the reader to enter the lives of characters whose dilemmas and conflicts are real and recognizable. We not only become involved in their lives, we derive comfort and hopefulness from the way they cope with those problems. I'm not talking about easy answers but real ones. I guess this kind of realistic approach is part of the "risk"-there's no miracle cure, no operation that'll make Mac walk again, no way Ivy Walcott is going to recover all of her memory. These books are about people making the best of painful situations and having the courage to go on-and they're about the way love confers that courage. There's a place for pleasant, smoothly written stories in every genre and type of writing. We all enjoy them. There's also a place for powerful stories like the ones I've mentioned, stories that disturb, that engage the reader on a different and deeper level. Have the rules changed since you started in the business? Enderlin: I wasn't aware that there were any rules, except to buy the best writers you can find, work with them and communicate with them to write their best stories, and as an editor be the most effective and enthusiastic communicator to your company and to your writers. This has never changed. Rowland: Where the rules have changed is in distribution and conglomerization and that's affecting all of us, publishers and authors alike. Editors and publishers are being much more cautious then they've ever been before, they are risk-averse and mostly want what's tried and true. And the numbers for everyone are down across the board so it takes longer to have careers take off. But very, very good writing will find a publisher. Unfortunately, the learning has to happen independently of the publisher in a way it didn't always before. Wainger: The very basic elements, the core expectations, haven't changed-hero and heroine, romantic tension, happy ending. But yes, changes have occurred. Someone who started reading the English Harlequins thirty or more years ago would have believed that the story is always "she's 21 or younger, he's much older and experienced, he has no POV, he's rich and he's gruff." But the American authors came along and wrote different stories. Changes have occurred because some authors took risks and they worked. With each experiment, we gain experience and learn. The delivery vehicles now can be everything from a Volkswagen to a Mack truck. As a reader, I don't want the same book over and over, but our readers may not agree with every choice I make, and we have to listen and learn. We do see a mirroring of what's going on in society, and that changes all the time. I think the current fascination with kids has to do with all the Boomers who are the bulge in the python's belly. These women concentrated on their careers first, and we had romances with heroines in non-traditional careers in the Eighties. But now, those women are having kids later in life, and their focus has shifted to family. If we were still publishing what we were when I started in this business, I probably wouldn't be here. Both as a reader and an editor, I want growth. I like it that we launch new lines and shift the focus of existing ones. And some parting advice... Wainger: The downside that authors don't always want to hear is that there is no guarantee-but that's true even with a traditional book. Authors are taking a chance every time, sharing the risk with us that a book may not do well. As an editor, I will publish a risky book and do all I can to package it effectively and give it the best shot, but I can't stand at the racks and say to each reader who walks up, "Yes, it's different, but you'll like it." I can't guarantee sales, and I don't buy only on the basis of what seems guaranteed to work. The bottom line, though, is: the story has to work. No editor publishes risky books just for the sake of risk. She publishes them because the story really speaks to her as the first reader, enough so that she's willing to fight for that book. Enderlin: Just this last bit of advice: every writer should watch the movie "Jerry Maguire" and listen to the advice that Jerry (Tom Cruise) gives the football player, Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) throughout the movie. It could truly change the way you view your writing, vs. your writing career. RWR article/Brashear23 © Jean Brashear   New Releases | Bookshelf | Contest | Biography | The Writing Life |  Photos | NASCAR | Newsletters | Home   Contact Jean   Contact the webmaster: webmaster@noveltalk.com              Hosted by      Designed by