I don't think it's cheating. (But then it was my idea to fiddle with that particular rule in the first place, so that's hardly surprising.)
To be fair when it comes to romance your basic plot list is a little limited. "Hero meets heroine. They fall in love. There are Obstacles! They overcome them and live happily ever after! The End." (Or, of course, the last bit can be replaced with "Rocks fall; everybody dies! The End." if you want a tragic love story.)
I think with romance, if you like romantic things, it's just finding a) the right subgenre, b) the right writers. Harlequin, I think, is still mostly known for its penny romances, not the high quality stuff, but I could be wrong about that. Even so, it's a reputation that the genre as a whole still has. A few days ago Ilona Andrews made the comment that SF/F writers tend to look down on romance writers (it's the last example she's giving) and why they shouldn't. (But for the sake of sticking to her actual point, she doesn't acknowledge that those sneers tend to exist for a reason. And that reason is that romance novels are written badly often enough for those to be the image people have of the genre.
You can see that image rearing its head in your first post too: 'and from what I've seen Harlequin doesn't exactly mind "beginner" errors'. That's not exactly the most flattering description of Harlequin/romance novels there. From what you've said of the books you've read it sounds like they've not done a whole lot to convince you otherwise. Which may be the genre conventions, but may also be the writing style. Might be worth looking into which it is if you haven't already.
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Date: 2009-08-17 04:56 am (UTC)To be fair when it comes to romance your basic plot list is a little limited. "Hero meets heroine. They fall in love. There are Obstacles! They overcome them and live happily ever after! The End." (Or, of course, the last bit can be replaced with "Rocks fall; everybody dies! The End." if you want a tragic love story.)
I think with romance, if you like romantic things, it's just finding a) the right subgenre, b) the right writers. Harlequin, I think, is still mostly known for its penny romances, not the high quality stuff, but I could be wrong about that. Even so, it's a reputation that the genre as a whole still has. A few days ago Ilona Andrews made the comment that SF/F writers tend to look down on romance writers (it's the last example she's giving) and why they shouldn't. (But for the sake of sticking to her actual point, she doesn't acknowledge that those sneers tend to exist for a reason. And that reason is that romance novels are written badly often enough for those to be the image people have of the genre.
You can see that image rearing its head in your first post too: 'and from what I've seen Harlequin doesn't exactly mind "beginner" errors'. That's not exactly the most flattering description of Harlequin/romance novels there. From what you've said of the books you've read it sounds like they've not done a whole lot to convince you otherwise. Which may be the genre conventions, but may also be the writing style. Might be worth looking into which it is if you haven't already.