Sforzando: When bad writing and bad writing combine...

[silveradept]

I will laugh at this article following. I will also be incredibly incensed at it because of the things that make it funny. It's the liminal space between "Ha!" and "Augh!", and there's enough of both to go around.

Here's the source material - while reading, keep firmly in your head the progression of the outside-the-book segments of the movie of The Princess Bride. (In fact, comment 9 indicates other people have the same realization.) The maturation of the Male Writer, with regard to romance.

The funny part is, of course, that we know someone for whom this progression is totally accurate. The Augh part is that we know someone for whom this progression is totally accurate. So, let's step through them and make some comparisons.

STAGE 1: Ignorance - "There are girls in Lord of the Rings?"

At first, the subject is aware of love stories in general, but has either never read any or is unaware that he has. Attempts at bringing romance to the subject's attention may result in discomfort, interrupted thought patterns, or an irrational desire to play Splinter Cell.

The picture in mind here is probably the young child for whom girls have cooties and kisses are threats, not things to be sought. It's not ignorance, but more, innocence. At this stage, I suspect, are the people for whom romance is just not a concept they can get yet.

STAGE 2: Avoidance - They were close enough to feel the warmth of-- "BO-RING." *flip* *flip* *flip*

In the second stage, the subject exhibits an acute awareness and dislike of romance. He will sometimes go out of his way to learn about popular series with romantic storylines just so he can deride them. Studies show a strong correlation between writers in this stage and bachelors.

The-wha? So we've moved onward to the point of maturation where one recognizes that romance is a possibility, but that the girls at this stage are not necessarily the people they want to practice it on, for whatever reason it takes, and no matter how hard some of those girls try to accelerate straight into romances like the ones that show up in those popular series. It's a partially-developed capacity, really, and so it shouldn't be derided, either.

STAGE 3: Tolerance - "I like the rest of this story. I guess I can put up with a kissing scene or two."

Often triggered by a well-written adventure/romance novel, or a series of real-life break ups, writers in the third stage begin to actually read romantic subplots, if not enjoy them. This is provided, of course, that the main plot involves terrorists, aliens, pirates, serial killers, or some other form of mortal terror.

The stereotypical "male reader" is this phase, to be laughed at because his reading preferences run toward things that are not romance plots layered on top of romance plots with a good helping of school politics and backstabbing. Perhaps because he's been exposed to romance upon romance upon romance as part of his required schooling and will be/already has been exposed as a significant part of his English Department coursework for university. Having been exposed to so many romance plots and sideplots, he's probably hyper-aware of them and knows how to internally critique their relevance and importance to the plot. "Putting up with a kissing scene" probably means that he recognizes the romance has been hung on to the plot for no discernible reason and probably could have been exercised without harm to the main story. The Princess Bride fucntions perfectly well as a story of high adventure inspired by true love without needing the kissing (excepting, perhaps at the end to show that True Love is the reward of the High Adventure.)

And then, things turn downward.

STAGE 4: Curiosity - "Women read a lot, and they seem to like this stuff. I bet if I can fake it, they'll read my stuff too."

Writers begin to see romance as a means to "trick" women into reading their book. They pay more attention to love stories, trying to see "how it's done." It's important at this stage that they learn from fiction, because even after thousands of years of studying women in real life, men still have no clue what they want.

Ah, I'm sure that every man reading that feels refreshed after having been slapped in the face. Not to mention that this doesn't hang with the logic of stage three above - it seems pretty clear to me that the men reading and writing have a good idea of what they want, and it's not books with romances piled upon romances with romantic subplots. In life, I think that men have an idea of what they would like in women, as well, unrealistic and unlikely as much of it may be when they try to map from their own fantasy world to reality. The stage four writer is apparently cynically trying to connive women into reading his book by filling it full of plot-unnecessary romances, or by writing romance books by rote, formula, or hook. I suggest that you add a Snidely Whiplash moustache onto this caricature just to make sure the point gets put across. It sounds like this writer is trying to get revenge for having been forcedd to read all those romances by getting rich off of writing bad romances. I don't think even Kirby and Lee could make that a plausible storyline. Anyone who's starting the craft of writing is going to produce material that doesn't deseve to see the light of day and is wrong on so many editorial, plot, and other levels. And then they keep writing and getting rejections until they turn out something that's publishable and have the luck of catching the attention of the editor that will give them a shot.

Anyway...

STAGE 5: Secret Acceptance - In the last stage, the subject comes to terms with the fact that romance is a part of life, and therefore a part of fiction. Although certain cultural pressures still apply.

In public: "I don't care who she ends up with. I just want to see her blow stuff up!"
At home: "Why can't she see how much Gale cares for her?" *tissue*

And then we put the hammer down. Oh, those guys, they just have to put up a macho front but they're big softies inside. They actually liked having to go through all those romance books and subplots, and now they have to have them, even in their big action books.

BZZZZZZT. The stereotyping, where does it end?! And no mention that this particular "tough-on-the-outside" societal requirement is likely hurting kids, curtailing their reading because it's not sufficiently tough (or forcing the person with the book to read it inside the latest issue of a skin magazine), driving some of them to pain and suicide, while others who consider themselves cultural police enforce those things with violence. One would hope by this point in their writing, the Stage 5 writer puts in romance because it's important to the book and needs to be there, not as something dropped in because they think it will sell. All of their elements should be thre because they have importance. If people think men only write romance grudglingly or to try and capture women with fakery and tricks, then we have a problem.

Comments

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

You... You haven't run into those obnoxious fanboys who think that all fangirls are gross and stupid because we (*horrors*) are moved by romantic subplots and are concerned about, talk about, and write fic about pairings in our fiction, have you? They treat any whiff of romance in a story as a flaw that could not possibility have any artistic value. These cootie-fearing male types actually extend much farther than fandom, all the way up the chain to literary circles.

Basically what I am saying here is that in making your statement that "Having been exposed to so many romance plots and sideplots, he's probably hyper-aware of them and knows how to internally critique their relevance and importance to the plot," you are putting way, way too much faith in the average male reader. Men, whether fannish or scholarly or both, have been socialized to view romance as "feminine" and therefore gross and weak and (in the case of the academics) Not Art. Not all men are like this, certainly, but it's just another way everything perceived as "feminine" gets devalued.

(Jesus, you should hear Nicholas Sparks - yes, Nicholas Sparks of all people - trashing on Jane Austen and other romance writers for being trashy. He doesn't write romance, you see, he writes stories that are UNPREDICTABLE where people happen to be in love. Translation: he is a douchebag who doesn't want the cootie touch of romance even though he writes it.)

[silveradept]

Well, I won't discount that men have been socialized to view feminine stuff as gross and weak. I had a paragraph in my mind somewhere about "Geez, well, if you haven't turned all of those men off of reading by now (stage 3), continuing to stereotype those that are left can't be helping your cause." but I couldn't find a way of fitting it in that flowed well. It still means that those cootie-fearing wankers are still there, and probably in higher concentrations, because the sane people have been peeled off through the broader cultural stereotyping.

...There's something I'm trying to grasp, and it runs somewhere to "devaluation of feminine things is a broader cultural problem that needs fixing, romance plots and subplots are almost ubiquitous to novels, and the combination of both of them often gets the bad effect of having normal men writers and readers turned off to novels, leaving the wankers and a few decent people left to critique that ubiquity."

[scribe-of-stars.livejournal.com]

Jane Austen, trashy?! Utter insolence.