Sharon's Muse.... Let's chat over coffee while I ponder some things
|
Sharon's Muse.... Let's chat over coffee while I ponder some things |
About Me
Name::Sharon Cullars
From::
My Meez 
Recent Entries
Archives
Personal
Interesting Sites
RAINE'S BLUES 
Now available at Loose-Id Watch trailer for Raine's Blues
GOLD MOUNTAIN 
Available at Loose-Id
AGAIN
Need Flashplayer to view. Give time to load.
TOOL & BAD BOYS Short, Short Ebooks My Artwork
My Merchandise Freelance Projects
blog posts, articles, web content, resumes, copywriting, proofreading
Read my business guides at Work.com
Read my profile on Air Station Savannah's pivotal Katrina rescues
Read my article on the Fair Trade system
Credits |
Thursday, October 05, 2006 Happily Ever Afters (Or Not) One of the inviolable rules of the romance genre is that everything is supposed to be peachy keen in the end, where all obstacles have been neatly obliterated and flaws have been ameliorated and yes, the hero and heroine with dewy eyes plea their troth to one another (or at least determine they will somehow be together forever). Note that this promise cannot be ambiguous, must not be implied. Well and good if you like Rebecca on Sunnybrook Farm. I can only take maudlin with sugar for so long before the need to regurgitate comes over me. I know romance is supposed to be fantasy, but I can't get grounded in a relationship unless it has the travails of reality intersperced in there somewhere. I need my heroines and heroes flawed and human (perfection is boring). I need for some of these flaws to be nearly intractable. Easy solutions don’t jibe; I don't believe in love overcoming all - (gasp!) - because love doesn't. It's as simple as that. Love doesn't cure physical anomalies, doesn't pay the bills, doesn't undo past wrongs, doesn't transform dick into the perfect man (or woman) in a matter of 300 pages. I also believe that writing should push envelopes to stretch itself beyond boundaries. I hate formulaic plots and unbreachable rules. And romance seems to have unbreachable rules. I truly believe that's why it will remain a dismissed stepchild in the publishing world. Now here is where some of my misogyny has to spill out (yes, a woman can be a misogynist). I am tired of women who need pink roses and fluffy pillows and gumdrop skies, who flee from conflict, who don't know the pleasures of getting down and dirty, who blanch at cuss words or adventurous sexual positions, who throw books at walls if somehow there isn't an explicit promise of marriage and kiddies at the end of a tome. I’m not of the Martha Stewart world. I don't believe in tea doilies and knitting booties. I believe in aspiring to climb mountains, go deep sea diving to discover sunken treasures, believe in women doing some ass kicking. I believe in women doing their own shit and not living their entire lives just to catch a good man (as though a man is a fish you can reel in with the right equipment). And here's another gasp - I don't believe home and the hearth should be a woman's ultimate focus in live. It's too limiting, too boring. Readers who seek the boring should stick to the formulas and happily ever afters and stop bitching when someone actually deigns to rip open the envelope and maybe, ahem, let a hero die, or a heroine not want to be tied down. Where a relationship isn't a foregone conclusion at the end. In other words, I want some imagination with my book and if that entails violating the HEAs, then so be it.
|
| Layout Design by Hajira | Thanks to:Getty Images • Blogspot • Blogskins • |
