I have a rant but no time to argue it, isn't that pathetic? It will have to wait till this weekend.
It has to do with the word bodice-ripper in connection to all books romance. Why is it being used? Most of the time, the word doesn't even fit the books that are out there any more. Experienced romance readers know what bodice rippers are, but most reporters and romance book critics, who freely admit not to read "the stuff," don't even know its actual meaning.
I have a newspaper article out this week and although it was uber-positive and is generating tons of great publicity, the first intro into my work was suspense bodice ripper. My first reaction...grrrrrrroan. WTF is a suspense bodice ripper? Is that a new genre? ;-/ I did write a nice email the reporter who wrote the article and she'd said she didn't even know that the term came from old historical romances that had the hero forcing himself on the heroine while she mostly gasped out "no, no, no..." through many of the scenes. The reporter went "ewwwww...," just as I knew she would, because she had been wonderful during the interview. She hadn't meant to describe my books that way, she said.
Ah well. I'll just have to settle with rant, rant, rant, until I get some time to think and write about this very real problem romance writers face. I have no solution, really, other than to make it a rule in future interviews to educate the interviewer what that term means. But then, of course, I could come off as terribly insecure, LOL, which I'm not.
I liked reading bodice-rippers during its heydey. Heck, I'll admit to still loving Rosemary Roger's Sweet Savage Love (or many parts of it). If I remember correctly, in the sequel, Ginny the heroine, through her horrific experiences, became a knife-expert and managed to...ah...exact certain horizontal revenge on Steve the hero with quite kickass knife-moves. She turned uber! So even bodice-rippers can turn into something else.
So my new answer to people accusing me of writing bodice rippers?
"Where ya been, dudes? That's so twentieth century."
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Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Spies Don't Rant
Posted by Gennita at 6:54 PM
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2 comments:
Hugs on the good interview. Commiseration on the bodice=ripper lead-in. High 5 on educating the reporter!
A reporter asked me if I wrote bodice-rippers. I politely educated her with a short history on the evolution of women in romance novels. *evil grin* Like you, I pointed out the antiquity of the term as so "30 years ago." LOL
Isn't it funny that they just use the term and not really know what it is? I guess the only way is to be obtuse.
"Do you write bodice rippers?"
"My books don't have any bodices in them."
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