continuing in the genre vein...

[kaigou]

Over at Teach me Tonight, which appears to be an academic-analysis site focused on romance genre (uh, yes, that's right), there's a post defining paranormal romance. Here's the crux from Sarah Frantz's post (all emphases in original):

...a paranormal romance is a novel focusing on a close relationship in which the primary mundane vs. paranormal tension is explored between the partners in the relationship. So while a story in which both characters know of, understand, and believe in the paranormal elements of the world would technically be "paranormal," it might not be a paranormal romance because why have a romance with paranormal elements if the mundane/paranormal tension does not effect the relationship? In a paranormal romance, then, by my definition, at least one character must believe they are mundane (whether or not they are) and have to struggle within the relationship with the tension between mundane and paranormal. This definition can be represented in any number of ways, but that's what I come to when I actually try to parse out my personal understanding of the combination phrase "paranormal romance." [Each] and every relationship has to get over the "I don't believe you are a ______/I don't believe you can do ________" stage. That's what makes them paranormal, in my opinion.

The climax of a paranormal novel can be the mundane partner in the relationship accepting the paranormal aspects in their lives, or it can be the antagonist getting what comes to him/her, usually with the help of the paranormal elements, after the mundane partner has accepted the paranormal, but the tension of the main relationship needs to be heavily invested in the tension between the mundane and the paranormal.

A few things that have popped into my head.

1. I do think that in the first sentence quoted, "close" needs to be defined further as "potentially sexual" or "physically intimate" to indicate that we're not talking about two friends, or former lovers, or even two siblings. There are a lot more kinds of "close" relationships than just those that end up horizontal.
   
   
2. Outside the issue of the type of relationship (physically vs. emotional-only close/intimate) I don't agree that the tension must be between one-half of the partnership and the other. In fact, why can't you have two characters finding themselves lost in a paranormal world, where they're coming to grips with it -- together and apart -- and its impact on their assumptions? Or even two characters that are non-human/paranormal/fantastical but must face up to the issues/stresses of the human world? There's a lot more out there that can cause conflict and/or separate the potential pairing than just "we aren't the same" in the sense of human vs. non-human; "we aren't the same" can also mean how we react to situations.
   
   
3. After reading three books by Liu now, I think I've figured out why -- even if I'd not been warned by cover or copy -- I would've registered it was a fantastical Romance, not romantic sff: it's part of the same reason I don't consider Shanna's Enchantments, Inc series to be Romance in the genre-sense. In Shanna's first (and until the end of the second), it wasn't always certain who the protag would pick/get-picked-by. Oh, it was clear who the protag wanted, but not that this was possible, let alone would ever happen. In Liu's work, it was there as soon as the second protag appeared: kaBAM, these two are going to be together.
   
   To vary what I said in an earlier post, for Romance, it's not who, just when and how; for everyone else, the 'who' may be in as much question as the rest. But in Romance, you can peg the who, but it's not just that. (And I do recall reading Romance genre back in Junior High, so while I don't know my Crusie, I do know the basic tenets of the genre; they've not changed that much, from what I see in Liu) It's that the author emphasizes, and re-emphasizes, this connection between the two, so you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what 'pairing' you're dealing with.
   
   This is the reason I don't think Gail Dayton's, or Laura Anne Gilman's, works qualify as strictly Romance. In both cases, there's an available pairing(s), but the question remains open, and the pushiness of the "this is it! this is it!" simply isn't there. I'm not saying that's better; I'm saying if the individual authors didn't make their chosen style work for me, I wouldn't read, so it's six o' one, half-dozen the other in that respect.
   
   
4. This has made me realize that the more I write, in my own stuff, the two characters being so completely aware of each other, the more I'm writing Romance, and not just a romantic passage within a greater sff story. Because, in effect, the more I come down with sudden, intense, focus on the part of each character for the other (especially to the exclusion of all else), the more I'm veering sideways into a Romance-influenced voice, and I don't think this works in SFF, not to a huge degree, at least.
   
   It certainly doesn't work when I promise, at the beginning, that I'll be telling a story about two siblings trying to find each other while coming to grips with their magical heritage. I do think each/either could find someone and/or be attracted to another character, but that absolute focus (for however short a time) is too much for the story to bear; it must be tempered, made more subtle. Otherwise it drags the story sideways, and -- even if temporarily -- makes the reader feel like they've just been handed the wrong scene.

Which is to say: now I understand why Mal said to cut back, severely, on two or three scenes. *salutes*

And now, back to work. Discuss!

Comments

Hi, from Sarah F. Thanks for the link!

[sarahf.livejournal.com]

Still like your rewording in #1.

I like #2 and it's given me a lot to think about, but I still think what's going to happen in a *romance* in which two mundane characters deal with a paranormal world is that one character will accept the world more easily than the other, creating the tension between them that I talked about. And what you say about two paranormal characters holds true to my definition as well, I think. Consider the Anita Blake books (before...well, before the last few): Anita was paranormal herself and had accepted a small part of it, but she didn't want to be THAT paranormal, and THAT was worked out in the relationships with Jean Claude and Richard (and Damian and Asher and Nathaniel and Micah...yada yada yada). Before the books were slut fests, they were romances, IMHO.

And I'm glad I had a small part in helping your writing! I wish I could find it in myself to do more of my own.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I still think what's going to happen in a *romance* in which two mundane characters deal with a paranormal world is that one character will accept the world more easily than the other, creating the tension between them that I talked about.

I agree, but I think this can apply to SFF, too. I recall in Holly Black's Valiant, for instance, Val and her friends are aware of the non-human world around them, but where her friends cheerfully use (and abuse) the benefits of their knowledge, Val struggles with it. And those struggles impact her friendships, bringing her closer and distancing her, at various points. Those friendships, however, aren't Romantic in the genre-sense; but they are an integral part of the plot, and thicken the conflict nicely and believably.

The crux, underneath it, I think, comes down to this, to define something as Fantastical Romance*:

1. There must be a happy ending for the main protagonists, in which a sexually intimate relationship is either begun or clearly on its way with no hitches (that is, a book that ends with 'the first kiss' would still be Romance, right?).

2. The main plotline of the story is the development of a sexually intimate, or potentially sexually intimate, relationship between two people; any other plotlines exist for complexity, contrast, or support to the central love story.

3. The paranormal/fantastical element must be integral to the story, and is a framework for the characters in relating to each other, either as fellow newbies to the fantastical elements, with opposing experiences of the fantastical, or as fellow fantastical outsiders in the human world. That is, the fantastical must define, alter, or advance their relationship in some way.

By those standards, I am not writing Fantastical Romance, but urban SFF with a romantic sub-plot. I might qualify under #1 and #3, but not by #2, because my own plotline focuses on siblings reuniting, not on the subplot of one sibling finding love as well.

Back in junior high [censored] years ago, I recall my French teacher saying that you learn the most about your own language by studying someone else's. That held true then, and again when I studied Mandarin (I never understood 'dangling participles' until I found you can't do participles at all in Mandarin!).

I'm amused (and pleased) that this concept also seems to hold for writing. The more I discuss, read, and contemplate other genres and their boundaries, definitions, issues, etc., the more I see what's going on in my own genre, and in my own writing. (Then again, my favorite kinds of books are genre-crossers, like Gruber's Tropic of Night.)

*Yes, 'paranormal' may be the marketing term but, like Roberts -- or was it Bujold? -- said in the followup Dear Author (http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/01/16/who-moved-my-cheese-whether-paranormal-romances-are-due-for-a-makeover/) thread, I agree that paranormal makes me think of 'occult', and is an exclusive term, while 'fantastical' includes both traditional sff and occult.

If we could slap Marketing upside the head (hah! get in line!), my suggestion would be to broaden that Romance term to be more inclusive, to alert SFF readers (who read for #1 and #3 and probably wouldn't mind #2's inclusion) who wouldn't mind a quick stop through a new section if they knew they'd get something worth it.

And I've seen it said somewhere else that Luna's books shouldn't have been shelved as Romances, but I only ever found them in Fantasy, at B&N and at Borders. In fact, I was shocked, shocked, I say!, to discover I'd just bought a Harlequin book and I'd liked it. *dies*