English teacher by day, Romance writer by night. Welcome to class, where Ms. Motes analyzes the power in popular Romance novels, connects stuffy English Literature mechanics to Romance writing, and documents her own journey into Authordom.
I always thought that to be a great writer, I needed to analyze great writing. Then, under the covers with flashlight beaming, I would indulge in a romance or two. For years, between after school extra curricular activities and high school finals, then from college lectures and odd jobs to make some text books and tuition scratch, I would read romance novels and relax.
It was not classic literature nor anything from The New York Time’s Bestseller or the nationally accredited best book that lay on my night stand. At some point, reading literature during the day and reading popular romances at night had me seeing Binocular Vision. I had to look this term up, but the visual is when one eye sees an image and the other eyes sees another, then both eyes blend images together to make a third dimensional image. Essentially, I began to see romance in text books and literary craft in romance novels. The art of language was transferrable between literatures’ best works and romance’s popular novels. I couldn’t see the difference, but those around me could.
If you are a teacher or student, you are expected to read the best of the best as deemed by some literary guild of judges or underground obscure foreign literature connoisseurs. You tell a professor that you finished East of Eden, they lift an eyebrow of approval. You tell people you're an English major and they tend to ask your favorite book. The brow people raise is not as kind when I say The Deal by Elle Kennedy, the King Series by T. M. Frasier, or anything by Kristen Ashley. Even a professor might cough in surprise and politely nod their head. Unless the romance novel is a classic like Wuthering Heights or Sense and Sensibility, most romance readers would keep the book titles to themselves, unless they were sharing with anonymous strangers on a site of fellow romance lovers.
How is the most rapidly produced, published, and consumed genre treated like a dirty secret?
Well, when society tends to trash talk and bad mouth romance as “porn” or “sensationalism” without any decorum, of course we would keep our romance titles gripped closely to our chests. Why would we explain that in their time even Jane Austen and Emily Bronte could have been seen as sensationalists. Why is it that unless a novel survives the test of time, was a controversial piece, or an obscure writing of some unknown author (popular by not being popular) that novel is deemed worthy of mention as “good writing”.
The frustration of keeping my love of romance novels a secret led to keeping my Romantic imaginings a secret too. Notebooks fill my bookshelves alongside the jars and cups filled with my collection of pens, cute and blank journals, and books on various topics used to fuel my details. Notebooks filled with romantic musings, titillating dialogue, and drool worthy scenarios. During the day, I wrote analysis papers on the classics in a formal language that is only ever used in the classroom or in a newspaper and text books. At night, I turned my pen to a different craft of writing, expressing the voice that constantly streamed in my head and keeping my dreams in my head where they belonged.
I am tired of hiding my love for, well, love. Why should we hide the fact that we see beautiful words in mundane places, people, and situations, in the facts of history and science, in a moment you see on the bus. Why should I hide something that makes me smile from people who may desperately need something to bring them a smile. A romance novel helps relax into a condition we all hope to be in - love. Even I will admit to scoffing at the unbelievable situations in a romance novel. On occasion, I have skipped through a sex scene in my book. I have rolled my eyes at a kissing scene in a movie or a forced couple in the midst of an action film because the hot girl needed to be with the heroic guy. Just because I claim to be a romance reader and writer does not mean that all romantic encounters are lovable. Here is the thing, no matter the flavor of romance, everyone has a preference for how they consume love. Some people find romance in real life too jaded to read about love in novels. Meanwhile, others find love in a book, because they may be too shy to experience love in real life or they are too unsure to settle for a real life boyfriend when a book boyfriend does the trick.
Today marks the first chapter of a new romance, one between me and my longest held relationship to romance itself. If you are the person who rolls your eyes when someone like me says my favorite book is probably a romance, or you are someone like me who loves romance in books and real life, then I welcome you to my class. In my classroom, all voices are welcome, but mind your words. This writer tends toward kind words and positive critiques. Each lesson is to school you in the craft of the romance novel. I use the old and dusty language of English Language Arts classrooms and apply them to the modern Language Arts in popular fiction. Each diary entry is a reflection of the difficulties I experience to apply the mechanics of craft after spending years analyzing craft of, what I deem, good writing.
