Author: Jenn J McLeod

…Fiction with Romantic Elements?

Firstly, Fiction with Romantic Elements is a recognised RWA sub-genre. Thanks RWA! It means that writers like me are welcomed and able to benefit from membership and all the great RWA resources.

But is it understood as a sub-genre?

In a recent competition, my Fiction with Romantic Elements ms was marked down for not being romantic enough! The judge’s comments…

What could have been improved? ‘Romantic parts, more of romance in the story lines’

X Factor: ‘It would be a great story but not in the romance line.’

Reader enjoyability: ‘Story doesn’t sound like it has the real romance line, more like a biography fiction line.’

I write contemporary women’s fiction with romantic elements. But have I got it right? Seriously, I don’t know. I base it on the following:

• The romance is there – it’s just not necessarily the main plot line of the story.

• I don’t have ‘heroines’ – more everyday, flawed, warts-and-all women whose conflict is not necessarily with a hero/the love interest.

• The plot’s focus might be on social issues and themes about culture or society rather than a relationship.

• Rather than finding love/lust with another, my characters find personal fulfilment through self-acceptance/personal discovery and their HEA (happy ever after) comes about more from this internal growth/self-acceptance, rather than an external person/hero (although a relationship can be influential in helping them to reach/realise their dreams/goals).

I also question the requirement of a HEA in this sub-genre. If you study sub-genre ‘rules’, without a HEA it’s not a romance novel.

Yes, I like stories that leave you feeling optimistic. I won’t even watch a movie that has a sad ending: Eg The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, The Horse Whisperer- and don’t even get me started on Romeo and Juliet – not much of a HEA there! (If I do watch one of these, I turn the DVD off before the sad bit and make my own uplifting ending.)

But if the lack of a HEA means it isn’t a romance story, what is it?

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

What does one do on the 25th day of Nano? Cut concrete of course.

After three major floods this year, I decided I had to get an extra grate across my six-metre wide driveway to channel water away from the house. My wonderful neighbour, PJ, suggested we could do it cheaper ourselves.

I said okay.

I mean how hard can it be, right?

Doesn’t the saw do all the work? (The saw and PJ, that is!)

The answer is YES and NO. After the cutting comes cracking up the concrete, carting the concrete away and mixing fresh concrete to put back in around the grate – great! While I wasn’t writing for the six-hour marathon effort, I did think about writing – in particular the next phase of my ms – the editing.

I thought, which one is harder – cutting concrete or cutting words?

We took a perfectly good driveway, cut holes in it, smashed it with a sledgehammer and chucked out what felt like 10,000 lumps of concrete. I found this task physically exhausting, but emotionally I was fine – after all I wasn’t attached to the concrete bits, they weren’t needed anymore, they served no purpose and they had to go, or else clutter my lovely front garden.

But ask me to destroy a perfectly good ms and cut 10,000 words – words I have lovingly crafted into picturesque prose, rephrasing, restructuring and replacing over and over until it sings to me in a united and harmonious voice, I’d rather go outside and cut concrete.

It’s definitely easier.