Crooked Smile

It's time to discuss another romance novel cliche! Oh boy! You know how I love those!

This time it's the male lead's crooked smile! I know! You love them! I know it because so many male love interests have one!

So I've been wondering, if we took a survey, what percentage of men would have crooked smiles? How would that compare to the percentage of romantic males in novels?

Men have a distinct disadvantage over women in this regard, whereas a female might feel scarred for life over not having the ability to look through her eye lashes, (this has been discussed in a previous post) I suspect men are blissfully unaware that love is so dependent on a crooked smile.

Perhaps this is why nerds are nerds. Many men don't read romance novels. Any publisher will tell you the target audience for romance is people of the female persuasion. Don't argue the point with me, I'm just stating the way it is.

Now how is a guy supposed to understand how to not be a nerd and how to be a romantic hero if he doesn't read romance? There is a sad lack of critical education going on here. A guy could be born, live and die a nerd and never know it.

No wonder the 'male ego' is a thing. How is society supposed to manipulate and subvert men with this kind of business going on? How are men supposed to find out they should have crooked smiles and rumpled hair in order to find true love?

Instead they go around defying all the rules without having these horrifying deficiencies hanging over their heads and destroying all hope of happiness.

Life is so unfair.

Blasphemy! Gasp!

Pride and Prejudice is not a Romance.

You heard me.

I know what you're thinking. But let's take a step back and look at the definition for the genre Romance.

According to Romance Writers of America, "Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending."

Hmmm..... looks legit.  Seems like Pride and Prejudice should qualify...

But the main plot and focus of Romance is to stay strictly with the main romantic characters and is not to stray far from them at any point in time. If the focus strays too far for too long, then things start getting muddy and we have to question whether we actually have a Romance or if we have another genre with a lot of Romance in it. 

I know today's readers are not so nit picky. I know most of them figure if it's got a great romantic story in it, then it qualifies and who cares about finicky definitions?  

But this is a blog post and writing about pointless things is the whole point of this blog! 

Anyway, Elizabeth spends an awful lot of time not being with, talking to, describing, or thinking about Mr. Darcy. I mean, if you think about it she spends a shocking amount of her energies on other things entirely! She lavishes attention on Jane, Charlotte, and the other people in her life with no regard to him whatsoever for pages on end! 

What kind of romantic heroine is this?

Now in my experience, in Romance Novels the main couple meets on the first page and proceeds to be together in one capacity or another on every single other page of the book. If they aren't actually together they are thinking about each other. Other relationships and characters are making mere cameo appearances and spend a great deal of time talking about or to the main couple. Really, try it. Open any legitimate romance and see how many pages you can go without both parties of the main couple being mentioned from a romantic standpoint.

Not so with Pride and Prejudice. 

But might there be another genre that suits it better? That better describes the relationships and action going on in Pride and Prejudice? 

Realistic Fiction is imaginary characters doing things and in situations that could happen in real life. A strong argument could be made that Jane Austen is the founder of this genre since she's the first English author who wrote about everyday life and situations that could really happen with fictional characters which had a profound effect on English authors who came after her. But, a great deal of Romance could be said to also fit into this category. (You could, of course, also make a strong argument that Romance has little resemblance to real life, but we won't go there...today.)

Women's Fiction deals mostly with women and women's relationship and their growth. This sort of fits. But it tends to be light on romance and a bit on the heavy reading side. Not quite a good fit.

Chick Lit - Is usually about young adult women their various relationships, including romantic, and emotions and is often witty and light and fun.

Sound familiar? Fits Jane Austen to a T.

Except it wasn't invented back then.

Aaand one of the important aspects of Chick Lit is that it's modern, here, now, current. Which Austen was... a couple hundred years ago.

So where does that bring us?

I submit to you that she's a mix. Yes, a mixed genre. We'll call it 'Rerowochick'. Sounds catchy don't you think? And you were here to witness it's birth! Everyone will be using it.

Next time you're at a party with a bunch of intellectuals throw that one at them. They'll be speechless! And the whole point of being intellectual is to be finicky and precise isn't it? And what's more finicky and precise than Rerowochick?

I rest my case.

So now that we've established that Jane Austen wrote Rerowochick, lets discuss Gone With the Wind which is also not a romance....

Fun definition for literary fiction.

I came across this post a long time ago when I was researching genre definitions. Now if anyone says the words 'literary fiction' I giggle. I can't say them myself without a smile. I suppose that might be an indicator of where I'm at on the cultural thermometer?

The original is from this website http://www.likesbooks.com/262.html by Robin Uncaphor. It's really hilarious, and I hope you'll forgive me for how blunt it gets here and there. Here it is in her own words:

... is there really no formula for writing literary fiction? Well, ah yes…Everybody who reads literary fiction knows there are rules, but nobody has the nerve to acknowledge them. I don’t know about you, but the next time someone tells me that there is no formula for writing literary fiction, I am going to ask them how much of it they have read lately!

I love all kinds of books, including modern literature. But COME’ON!!!! No formula? When is the last time anyone read a literary fiction book with a truly happy ending? Can you read ten literary fiction books in a row and not fall into one focused on some kind of abuse? When was the last time you read a literary fiction book by an African American author that, outside of the race and culture of the characters, had nothing whatsoever to do with race?

Never one to shirk my duty to point out that the emperor might need a sweater made of actual cloth I decided it was time somebody wrote down what everyone who reads modern fiction already knows…the Guidelines for Writing Literary Fiction...written the way literary publishers would write them if they were being honest. (Note to new literary fiction authors: as in all genres some talented writers break a few guidelines (William Styron, Tom Wolf, John Irving) but virtually no one breaks all of them.)

• If possible the book should be written by a man and have a male voice, a white male voice. Women and minorities will be published but with the exception of a few designated hitters, they will not be eligible for the big prizes and kudos. If the narrator is African American she should sound like one and, if possible, write something historical. Writing about slavery is good but anything set prior to 1950 is okay. For example, an AA female writer who wishes to write a book about a female black lawyer in Boston involved in a major civil suit, should make sure the suit has something to do with being African American. Otherwise, she should forget about literary fiction and write romance or Chick Lit. If a female author is white she should write the way John Updike would write if he were a woman.
• Lead characters must have a fair amount of angst but should be largely unaware of their impotence in solving their problems. They should be out of touch with their feelings, except for anger and boredom. Anger is really good. Pages and pages of ranting by crazy male characters are a real sign of literary achievement so don’t hold back (see The Terrorist by John Updike)!
• Relations between people, including children and parents, husbands and wives, neighbors etc. should be fairly sterile. Characters may be depressed. They should have difficulty communicating emotion. They should keep secrets from one another and live lives of quiet desperation (as Thoreau would say). Problems between parents and adult children should remain largely unresolved as everyone but Dr. Phil knows they are unsolvable.
• Whenever possible the writer should interrupt the action with pointless observations about some aspect of the minutia of modern life.
• Personal problems that would be shocking to most readers should be described in matter-of-fact terms. A sexual predator, for example, should be described in such a way that the reader knows that the writer is not judging him. Victims of predators must be permanently scarred. If there has been violence, such as a murder, it should be graphically described in a detached but nauseating way. (For an example of a sexual predator who fits well into this genre see Sabbath’s Theater by Phillip Roth. Winner of the National Book Award.)
• Characters should generally be well educated but, if they are not, they should be from rural communities, especially those in the South. Southerners should be quoted in dialect whenever possible, especially if they are poor and white and when the book is told in the first person (see The New Yorker fiction).
• If characters reveal their political beliefs they should be fundamentally liberal unless they are evil and selfish. Evil selfish characters are urged to look fondly back to the Reagan years, or, if they are British, the Thatcher years (see The New Yorker).
• Coming of age stories are especially welcome particularly when the narrator has suffered terrible abuse—sexual is good, an addicted parent works but so does verbal abuse (see Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison).
• A nice touch is adding a ghost or some kind of inexplicable thinking on the part of a character so that the reader is not completely sure of what is going on. This is very literary and few readers are willing to admit it when they are confused (see Beloved by Toni Morrison and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel).
• Midlife crisis is another good one, especially if the character is male and living in Westchester or Connecticut (see Roth and Updike) .
• Adultery should be described as a kind of rite of passage and the author should not make judgment calls, unless the adulterer is a woman.
• The male protagonist may commit as much adultery as necessary to make him feel isolated and pointless. His partner, a single female many years his junior, should be lonely, emotional, demanding and ungrateful for her lucky shot at having sex with a miserable, married, middle-aged man who lives in the suburbs.
• The novel should not have a plot. The lead character(s) should have vague problems which evolve slowly throughout the novel. There is no need to solve these problems.
• If your character falls in love, it should be clear to the reader that he or she is probably being mislead by some character flaw, loneliness or personal problem stemming from childhood. A married middle aged man is probably having a crisis—not falling in love. In fact, the reader should not be able to determine why the character loves this person whom he says he loves. This way the end of the relationship, which will come at the conclusion, will be more logical than the pairing itself.
• In literary historical novels with male protagonists, a nice touch is to have the handsome, otherwise admirable male lead fall in love with a twelve or thirteen year old girl (see The March by E.L Doctrow).
• If the characters are of age, single and truly love each other, kill one of them (see Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier).
• If the book ends with a wedding, it should preferably be to someone the lead character was not in love with during the story and the character should not be deliriously happy (see Girl with Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier) .
• The book’s ending is critical. If the story is a real love story one of the lead characters must either die, go back to his spouse or break off the relationship to “find himself/herself.” If the book is very depressing and contains a group of characters who are completely unable to handle their lives, and have no insight into their problems—a multiple murder by a major character who has, up until this point, appeared to be a good person, is an excellent ending. Make sure it is revolting and shocking (see The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton).
• An easy to read compelling style is discouraged. Writers are urged to consider passive voice, verbs of being and long sentences (see The Corrections by Jonathan Franz).
• On completing the book, the reader should have a satisfied feeling of accomplishment. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is value. He or she will be able to say he enjoyed the book, but will probably not be able to explain why without reading a review. He or she can feel fully satisfied in recommending it to a book club.