1. notleia says:

    I’m imagining Travis writing flirty banter and mostly lol-ing at the idea. Let’s hope he figured out how to do “cute dork,” tho that takes just as much finesse (the joke is that he’s already a dork).

    Side note, if Audie is lurking around today: Have you been watching Heaven’s Design Team (I think it’s a crunchyroll)? The premise is that when God created the world, he outsourced making most of the animals to a creative team named after the planets. Since it sidesteps evolution, it seems surprisingly compatible with the creationist culture-warrior crowd (presuming that they have enough of a sense of humor about it to accept the outsourcing premise). I like it because it’s like Cells at Work, that it incorporates some nice science info in with its comedy premise. (Tho Venus as an otokonoko maybe be less ignorable than to the culture warriors than I think it is.)

    • Travis Perry says:

      I tried to do the romance thing and Parker says I was ok with it. But I didnt enjoy it and don’t believe I will ever write a romance again.

      As for the Heavens Design Team, it sounds like an interesting idea.

    • Audie Thacker says:

      No, sorry, I haven’t watched any of that series.

  2. Caprice Hokstad says:

    I tried to get in on the popularity of romance too. I didn’t do any better than I did with sci-fi or fantasy.

    Parker, to answer your question about why Christians may have such a “hate” of romance, perhaps it lies in the conventions that I have been told are practically Law in the genre. Example: You have to have a meet-cute. When we met Jesus, was it “cute” in any way? Ugh. A romance author who looked over my ms said my protag’s first meet didn’t qualify as a meet-cute. When I argued that Elizabeth Bennet’s first meeting with Mr. Darcy wasn’t “cute” (he basically said she was plain and not worth his time), I was told the meeting just has to be “memorable”. But what constitutes “memorable”? Do real people feel the need to have memorable first meetings, even when it occurs in the most mundane circumstances? “John, this is our new marketing director, Jane.” Polite smile. Handshake. “Pleased to meet you” and back to the group discussion on some other important matter of business. Immediately forgettable. In the real world, that is very often how we meet. Why isn’t that good enough in romance?

    Another required trope a romance supposedly has to have is a falling-out or all-is-lost passage that occurs after they’re in love. While certainly dramatic, that doesn’t follow my real life experiences of love, either with a human partner, or with Jesus. In many of the romances I have read, it often seems like a ridiculous misunderstanding that could have been solved by talking to each other. Why is that considered “necessary”? No one could really say I love you and actually mean it and act that way, could they?

    And one of the last reasons I think some Christians “hate” the genre is that they want more action and more plot than just the love story. They don’t mind the Han and Leia part of Star Wars at all. Just don’t take out the cool spaceships, lightsaber duels, fantastic landscapes, and quirky cantina scenes. I blame at least some of that on Hollywood spoiling our attention spans. While many romances do have plots that are interesting and would keep reader’s attention, it’s marketed as “LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (oh, and a bit of comicon shenanigans on the side)”, when in reality it’s “Two ComiCon Crazies get in an Epic Cosplay Battle of the Ages, and happen to discover each other in the process.” When you present it like that, it doesn’t sound so “boring”.

    But maybe these reasons are more “me” than what is really true for others. I have weird notions and I certainly don’t understand readers very well, or I’d be better at marketing.

  3. Ticia says:

    I totally get what Suprina is saying, and think that is a very godly way to approach it I hadn’t considered before.
    I’ll also confess, it’s probably more than I would be comfortable reading myself. I’ll have to read one of her books to see how it goes before I can make a final call. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with reading books that got too “steamy” in their descriptions of what is happening between characters.
    I do like the occasional clean romance, they’re my comfort reading when I don’t want something too tense because you can usually predict what is going to happen in the books. I’ve found the few indie books I’ve read in that area to be fun to read (I’ll also say the ones written as part of Christian publishing tend to be poorly written and I start mentally rewriting it as I read them).

    • Ticia says:

      Rereading my comment, I’m not sure if I’m really clear on what I’m trying to say.
      In short, I hadn’t thought of it that way before, and will have to think of it more and I appreciate what you’ve said to get me thinking.

      • I totally understand where you’re coming from. And sometimes, people read those books because they do like the predictable ending. Sometimes, you want something entertaining and easy to read. A mind cleanser if you will. Totally get it.

  4. Audie Thacker says:

    When I was young, pre-teens and teens, I remember being with my parents at grocery stores. Often near the check-out lanes, there would be these rotating racks of Harlequin romance books. Most of the covers had these images of beautiful couples, often with the lady dressed in a rather suggestive way, basically almost all over each other, maybe not yet kissing but not far from it.

    If romance books have a bad reputation, that’s likely because romance books are their own worst enemies. Do I need to bring up 50 Shades?

    And let’s also look at reality–if you go into a book store (assuming such things still exist), what will the Christian Fiction section be filled with? Christian romance books, mostly of the Amish or frontier variety. Buggies and bonnets, all about meeting Mr. and Miss Right. At least the covers are usually not much of a danger to look at. Oh, and Regency romance, too. Those are popular.

    • Hi Audie,

      What’s fascinating about your comment is that HQ (Harlequin) used to be the forerunner of clean romantic fiction. I’ve bought about 300 books of eBay within the last year and I’ve been making my way through them. From the ’60s, ’70s, the tone was spent on transporting you to exotic places with exciting men and things. Exploring various scenarios through a love story. Toward the ’80’s, it became more steamier as we got inside of the bedroom and so on and so forth

      That was my gripe about Christian romance, why is it just Amish or bonnet romances. I write historical romance, yes, but I don’t think Christian romance is Amish. Go figure.

      • Caprice Hokstad says:

        I wish I could tell better by looking at the covers and descriptions what I was in for with Harlequin. Like a MPAA rating on movies. What’s the “steaminess” level? What’s the language level? Call me old and crotchety, but I simply can’t stand when the f-word is used extensively for every imaginable part of speech. Where are the Christian rom-coms? Where are the Christian contemporary romances? Why is everything Amish, Prairie, or Historical? It almost suggests that romance was for days gone by.

  5. Well, that’s the thing: they’re there but in the indie world, not mainstream.

What do you think?