Polish, standards, and paranormal romance

[Feo Takahari]

Since I like reading about people in love, I've been trying to read paranormal romances lately, and it's become pretty obvious that the genre doesn't have the same stylistic standards as the sci-fi and urban fantasy I normally read. So far, I haven't found any romance writers who use a "polished" style in which word sounds and sentence structures are carefully arranged for maximum impact. With that in mind, if I try to write paranormal romance, should I:

1): Put in effort to be polished, as I normally do? It's what I know how to do, and there must be some market for it.

2A): Write at my natural level of polish, but put no effort into polishing further?

2B): Take advantage of this lowered standard to experiment with "bad" writing techniques that fit the style and subject of the story? (For instance, one writer switches between two POVs in the same paragraph, conveying that the two characters are in sync with each other.)

3): Put in effort to make my writing less polished, and more like the most popular stories in the genre?

 

[Steerpike]

Writing successfully in Romance is not as easy as you think. If you're approaching with the idea that it is substandard and you're going to have to downgrade your writing to do it, I think you can expect to fail at it. Just do the best job you can with your story.

 

[squishybug87]

Just do you. Present yourself as a professional. Don't dumb yourself down just to fit in. Your 'polish' will be what defines you. Have you ever read Christine Feehan? She was pretty good from what I remember.

 

[Feo Takahari]

If you're approaching with the idea that it is substandard and you're going to have to downgrade your writing to do it, I think you can expect to fail at it.

I'm specifically trying to avoid describing it as "substandard." (It's like trying to discuss a lower-class accent while not implying that the way lower-class people speak is "incorrect" compared to the way upper-class people speak--it's true that the two styles are functionally interchangeable, but one is treated as the "right" way so often that it's a difficult cognitive shift to think of the other as equally "right.")

Edit: To clarify that more, I think with writing styles, unlike with accents, there's a difference in effect, but there are advantages to the "unpolished" style as well as to the "polished" style. There's nothing inherently wrong with being straightforward.

 

[Anders Ämting]

If you're approaching with the idea that it is substandard and you're going to have to downgrade your writing to do it, I think you can expect to fail at it.

I think this is a good rule of thumb for just about everything, really.

 

[Kit]

I think there is an extraordinary amount of sludge out there in the paranormal romance genre right now, just because everyone is jumping on the fad bandwagon with it. It's not all sludge, and you certainly shouldn't try to dummy down your work.

 

[CupofJoe]

I'm reading a book on how to write Romance Fiction [it was really cheap – honest!!!] and many of writing rule are reversed. In the book the "rules" seem to be - think of your reader and write what they want to read. More than any other type of fiction I’ve seen Romance seems to be centered on wish fulfillment and meeting the expectations of the reader. Formula and cliché are expected. It was kind of scary to read...

 

[Alex Beecroft]

Write the way you write.

I'm a romance writer, and I know what you mean. The goal is transparency rather than style - ie, to have your writing call no attention to itself, so that the reader is not bothered by anything other than the story. The reader in general doesn't want to be interrupted in their quest to find out what happens next by thinking 'wow, I love that sentence!'

However, as a writer, I grew up on SF/F and learned to love writers for their style, so my writing has a very distinct flavour. And I've found that my romance readers are highly appreciative of it. My fans like the fact that my stuff is a bit different. Those who don't like my concentration on style don't read me. You'll probably find that you get fewer fans if you write with a distinct style, but those who do like you will like you very much.

Ultimately - write so that you can be proud of it, as you're the only person who has to live with yourself afterwards.

 

[SeverinR]

This is a sub-genre.
You can write it from either angle.
Write it as a romance with Fantasy issues, or write it as a Fantasy with romance issues.

I don't read romance, but I have seen the stack of novels that women get rid of.
But write how you are comfortable, if you want to focus on romance, maybe you should follow some steps of traditional romance novels. Maybe if you attack it from the other side, they might not toss your book out with the rest of the romance novels.
But remember I don't read romance novels.