What style is right for you?

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See, to me a question like that should be about literary style--you know, does the person use long sentences or short ones, is their writing lyrical, that sort of thing. But if you are proofreading, style means, essentially, correct grammar, punctuation, and the like. A professional proofreader reads for style as well as spelling and typos--which doesn't mean that if your writing sucks, they'll make it better (unless it's obviously awkward or incomprehensible, in which case they'll suggest improvements).

Why people who write books on grammar like to call it style, I do not know. I assume it's because language is a human creation, so when we talk about rules of grammar, we're just talking about rules that people have agreed on. Different people prefer different rules. So, the English put commas everywhere--that is their style--and Americans don't. But it's not like there's some law of physics out there preventing you from using no commas or nothing but commas--you can if you like (just don't get all whiny when no one understands what the hell it is you're trying to say).

In the publishing biz, there are two dominant style guides: The Chicago Manual of Style and The AP Stylebook. Chicago style is used by book publishers, while AP style is used by newspapers and magazines. Actually, to be precise, Chicago preferred style is used by book publishers.

What am I talking about? Well, let me describe The Chicago Manual of Style: It is roughly the size a dictionary. It is a reference book designed for professional proofreaders--it is supposed to be on your desk at all times, and you are to look things up in it to see if they are correct.

Once you do, Chicago is going to give you the entire story surrounding your grammar conundrum. Wanna know if it's "Douglas' dog" or "Douglas's dog"?* Chicago will give you no fewer than three different version of the rules to chose among: One version says that "Douglas'" is correct, and two versions say "Douglas's" is correct. One of these rules ("Douglas's," unless he is actually Jesus or Moses) is their preferred rule.

So, really, you can use Chicago one of two ways: You can follow Chicago preferred style, or you can rely on Chicago to tell you the outer limits of what is acceptable ("Douglas's dog" or "Douglas' dog" but NOT "Douglas' came over for dinner," or God forbid, "Douglas's came over for dinner"). If you have some stylistic quirks that you are really attached to, take a look in Chicago--chances are that if it's even remotely acceptable somewhere, it's in there, and then you're covered.

The main problem I find with Chicago is that even Chicago preferred style is full of weird little exception (like "Jesus'" and "Moses'"), and as a result, it is hard to memorize. This is NOT true of The AP Stylebook. AP was written for reporters who cover breaking news. They can't carry around a damned dictionary, and they don't have time to look up some damned rule--they have a deadline to meet. NOW. Wondering about Douglas and his dog? It's "Douglas' dog," period. End of story. On to the next rule.

A lot of writerly types whine about AP style because they feel like it's less literate, less traditional, less booky, less beautiful, less individual, less whatever. But it's easy to learn, which is no small thing if you are trying to produce clean copy. When I worked in publishing, the only people who really knew Chicago preferred style were the copy editors. In contrast, I would say that just about everyone who works in journalism in any sort of writing capacity carries AP style around in their head--I certainly do.

Obviously, you can have your own preferences (I do--look at that footnote down by the asterisk), and if you are writing speculative fiction, or fiction about children, or fiction set in a community that uses non-standard grammar, you may have to make up your own rules, just as you may have to make up words. There's also a lot of drama to be had by deliberately breaking the rules (for example, when a character is breaking down under stress). But if you give the impression that you never had any idea what the rules were to begin with, that's a problem: You may think that you're so very brilliant that you don't have to follow the rules, but you shouldn't expect the same indulgence from readers.

* Bonus points if you noticed my random use of British style here! I like to put punctuation outside the quotation marks when it's not actually part of the quotation, which is not the traditional American way. I was kind of sneakily doing it before I read Eats, Shoots & Leaves (which is a very entertaining book on grammar by a Brit) and was thoroughly convinced that the British way really does make a lot more sense. Now I'm trying to set a trend....

Hiatus is over, baby! (At least for a little while)

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Yeah, I edited the beejebus out of Chapter 1 today! Whoo-hoo! It's honestly a big help just to know that I'll be giving it to a writers' group, because it makes The Reader (specifically The Reader Who Hasn't Read Trang) more concrete.

I'm going to have to take another break in a couple of days because of some family obligations, but I'm happy just to be, you know, refreshed and recharged and ready to write. There's a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper says that, when you do creative work, the times of no productivity have to happen, otherwise the times of productivity don't. Since I've generally made a living as a writer and not as a bohemian or fashionably tortured artiste, I tend to look askance at that kind of thing, since it can be used to rationalize endless procrastination. But I guess sometimes ol' Don Draper is right.

E-readers and "print" media

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This is a really interesting article from The New York Times. It's one of these articles that at first glance is about something really simple--chicks like to read their magazines on the Nook Color--but it also touches on some really interesting questions, like, Do people want a single-purpose simple gadget, or an all-purpose Swiss-Army-knife gadget? and, How will Barnes & Noble survive? (Apparently by selling a better gadget. I've said this before, but there's a lot of denial out there on the Interwebs, primarily by people who don't know squat about business, so I'll say it again: B&N is not even pretending that it can survive as a traditional bookseller.)

The thing that makes me happy is that a traditional print media now has a little electronic gadget that promotes its use. If you think of people trying to figure out how to spend their limited leisure time, print used to have this big advantage--you could pick up a nice, portable book/magazine/newspaper any time and get your story. But over the past few decades, a tremendous amount of technology has gone into making things like video and music easier to use: It became common to have devices in the home that let you watch or listen, and then it became possible to watch or listen whenever you wanted to, and to top it all off, music and video became extremely portable.

At this point, if you have the right kind of little device, you can watch or listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, without expending too much effort (and it's only going to get cheaper and easier). Indeed, while print used to have the advantage of portability and interruptability (?? not a word, is that? I mean you can put a something you're reading down and start it up again whenever), it is now at a disadvantage--you have to make a special trip to a bookstore or library or newsstand to get something to read. But if you can get whatever reading material you want on some electronic device that you are already carrying around with you (like your phone), well, then, that's at least going to even the playing field. Given the size advantage of print files over, say, video files, it may even tilt it back toward print. This is why, although e-publishing is going to suck for people who work in traditional publishing, for people who write, or read, or just think everyone else should read more, e-publishing is not a bad thing.

You like to think of your talent as your own, but....

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[This is another old post, from 2009.]

In my career, I've worked places where the best writing was encouraged, and in places where it was actively discouraged--where you were supposed to produce material that was bone-dry, or where sloppiness was encouraged, or where every story was supposed to follow the same format, no matter what. Not shockingly, the places I enjoyed working the most were the places where I produced the best writing. That was not simply because I like to win things or because I like to be challenged, but also because the people were just plain better to work with--they were smarter and more pleasant and didn't spend their time trying to kick everyone down to some allegedly desirable level of mediocrity. I remember when I applied to journalism school looking at the material I had produced during a fairly lengthy spell at a place where good writing was actively discouraged, and realizing that I would never send any of that material anywhere as a writing sample, because it was all God-awful. I also realized that, if I was interested in pursuing writing as a career, this would be something I would need to pay attention to--not just looking at a job as a paycheck, but looking at it as a source of clips. ("Clips," for the normal people, is a term used to mean the articles you actually write--and then clip out of the paper to show, say, your mom or potential future employers.)

Anyway, my point is that the place you work for can really affect the quality of your writing. I've recently discovered the Web site of a writer friend of mine who I have lost touch with, and this person has posted a lot of their clips on the site. A lot of this person's older work was for a publication that clearly put a premium on good writing, and those stories are quite good. But a lot of their newer work is for a publication that clearly does not--the newer stuff reads a lot like what is called "notebook dumping," which is what happens when a reporter just dumps everything from their notebook onto the page without organizing and pruning and massaging it into a proper story with a beginning, middle, and end, and all that good stuff.

I'm a little worried because this person is both a good reporter and a good writer, and they have a book coming out fairly soon, and I want it to be a good book that makes them more successful, not a clunker. The bad habits you pick up writing for kind of crappy publications can really screw you up (and the crappiness of a publication is not necessarily directly related to how much they pay, which complicates the issue even more when you're trying to make a living as a writer).

Who is The Reader?

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So, the other day, I was schooling a new writer in the personality and quirks of a strange and ominous character known as The Reader.

Who is The Reader?

The Reader is the person who you write for. ("I write for myself" is code for "my writing sucks.")

Despite your dedication to The Reader, The Reader does not love you back--it's very unfair, I know. But The Reader has many, many other things to do with his or her time than read the work you've just bled out on the page to create. Tell The Reader, even subtly, not to read your work, and he's off watching professional wrestling and getting his girlfriend pregnant. Bore The Reader for a moment, and she's off getting pregnant, only to drop out of high school and wind up on welfare for the rest of her pathetic life.

The Reader is you when you were 10 years old, lying in the back yard, reading Jean Kerr and thinking to yourself, This is how you communicate with people.

The Reader is not educated. The Reader has no prior knowledge. But, although The Reader is utterly ignorant, The Reader is not stupid. Don't talk down to The Reader, s/he will resent it.

The Reader is an emergency responder. The Reader is taking the train home from an extremely draining job. The Reader has no need for your nonsense or issues. The Reader has no obligation to know or love the real you. But The Reader needs your book. The Reader need a world to enter, a way to enter it, and some escape. The escape may be simply a get-away; the escape may be a lesson in disguise; but your book must be, in either case, a genuine escape--easy to enter, diverting to be in, and hard to leave.

A thousand little decisions

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[Another repost! This one's from 2008.]

One of the things I used to HATE was having editors ask to see a rough draft of something. I'd always warn them, It's a rough draft, it's going to suck! I'd ask if I could avoid doing this, and they would assure me that they totally were going to understand.

And without fail, I'd always get this really intense reaction of surprise and displeasure because it was a rough draft, and therefore, it sucked. (I also got really hilarious questions, like, Was I going to take care of the part that reads, "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX FIX ME XXXXXXXXXXXXX FUCK FUCK"? No, I just figured it could go into print like that.)

Polishing is really key, and it's what separates the good stuff from the rest of it. And it is polishing--you rough out the main points, and then you go back and make it good. So people want to know why what you're giving them isn't shiny and smooth and beautiful, like the stuff you usually give them after you've had time to polish, and it just makes me want to scream. (Let's just say, when Joss Whedon let us crazy Browncoats get an advance peek at the rough cut of Serenity, and some people were like, Why does it suuuuck? Why isn't it great like his finished product always is? I really, really felt for him.) Do you pull a cake out of the oven halfway through and then complain about the texture?

Anyway, the inspiration for this rant is the movie La Femme Nikita, which I finally saw. I saw the English-language remake Point of No Return when I was in my 20s, and I totally did not understand why people were so excited by this whole Femme Nikita idea. The two movies aren't very different in their bold strokes, but it's the million differences in the way they were polished that make La Femme Nikita such a better movie, from the opening shot (four junkies walk down a nighttime street; one holds an ax, and they are dragging a fifth junkie by her feet) to the decision NOT to have the boyfriend be a complete moron.

Anti-progress

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[So, I've been feeling guilty about neglecting this blog--less guilty about neglecting Trust, because that home-improvement project is chugging along nicely--and I figured I'd do the lazy thing and repost an old entry from 2007, back when this blog was mostly about working in a place where sexual harassment and exhibitionism were considered good things. (I mentioned that we worked with children? Yes, I did, but I'll mention it again--we worked with children.)]

I subscribe to Netflix, and since my queue is typically maxed out at all times, I'll hit these really weird runs of movies because 500 titles ago, I got curious about a particular director or actor or genre.

So recently I saw two Tupac Shakur movies, first Gridlock'd and then a few weeks later, Juice. In Gridlock'd, I thought Tupac was kind of what you would expect from a whatever-turned-actor--just a little unpolished and unnatural, a little stagy, a little exaggerated with the gestures and expressions, and clearly someone pretending to be a character rather than someone who really gives the impression of being the character. In Juice, though, he's perfect--very smooth, very natural.

The thing is, Gridlock'd was made five years after Juice. I don't know if it had to do with the subject matter or the director or the other actors, but I find it interesting that Tupac became a worse actor over that five years, rather than a better one.

That's a phenomenon that really creeped me out when I read City by Clifford D. Simak. It's a classic sci-fi book that is a collection of interconnected stories. The last story was written many years after the earlier stories--if I recall correctly, it was written by Simak once a decision was made to publish the stories (which had appeared in magazines) together as a book--and in my opinion, it's by far the worst-written of the lot. This terrifies me, because you really are supposed to become a better writer with time--I suppose it's to compensate for you losing your looks or something. With Simak, I think I know the reason--he spent the intervening years working as an editor for some dry-as-dust publication, and it infected his writing so badly the last story has all the verve and excitement of the product warning on the back of a bottle of vitamins. (I still think the book is well worth reading, just don't expect too much from that last one.)

What writers can learn from America's Next Top Model

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Sometime around the time I was in journalism school--like the summer between the spring and fall semester, or shortly after I graduated--I came across the reality-TV show America's Next Top Model. To the extreme amusement of my friends, I got hooked for a season or two, before the general lack of intelligence among the contestants (NOT the actual professional models, but the wannabe model girls) became too frustrating for me to watch.

Why did I find the show so interesting? Because learning to be a good model is exactly like learning to be a good writer.

Are you insane? you scoff. Models are superficial and vapid! Writers are deep and profound! Well, I say, I may be insane, but you should be careful about stereotyping, because it will blind you to certain truths.

And the truth is, there are many more parallels there than you might expect between the would-be model and the would-be writer. Your typical would-be model, in all likelihood, is not just a pretty girl but a Pretty Girl--she puts a lot of effort into her looks, people compliment her on them all the time, and a big hunk of her identity depends on her being the Pretty Girl.

Likewise, the would-be writer is Deep, Profound, and Talented. They are (cue ponderous music) Putting a Piece of their Soul onto the Paper. Their Deep, Profound, and Talented Soul.

So, Pretty Girl goes on ANTM. She takes a bunch of pictures--prettily! She goes in before the panel of judges and...they tell her her pictures SUCK. She's not holding her body right. She's doing weird things with her mouth. She has a double chin. She's a wreck.

At this point, one of two things happen (at least, they happen if the girl is bright enough to understand spoken language, which is not always the case):

SCENARIO 1: The girl says, Oh, OK, how can I take a better picture? She works on her posture, relaxing her mouth, holding her chin up, whatever.

SCENARIO 2: The girl says, HOLY CRAP!!! THEY THINK I'M UGLY! Instead of, you know, trying to take a better picture, she is devastated. Her entire identity is threatened. She bounces back and forth between deciding that the judges must be wrong and deciding that she must be ugly.

The girl in Scenario 2 either eventually sucks it up and puts herself into Scenario 1, or she stays in Scenario 2 for photo shoot after photo shoot, spiraling down into self-loathing and despair until she is ignominiously eliminated.

Guess what would-be writers do when they first receive harsh criticism?

Is it easy the first time? Hell, no. I did very well in college writing very academic papers, and then I went into children's publishing. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that academic writers don't make good children's authors. The first time I wrote a book, I was crucified. The editor made no pretense: She thought I was a horrible writer, and she was openly skeptical that I had it in me to become a better one.

And I wrote down every bit of constructive criticism that editor had (rest assured, she had quite a bit that was less than constructive), and I completely revised the book. The editor was both very pleased and extremely surprised.

In a way, I was lucky--I had a job that I wanted to keep. If you're a professional writer, you'll follow your Muse right to the unemployment line if you can't take criticism. In some ways, I think things are harder for amateur writers, because if your book sucks, you can always tell yourself that you are simply misunderstood--there's no one with a big stick forcing you to do a better job. But really, what you are doing is choosing to write a bad book, because it is easier than writing a good book. And I have a hard time respecting that.

And by the way

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The Norwescon ad didn't really do anything--I got some more page views on my Web site, but nowhere near enough to justify the cost. Good to know--given that Norwescon is a big con with a literary focus, I feel safe is assuming that program advertising at sci-fi cons isn't worth doing again. I may still advertise in Locus once Trust is published, and I've read good things about an advertising service called Project Wonderful.

Ta-DAAAH!!

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This writers' group is paying off already, because looking at how to improve other people's stories is actually quite helpful when you are trying to improve your own.

Case in point: I've read two parts of novels that both face a similar issue--an exposition dump. You know, a spot in the story where the action grinds to a halt so that the narrator can tell you about a character's history, or about their appearance, or about some other background-attribute type thing that the writer thinks the the reader needs to know. And the reader does need to know it...eventually.

That "eventually" is key, because I think in both cases things would work better if the information was withheld for a little bit. In one story, there's a spot where the character dramatically reveals some of his history to another character, while in the other story a character walks into a room and greatly excites another with her appearance. But in both cases it's not so dramatic or exciting for the reader, because we already learned all that about them back at the exposition dump. So, in both cases my advice has been to yank the dump, restoring the flow of action (I know, my metaphors are getting mixed here--just be happy I'm not resorting to digestive ones), and then surprise the reader with the character's history/appearance at a dramatic moment later on.

And THAT made me think about the first few chapters of Trust. I've already split up some of the exposition, but I realized that I can actually do this to dramatic effect. Instead of just saying, Yea, yea, this guy did this really bad thing, I can tease the reader--This guy did something, it was really bad, HERE'S WHAT IT WAS!

In the land of the blind...

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So, I've been on hiatus, but I think the hiatus is going to end soon, mainly because I'm getting kind of bored. (And yesterday the hiatus consisted entirely of barfing, thanks to something I caught cleaning my niece's barf out of my car. Childcare is always a joy.) I actually interrupted a home-improvement project back in January when I started all this, so I'm going to make myself actually finish it (or, you know, most of it) instead of interrupting it again.

In the meantime, I've been proofreading the better part of a novel for someone in the writers' group--his response to my being nit-picky with the chapters I read for group was to be delighted and want more. So you can chalk that up to his masochism, or you can chalk it up to what I personally consider one of the harder parts of being an indie author--the lack of contact with editors, copy editors, and the like. I mean, when you write for a publication as a staffer, you literally sit in the same room as your editor, so you always have that guidance and support (at least you do if your editor is any good). Even as a freelancer you get a lot of guidance and feedback, but nowadays in book publishing it seems that all editors get to do is to say "yea" or "nay," and in many cases they don't even get to do that--the marketing department does.

The irony is, I don't consider myself a good proofreader/copy editor. At my first job in publishing, I was actually skipped over the copy editing job: Typically the promotion trajectory was editorial assistant -> copy editor -> assistant editor (unless you were such a superior copy editor that you'd stay in that department), but I just went editorial assistant -> assistant editor. I'm sure some of my co-workers thought that was meant as a big compliment, but I regarded it as recognition that 1. I can't spell 2. I was never taught any grammar in school and had to learn it on the job (that job, in fact), and 3. I used regional colloquialisms like "made hash" without any notion that they were not standard English.

Many years later, when I was in journalism school, I was proofing a student publication, and one of the journalism professors said, "OK, we've got our ringer." So at that point, I was clearly better proofreader, but I was also being compared to other journalism students and not to professional copy editors. The personality attributes that make someone a good journalist (think: Foxes. Hyperactive foxes) are pretty much the opposite of the personality attributes that make someone a good copy editor (HEDGEHOGS). And copy editing is just taken much more seriously in the publishing world--a newspaper will throw a reporter onto the copy editing desk when they get too old to run around like a hyperactive fox, regardless of the person's suitability for the job.

Now, of course, I'm dealing with writers in a writers' group that is not based in NYC, and the members of that group pretty much all make a living in non-writing fields, so now I guess my copy editing skills are quite exceptional. And when I mentioned that I laid out Trang by myself, one of the group organizers immediately asked if they could pay me to lead a seminar on layouts. I laughed, and she said, "No, I'm serious." I said I'd do it, but they don't have to pay me. I mean, for God's sake, I never was remotely an art person! But I suppose in a way that's an advantage: A real designer would tell you to buy Quark XPress already--it takes an amateur to do a book layout in frickin' Word.

Dropped the price

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I dropped the price on the e-book to 99 cents just now--I was only going to do it for the week, but some of the blogs I've read made me decide to make it a permanent thing. I'm a "new" writer (that always cracks me up, because hello, I've been writing professionally since 1992. But I am new to readers of fiction), and Trang is the first book in a series, so I'm going to have to encourage people to take a chance.

I liked it!

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So, I went to my first meeting with a writing group today--I was feeling pretty good about it because the works we were supposed to read and critique were good. And I think it was a good group. Maybe a little biased toward the uncritical "I loved it!" but since I, too, thought the submissions were high quality, I can't really claim that was way off the mark.

Of course, I came to group with the professional's attitude, which can be summed up as: Of course it's good! I don't need to tell you it's good! If it wasn't good you wouldn't work here! Let's focus on what's wrong! I my need to adjust that, because I wound up tossing in the compliments at the end, and people were visibly relieved to hear that I liked what I read. Also, apparently I need to mark up the writing with an eye to giving it back the person, which means that 1. I need to write legible notes, 2. I need to write less random notes, 3. I need to stop using black ink, and 4. I need to not print things out on the backs of bills or other personal financial papers. Maybe I'll use a post-it for the general notes.

Also, I am reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Drop whatever you are doing and go read that book--holy Moses, it is good. (ETA: OK, the ending's a little weak. But overall a VERY strong book.)

Maybe I'm taking this hiatus a little too seriously

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I received the proofs of the hard copies with the new covers today, and I was like, Wow, that really does look much better than the old cover, how nice. And then I stuck them on my bookshelf and skipped merrily off to do other things. It wasn't until about 10 minutes ago that I realized, I need to approve these proofs if books with the new cover are going to be sold. Oh, right, they weren't just sent for me to admire....

Random idea

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So, here's a thought, if you are stumped for story ideas: A series of horror tales geared to the middle aged. Instead of sexy vampires or whatever, these would deal with things that truly strike fear into the hearts of ordinary folks.

Possible titles include:

"The Mysterious Noise Coming from the Toilet: A Story of Suspense and Terror"
"Refrigerator Dripping"
"The New Stain; or, A Call to a Roofer"

The platforms that...matform?

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In the comments to Henkel's post on Konrath's blog, someone took him to task rather sternly for not having "a platform." By which they did not mean a structure made of wood that people could stand on, but rather an Internet presence that was not strictly about marketing his books. Yes, said the person, you are on Twitter, but your posts are all just "Buy my crap!" and that's not enough for people! You've got to open up and reveal yourself!

I don't know about that--isn't it enough for Henkel to, you know, write stories? I mean, I obviously think Konrath is doing a real public service with his blog, but he's on a mission--he started the blog because he felt that authors needed help figuring how to make money, and he's clearly been putting in a lot of effort into that thing for many years. Not every author has that kind of fire for something that is basically a sideline to their real work--and some who do are like Barry Eisler, who has a passion for politics and therefore has a blog that he is fairly certain alienates a good portion of his potential readership.

I'm also quite leery of the whole "you've got to reveal yourself" thing. I agree that that can be compelling, but honestly, do I want readers to like my writing or to like me? Being in my line of work, quite a number of my friends have been published, and of course I support them in that, but far more often I know nothing about a given writer when I read their work, and that's fine with me. I'll judge them on their writing, thank you very much.

The more crucial issue that I think often gets ignored in these debates is the one of stalkers: Writers of any renown get them, and I've had my share already just by virtue of being female, reasonably attractive, and generally civil. So, you know, I'm not going to open up here about things that aren't related to writing, or post where I live (along with pictures of my house, like I've seen some young female bloggers do--what are they thinking?), or anything like that.

All of which is basically of a long way of saying, I'm still on hiatus. Spring is a busy time....

Why "fucking romance"?

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Thinking about that previous post, you're probably wondering why I dislike romance novels. There's basically two considerations here: The first is that, as a writer, I know I don't have one in me, so there goes that road to publication.

But as a reader, I have to confess that I tend not to like romance novels, or the romance aspects of novels. (It should be noted that many novels classified as romance for sales purposes are actually murder mysteries or historical novels that happen to have a lot of sex in them--keep it between two people, and it's romance. Expand the field, and it's erotica.) There are exceptions: When Mr. Rochester confessed his love to Jane Eyre, I cried. Because it was so romantic. (Yes, yes, he wasn't very nice to his first wife, but God struck him blind for that. Whaddya want, blood?) I liked Pamela quite a lot until Pamela got married and rich and smug and boring. I even bought into the longing of the romance in Little Green Men, despite being reasonably certain that the long-ee was going to kill the long-er.

But mostly, I don't like romance novels. Part of it is the fantasy aspect. While I think the criticism of Twilight is overblown, the book is certainly not the only one to package unhealthy behavior as romantic. I recently read The Hunger Games, which is a great book, but there's this teenage boy with an abusive mom who latches on to a five-year-old girl (after his father indicated to him that she was desirable) and fixates on her. All the time he's "in love" with her--which is over a decade--he never actually speaks to her until circumstances force him to do so. I don't know about you (and I don't know how this is treated in the next two books), but I don't read that and think, "How romantic!" I read that and think, "That kid's going to become a serial killer!" Then there's the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, which won its author a Nobel prize and is considered a groundbreaking historical romance: It ends when the woman finally succeeds in berating her husband/love object to death. How romantic! (Seriously, that trilogy was described as "absolutely delightful" to me by the person who recommended it, a person who not coincidentally was going through a violent divorce.)

I also am more likely to dislike romance novels written in the modern era. Look at the basic plotline of romance: Boy and girl fall in love, there are obstacles to that love, the obstacles are surmounted. In days of yore, those obstacles were most often based on class--Jane Eyre is a lowly orphan, Pamela is just a servant. In order to overcome these class barriers, those gals need to have a LOT of spunk--they have to be natural aristocrats, otherwise (especially to the audience for which they were written) they're just gold-diggers.

But nowadays, the class thing doesn't work. I was telling my sister about Pamela, and I had to explain that Mr. B. was actually a decent guy, because even though he kidnaps and terrorizes Pamela, he doesn't rape her, which in that time was what upper-class men did as a matter of course in that kind of situation. Not shockingly, she was not impressed with his character--but in the 18th century, she would have been. Morality has simply changed too much--at best, we look at the upper-class character who won't marry the maid and wonder why he's such a snob.

So instead, even with historical romances like the Lavransdatter trilogy, the barriers have to be internal, and more often than not, they are neuroses. Bella can't believe that someone as perfect as Edward would love someone like her. Kristin Lavransdatter hates her husband and wants him dead because she can't accept his (totally obvious and readily advertised) flaws. These neuroses can get really contrived, with someone running off at some key point because they have some extremely convenient irrational hang-up. I just lose patience with it--I can't root for the woman, and I can't even hope she gets what she wants, because I can't believe a new boyfriend is going to solve anything for someone who is so damaged. That's not the way life works, and I, who have no problem suspending disbelief when it comes to aliens and vampires and demons, cannot suspend my disbelief for that.