Summer reading list ready? Wisconsin’s summer being what it is, your list may not be as long as those in more sultry climes. Still, among the bestsellers, biographies and tell-alls, your list probably includes romance novels. In fact, if you’re an average reader, 75% of your summertime tomes may be romance. That’s the percentage of all books sold in the U.S. Gay romance accounts for a good percentage of that. Suffice it to say, a steamy pulp paperback has its place on your beach blanket.
An acquaintance, a former Bay View neighbor (he’s since moved with his husband to some Pennsylvania valley), is a top gay romance writer. His success is built around the mantra “make them laugh, make them cry, make them cum.” Surprisingly, many gay romance authors and readers are straight women. I figure that’s because they like gay guys for their sensitivity, style and sensuality (compared to that lump on the couch they married). According to my mentor, it’s easy to recognize a female writer even if the nom de plume is male. Women write softer sex scenes apparently, the ones with rose petal strewn sheets. A male author dispenses with the floral accents (although he’d probably mention the sheets’ Egyptian cotton thread count) and the sex would be rough and tumble with notes of bestial oblivion. There wouldn’t be a sweet, post-coital love note scrawled in Carmex on the bathroom mirror either. Well, maybe there would.
Anyway, there’s a romance formula. It inevitably involves the most beautiful man in the world falling in love with the other most beautiful man in the world. The template is like a classical four-movement symphony: guy meets guy, guy wins guy, guy loses guy, guy wins guy back. There’s the obligatory conflict, like a fanatically religious mother, emotionally distant dad, a health crisis or a furious, scorned woman. But, adversity is always overcome and love conquers all. Of course, there’s a happy ending...followed by the unbreakable rule, the happily-ever-after ending. It’s all accomplished in 60,000 words, too. For the efficient writer that’s a manageable, 2,000-word daily pensum. If you have it down, as my acquaintance does, that’s a novel a month.
Still, it’s not as easy as it reads. I know—I’ve tried. Although I’ve published a short story, my only novel was rejected. Too much exposition and not enough character development, I was told. But, I learned a lesson: Lofty literary technique is as out of place in a gay romance novel as a condom in a rectory. Never mind... Anyway, awkward similes aside, romance readers don’t want Freudian psychology, subliminal symbolism or big words. The idea is to spare the reader any demands and cut to the chase. After all, negotiating one’s own life is complicated enough. Romance, like the soap opera, is supposed to provide an escape into fantasy. Throbs, whispers, square and sore jaws are the stuff of true, burning page-turner romance. That being said, readers should not wear their Speedos to Bradford Beach.
