Bodice Rippers
Dean
I've been working on a novel for the last year and a half. Work on the project often leads me to reading the oddest things, seeking inspiration and perspectives. I find myself reading stuff written by published novelists a lot, even if it's about a type of novel I don't normally read (mysteries, romances, westerns, spy novels, etc.).
One of the more amusing pieces I've read recently is an essay by the late Elizabeth Mansfield entitled Why I Am Not Jane Austen: An overview of today's romantic fiction and how it got that way. Parts of it had me laughing out loud. For example, she defines a type of romance novel known as a "Bodice Ripper":
The truth is that the historical novel — five parts swash to one part love, and all of it heavily overlaid with historical detail — became a dinosaur. The audience (mostly women, who make up the majority of readers of novels anyway) which cared only for the consummation (with a kiss and a blackout) of the love affair between the dashing Captain of the Guard and the Duke's imperious daughter, had to skim through hundreds of pages of battle mayhem and political intrigue. The publishers began to perceive that they got more readers if they gave them more love than swash or history. And, with the tremendous success of a book called Forever Amber, they realized that sex, not history, would sell historicals.
Nevertheless, publishers waited for another Gone With the Wind for two decades. It didn't happen. But something did in the early 70s, and her name is Rosemary Rogers. Rumor has it that her book, WICKED LOVING LIES would never have been read, except that an editor was going away for what she thought would be a boring weekend and took the fattest manuscript from the slush-pile to keep her company. "It's junk," she reported the following Monday, 'but I couldn't put it down." The publisher bought it and the result was amazing. "It was like printing money," the overjoyed editor said.
That was the beginning of what in the trade are called bodice-rippers, and they account for the condition of the historical romance today. They are so successful that they crowd most of the other romances off the shelves. A bodice ripper is five parts sex to one part history...and terrible history at that. One of them was shown to me by an editor because it was set in the Regency period. The author did not know the difference between England in 1810 and England in 1210. In the opening scene, two warring clans were facing each other across a stone dining hall, the men — so help me!-- carrying bows and arrows.
The ingredients of a bodice ripper are instantly recognizable. The cover illustration shows a bosomy female whose bodice is being ripped. It has to be fat (what is called in the trade a good read), and I think some editors require that the heroine be ravished every ten pages. The emphasis is on plot rather than character, the action is movement without motivation. The books infuriate feminists, who understandably object to females being repeatedly ravished and often enjoying the ravishment, yet the market for them is amazing and insatiable. The women who read them are avid readers who devour several a week. These are the most successful romances (with the possible exception of the contemporaries, which I'll describe anon.)
More here. I was a bit saddened to see that Mansfield had died in 2003. I'm sure I would have enjoyed meeting her, even if I'm quite certain I'll never write that sort of novel. ;-) Still, her description of the genre even made me seek out information on "Forever Amber," which led me to this interesting historical lookback review in The Guardian.
It's a world of publishing I'll never be a part of, but it's a fascinating little look into the psyche of a big part of the population.
(By the way, yes, the entirely different sort of novel I'm working on is almost done--now why hasn't some literary agent pounded on my mailbox to ask to see a synopsis and sample chapter yet? It's pretty damned good.)
I remember one about a woman during the War of the Roses...or some midaevil war...that loved her enemy and he thought he was gay until he found out she was a woman...very interesting read, let me tell you. I remember reading one about Lousiana and a woman that didn't want to get married but was forced to. That one was 'interesting' in a totally different way...marital rape. The wonkiest one I ever read was Daisy, about a Russian aritocratic 'princess' who's mother was a B-grade actress. She had a mentally retarted twin, and a half-brother than commited incest rape...not geared to my age group at all, but I read what I want not what says 'ages yada to yada'. Any wonder why I now read Stephen King? Child Roland to the Dark Tower came...
Thanks for the memory.
A couple years ago I was asked to judge for an indie authors award. They gave me, I think, six books to judge in the historical category and not one was accurate! The biggest problem in those however, was mixing up modern sensibilities and sometimes even technology in these books. So we had a modern divorce/custody scenario set in 1850, and a 17th century castle inexplicably equipped with electric light.
To be sure, I've read my share of Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodiwiss.
It's not well-known that Barbara Cartland, the prolific author of much-shorter books, was probably making use of an early word processor. Today that wouldn't fly, where she sometimes seemed to just drop in different names into the same story, but back then nobody noticed!
Isn't that from When Sisterhood Was In Flower (also in the Reader)?
Yes, the scene of porn-writers' collective writers' (and, er, other things) blocks is a classic. I'd quote the whole thing from memory right here, if I didn't think it would mean cascades of nasty spam. Let's just say that it included the phrases "hair-fringed cloven oval" and "dry as a goddamn bone."
In Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, which is an autobiographical memoir, she discusses it more directly and in somewhat more detail.
At least, I think she discusses it in that one. Maybe it was in another one of her memoirs.
You should definitely pick up Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady regardless, though.
I don't remember anything in Confessions that quite matches the editor's memo in Sisterhood:
"1. To lessen readers' confusion, kindly avoid such figures of speech as Pandora's box, right up his or her alley, a lick and a promise, blowhard, prickly heat,, and the interrogatory Come again?"
"3. Flights of metaphorical prose are not desirable. The phrase her oleaginous Mountain of Venus only perplexes many of our readers. We were distressed recently to receive a letter that angrily asked: 'What's that statue doing up on a hill with butter all over it?' [Suggested substitution omitted]"
"11. Areola is the pink area around the nipple; aureola is a synonym for halo. Kindly learn the difference.
And lots more that I'd just as soon not put in comments ;-)
I've even read the original, unedited, full novel length When Sisterhood Was In Flower.
So, what have you published previously, Bubbie? (Sorry... attended waaaaay to many panels of writers on how to get published. The process seems to be that you get your best work ripped off by some sleezy small publishing house, then you get the agent who hooks you up with someone like Tor or Harlequin.)
This may be the only novel I ever write. I'd be reluctant to toss it off to a trash house.