{"id":5135,"date":"2007-04-11T03:51:07","date_gmt":"2007-04-11T03:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shilohwalker.wordpress.com\/2007\/04\/11\/rules-2\/"},"modified":"2007-04-11T03:51:07","modified_gmt":"2007-04-11T03:51:07","slug":"rules-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2007\/04\/rules-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.\u00a0 Over at Dear Author, Jane<\/a> raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.<\/p>\n

PBW has another John and Marcia post up<\/a>…\u00a0 ;o)\u00a0if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.<\/p>\n

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.\u00a0 This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.\u00a0 It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.\u00a0 I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.<\/p>\n

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.\u00a0 (Nope, can’t say I blame them)<\/p>\n

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.\u00a0 By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.\u00a0 (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read).<\/p>\n

My reading time is valuable.\u00a0 When I pick up a book, I want to enjoy it.\u00a0 I don’t want to read something that icks me out, or just plain bothers me.\u00a0 What bothers me may not bother others.\u00a0 What bothers others may not bother me.<\/p>\n

My writing is mine.\u00a0 (I’d like to say I control it, but I don’t.\u00a0 The characters do.)\u00a0 But because the characters control the story, I don’t want to be told that I shouldn’t have written this, or that I shouldn’t have written that for this reason, or for that reason.<\/p>\n

Basically everybody has opinions on it, but some of the blogs I skimmed (and nope, I’m not mentioning those…it’s late, I’m tired and I don’t feel like hunting all of them down) some of these blogs were all but forcing their opinions on others, This is what I think\/feel\/believe and if you don’t like it\/believe it\/think it\/feel it, too, then you’re a great big stupid head.<\/em><\/p>\n

You know why so many blog wars erupt?\u00a0 People don’t value the opinions of others.\u00a0 Each of the blogs I read was mostly opinion.\u00a0 But far too often the general tone of somebody’s post or reply was that this was how they felt and you had better like it.\u00a0 Granted, it’s not always easy to read somebody’s tone online, but it was pretty clear in some of them that you either had to like the person’s viewpoint, whatever it may be, or you were a great big stupidhead.<\/em><\/p>\n

We all have things we like in a romance.\u00a0 We all have things we don’t like.\u00a0 These aren’t going to be the same from one reader to another, or one writer to another, and you know what?\u00a0 They shouldn’t be.\u00a0 The wide variety in viewpoints is one of the reasons we have such a wide variety of reading material.\u00a0 If we all felt one way, then chances are we’d all write one way and editors would all buy one way, and man wouldn’t that be boring?<\/p>\n

Yes, I think there are certain rules that have to be followed in a romance.\u00a0 They may not be the same rules that others go by, but these are what I expect from my romances.<\/p>\n