Media Circus: Get your bodice-ripping hands off my genre!

Tue, 07 Oct 1997 19:00:00 +0000

My heroine has just turned into an insipid twit, someone totally out of place in a fast-paced, '90s romance novel. I think it's because I named her Ivy, wanting to suggest whimsy, caprice, imagination. Instead, I'm starting to associate her with the more annoying qualities of that vine: She's clingy, decorative and totally green. My hero, a self-made computer geek millionaire in his 30s, is not stirring lust in her heart or mine, possessing, as he does, not just David Duchovny's gorgeous face but Bill Gates' icy soul. But if he's not cyber-rich, how else can I plunk him down into a small town when he has no visible means of support? Making him a serial killer is an obvious, but unworkable, solution.

Deciding I can think more clearly about this with latte at hand, I drive to the local book superstore/cafe, where the magazines are all abuzz over a plagiarism scandal in the romance world. "There IS a reason all romance novels read alike," trumpets the Associated Press. The Washington Post: "Heaving bosoms and throbbing loins are all very well, but if you really want to make a romance writer breathe heavily, try pinching her prose." And from Newsweek: "Plagiarism? How can you tell when all this stuff sounds the same anyway?" I read on. Janet Dailey, the one-time queen of the romance novel, has admitted stealing words and ideas from bestselling writer Nora Roberts, and now blames the whole thing on a personality disorder caused by the deaths or illnesses of several family members, including her dog.

Salon.com > Tracy Jones

Media Circus: Get your bodice-ripping hands off my genre!