A Book Where Everybody Knows Your Name
That’s the title of an essay I’m working on. Well, actually it’s a paper and I have to deliver it at a conference fairly shortly. My thesis is that one of the most powerful aspects of the romance novel is the community that it makes in the reader’s mind. There’s a lot of theory out there about the internet as a replacement for community, that it gives us the connection we need without the intimacy we fear, and I think a lot of successful romance novels do that, too, through several relationships beyond that of the lovers (although that’s a community, too): groups of friends, workplace communities, neighborhoods, etc. So far, I’m talking about Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Stars books, especially Match Me If You Can and Natural Born Charmer, but I’m open to others.
So I’m working on this and it occurs to me that besides knowing how to get rid of a body, you all probably know romance fiction and/or women’s fiction pretty well, too. And that I would be pretty dumb not to ask you what you think.
So is the community in a romance novel important to you? Obviously the core of the story is the romance, but do you want or need a community aspect, too? In romance novels that are heavy on community–most SEPs are, most of my work is–does the community enhance the story for you or detract from the thing you came to the story for? And most important for my purposes, why do you think that?
Thanking you in advance for allowing me to exploit you again.
Until you asked, I wouldn’t have known how important the extended family of choice was for me, but now I now. I’m least interested in romances where most of the book is the hero and heroine alone together, because I think that ignores the reality of other people in their lives. It’s a problem if your friends and family don’t like your spouse, and vice versa. Part of the connection between the hero and heroine includes the connection between the hero and the heroine’s friends/family and likewise the heroine and the hero’s friends/family.
As wonderful as it is to find your soulmate, having something/someone else in your life besides that person is essential, and I think it’s important for the reader to see the characters with a life outside the love interest.
Considering most people read romances because they’re about people, and personalities, and the like, I imagine most romance readers enjoy a wide cast of characters in their novels. I know I do.
The first books I thought of when reading your post were the “In Death” books by J D Robb/Nora Roberts. She has a fairly large circle of characters and they ALL progress and develop as the series goes on. As a reader I ‘tune in’ as much to see what’s going on with all the secondary characters as I do to read the current mystery.
You do it in your novels, too. I got “Faking It” because I wanted to hear about the further adventures of the Dempseys, and REALLY enjoyed ‘meeting’ the patriarch. And now I want to hear the further adventures of Eve and Simon. And Nadine. Nadine and Ethan need to get together, eventually, don’t they? And Michael. He REALLY needs to meet a female con artist who can con him. (See how much time I’ve spent thinking about the community of characters?)
Now that I continue to brood on this, it seems to me that’s the virtue of most book series - getting to find out what happens with all the characters, not just the main protaganists. And any good author, if they ‘build’ their characters properly, should leave the reader wanting to know more, and continue to hear about that community of people.
Bottom line, I enjoy the community at least as much as the central story. Sometimes more.
Did this make sense? It’s early for me.
Large Community vs. Him/Her Only could also be written as Hamburger with the Works vs. Naked Patty- both options will fill the hole or need to read but one is a quick fix that you grab on the run, not expecting it to be filling but something to tide you over until you can get something satisfying and the other is a complete experience where you spend the time getting everything ready, take the time to enjoy the experience, and even think back on it later, maybe even going so far as to brag at work the next day about the amazing burger you had- a book that is primarily the him/her can be well technically well executed and can even have a good story but it is seldom something that gets put on the keeper shelf, it gets tossed to the library used book sale not passed on to friends with comments of “You have to read this.” Books that show the whole person- and lets face it, we don’t live in a vacuum, we interact at work, at stores, with family and friends- are more satisfying because you can see where this relationship will fit into real life (if you can call what happens between the covers of a work of fiction real life) and you get a better sense that the goal, HEA, will really happen because you can see it happening and aren’t pinged with questions about fit.
Okay, I just realized I went from a valid point to a ramble, so I’m going to go get caffeine and start the day for real
I definitely think the community in the novels is important to me. It’s funny, because I grew up in a rural area - which is different from small towns, then moved to a very large metropolitan area, but I love the way you and SEP portray small towns and the sense of community they have. When I think about it, what I really enjoy is the idea that you have people that know you and this long history with them. That’s something that’s missing from most people’s lives that I know. I don’t feel disconnected, I have my family and friends, but I don’t have a community that’s known me my whole life. In real life, that’s a good thing, because it’s easier to evolve and change if you’re not simultaneously trying to deal with very established views of yourself (I’m really thinking about Crazy For You, if you can’t tell), but it’s nice to escape into a world where you can have the same best friend for your whole life…To try and answer your question more directly…I think the sense of community enhances the story for me for a couple of reasons. First, you know what the ending is going to be, but the journey is why you go, and a cast of characters makes the journey a lot more entertaining. Second, it’s a lot easier to really live with characters if you feel like you know them, and looking at a character through a friend’s or parent’s or child’s eyes offers a great perspective on the character. A lot of series romances tend to have the main couple as the only fleshed out characters, and they always seem two-dimmensional to me. I might read and enjoy, but I forget them pretty quickly. However, I never put down one of your books and forget the protagonists name…
I’d say extremely important, though I wouldn’t have thought of it until a few of my favourites popped to mind.
For example: ‘Say Anything,’ that eighties movie, which covers all the relationships: the new budding romance, the already divorced parents, the obsessive relationship that never really flew, a few friends, male bonding, etc. All those extra links made the central romance that much more realistic and precious.
My brain also points out ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ which wouldn’t have been the same without that great crazy sprawling family.
We live in, and sometimes for, community in life so community is often critical for me to really enjoy a romance. Community makes the story more true to life.
I agree the “In Death” series really gives this to me. It’s the reason I buy in hardcover now, because I just can’t wait for my update on the gang.
Suz Brockmann’s series also gives me that community I crave {the SEALs/Troubleshooters}. She splits her stories into “main” and secondary characters. Some of these secondary characters move forward through multiple books, layering their stories and some getting closer to their HEAs. Prime examples are Sam and Alyssa, Max and Gina, and Jules Cassidy. She also mentions a few “old” characters in each book, and her loyal fans consider it a bonus. I believe she’s careful to keep the number of previously featured characters down in number, insures the references move the story forward and that a reader new to her work won’t feel lost or excluded by reference to the past. I’ve met many “new” Suz Brockmann readers who got hooked on the current release, noted references to formerly featured characters, and went back in search of “the beginning.”
Your books were my first memorable experience with extended characters who mattered, even, or perhaps especially, the pets. The friends and neighbors add depth and dimension and give context to the main characters. Secondary characters add to the fabric of the story, much like seeing one of your collages. I fell in love with the whole gang in Tell Me Lies {the first book of yours I read} and “lone wolf” stories just never did it for me after that.
I’ve heard you say you “don’t do” pre- and post-story bits, but I’d help you dispose of multiple bodies to get further word on the Dempseys, especially how life is going for Phin, etc. in Temptation, Ohio.
Hope this helps. Good luck with the paper/presentation.
Family by Choice is hugely important to me and to the writing that I do. As someone who came from a very small family without relatives nearby we ‘collected’ family - an adopted grandmother, siblings of babysitters, and then in later years, friends from school/ college. These friends are still part of our lives and I think Families by Choice helps us to understand that these relationships are just as important as those that we have by birth. Well, sometimes more important and definitely more tolerable.
The other thing I think that it helps to recognize is that women, and men more recently, don’t ditch their close friends when they become part of a romantic relationship. Sure, there’s the struggle to balance them but the community of friends that we keep close to us helps us with the good and bad parts of relationships. No matter how those romantic relationships end up - for good or for bad - the rest of the community still exists. If we had left that community and then come back we wouldn’t recognize the ‘new’ place that both are in, but by staying connected with a community we can recognize that we grow, our individual friends grow, and the community grows.
sounds like a great thesis for a great paper.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! My favorite authors are ones who write about not only the h/h, but also have very strong secondary characters that are part of the whole fabric of the book. The secondary characters can be human or pets, but they are important parts of the main characters’ lives.
Examples? Jayne Ann Krentz (any title, really), Lani Diane Rich (The Comeback Kiss is a great example), Brenda Novak (category romances- her Dundee, Idaho series really focuses on community in a broader sense)
Okay, I’m the misfit then. For me, a large cast of characters dilutes the main story. I don’t really care about the troubles of the best friend, best friend’s dating history, the old boyfriend’s family, etc. A lot of brothers and sisters? bleh
In my opinion, a large community detracts from the experience of the book, like a large number of POVs does. Becoming involved in subplots with these subsidiary characters slows the momentum of the main story for me.
As you might guess, I don’t care for the family saga or multi-POV book either.
That said, I have read and enjoyed Crusie and SEP. I simply enjoyed the main storyline the most.
I don’t enjoy the romance stories that are focused only on the H/H because nobody lives in a vacuum. (At least we hope not.) I often wonder where are the people in their lives, no parents, no grandparents, no children, cousins, neighbors.
My guess is, the author kills off the family so she doesn’t have to write in too many characters and can focus on the story of the romance. You’re lucky if there is one best friend, one workmate or one antagonist for the couple to bounce off. I mean two people totally disconnected from real life and creating a story … for me that’s boring.
That’s a bowl of vanilla icecream.
Throw in some crunchy relatives, a not so healthy neighbor, an animal or two, hell even a kid, and you’ve got yourself an icecream sundae.
Develop a community where the H/H live and interact and you’ve got a banana split with all the fixins and we readers reach for a large spoon start digging in and devouring.
My top faves for community are you, yes, you Jennifer Crusie, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Patricia Gaffney and I’ve only discovered you three in the past year or two.
I don’t seek out romance novels for community. I seek them out to read the him/her, to feel that rush of falling in love again. That being said, I only reread and keep the romances that have a strong community element. They’re the ones that I remember and enjoy the most. Probably because they round out the him/her story the best and show exactly why the two of them fall for each other and hang on.
I would say yes, it is very important to a story. WTT is one of my all time fave books, simply because of Temptation, Ohio. I loved the detail about the town. I just finished the Fortune Quilt, and again, the book just wouldn’t have been so great without Bilby, AZ. Also, in NBC, the town and the way the people reacted and interacted to/with the h/h made the story. So, 10 minutes later, yes; community makes the book, IMHO.
I think community is important in all types of fiction. As you’ve noted (in so many words) in your writing workshop, good stories are about their characters changing, and it’d be remiss of the author not to explore how that change affects—and perhaps creates conflict in—the rest of their lives, especially as they relate to other people’s.
With specific regard to women’s fiction, community is doubly important. Generally speaking, I think the aim of a romance novel is to generate a feeling of warmth, to show real people finding happiness or overcoming obstacles on their road to it. And happiness for most people is very rarely invested in just one other person. Family, whether of blood or of choice, is vitally important to just about everyone’s happiness, and the best stories are those that bring that element into play.
May I just say: Bet Me just wouldn’t be the same book without the families that Cal and Min have created separately that end up blended together by the end of the book. Nora Roberts and her trilogies and particularly the Chesapeake Bay saga, it isn’t just the the family, but the whole town that brings the books to life. Terry Pratchett does the same in his Discworld books. The City Watch and the Witches sequences give such a feeling of family about them. (Yes, I know not romances or women’s fiction, but still…) No-one lives in a vacuum and that should be reflected in the book. However, I have read books that have felt very incoherent because there is almost too much other people/stuff going on. It does take skill to get the blend right. Mary
i love stories with relatives and friends, these are the moments when you see how a person really is, how she reacts when he/she´s not with the love interest. i guess thats why i like your books and SEP´s so much
and why i love Gilmore Girls. Dont get me wrong - too many ppl squeezed in 300 pages can be totally confusing. i remember more than one book i stopped reading because i lost track and didnt know who was who. so a balance between the main romance and Familiy is important for me in a book.
It all depends. You’re gonna hate this, but I think it may have to do with the reader’s personality. Using Myers-Briggs, the Extroverts would want more community than the Introverts.
I read by authors. Those who come to mind that have few characters are Judith Ivory, Laura Kinsale, and Alison McLeay. Those who have many characters (can’t have community without a big cast, and we can get into a lot of debate about just what “community” is) are Jennifer Crusie, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Sara Donati. Then there are the series authors like Suzanne Brockmann and Sara Donati (aka Rosina Lippi).
Being an extreme Introvert, I get confused with the mega cast of characters, flipping back to see if that person was Jack or John or Jock or whatever and how he was characterized. So I feel more in sync with authors who limit their character count. So might that mean that people like me are more interested in plot than in character arcs? Don’t know, but that’s a thought.
If asked why I like JC and SEP, my very first answer would be their jokes and snarky dialogue. Ummm, not their communities. Well, you did ask!
Two series I like are big on community and that’s why I keep going back to them for more, to get updates on the side characters: Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy Mysteries and Julie Garwood’s contemporaries about the Buchanans and the Claybornes, which follow the lives of all the family members/friends and bring them up in subsequent books.
Plus, how the H/H interract with the community shows how and/or why they interact with each other, so to me that is almost as important as the H/H themselves.
Community is essential for me in (almost) any novel. Doesn’t have to be a huge cast of characters, but there’s got to be more than just the H/H. I’m pretty introverted and, as GP mentioned, plot’s probably the most important thing for me, but community’s right under plot. After all, what would Sophie be without the rest of the Dempseys? There would be no frame of reference to figure her out.
Novels that really get to me are the ones where I start thinking, “Wow, I wish I had a friend like that!” I certainly wish I had a friend like Liza to smack people for me.
Hmmm. I love interesting fun-to-read characters, whether the character is the protagonist, antogonist, or a supporting character. Having a community of such characters integrated as part of well crafted story for me is like the best cream cheese icing on top of a really, really good cake.
Is having a community an important part of the payoff for reading a romance? Hmm, maybe. I do get invested in the characters of the books I read, and the more really good characters there are to get invested the more…oh…real the story feels in my mind. However I do have some favorite romances by Barbara Delinsky that mostly center around the hero and heroine. But I think, for those, the romance story, though wonderfully enjoyable, doesn’t seem to extend beyond the pages of the book. If that makes any sense.
“My thesis is that one of the most powerful aspects of the romance novel is the community that it makes in the reader’s mind. There’s a lot of theory out there about the internet as a replacement for community, that it gives us the connection we need without the intimacy we fear, and I think a lot of successful romance novels do that, too”
For me it
(a) depends on how you’re defining ‘community’. Are a couple of friends a community? Or does it have to include a family and neighbours? Can the hero and heroine constitute a ‘community’ of two? and
(b) depends on the community that’s depicted in the novel. Some of the communities in romance novels, whether they’re small towns or large families, seem to send out a message about an ideal to which the reader is supposed to aspire, and that can sometimes grate on me.
I read romances primarily for the relationship between the hero and heroine. GatorPerson asked ‘So might that mean that people like me are more interested in plot than in character arcs?’. My answer, which of course isn’t statistically significant, is that I’m quite happy with a minimal plot. If the hero and heroine were to spend the whole book alone, developing their relationship and having a character arc, I’d be a happy reader (if, of course, they were interesting, sympathetic characters). ‘Cabin’ and ‘road’ romances are two types of romances which are built around the lack of community.
I do think the community is important, not just in romance but enhances most fiction. I’ve had conversations lately that focus on how we are different when we are around different people. Not that we aren’t still ourselves, but that we all have different sides. The person you are with your friends isn’t who you are to your boss. The boss doesn’t see the same person your parents do, and so on. Put them together and you have a whole person with many sides. The same holds true in books. When you see how a character interacts with others you get a better feel for who they are.
Also it does give the book a more realistic feel. As Roben said above, we don’t live in a vacuum. We have friends and family, co workers, neighbors - and they all shape who we are. JulieT mentioned JD Robb’s “In Death” series and that’s an excellent example showing how a character arc develops from community.
Which doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a story that doesn’t include community. But I think the ones that live on in my imagination long after a close the cover are the ones that do include community. That’s what draws me to what you, Jenny, refer to as the white space.
I agree with Egads and GP in that I don’t much care for sprawling stories with a cast of thousands (well, usually, I am reading the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series). But I do like characters to have friends and family who are positive connections (though, of course, prone to quirks and flawed).
I get very impatient with otherwise good authors (OK, Elizabeth Lowell springs to mind) who seem to think that the only decent human beings in the whole world are the hero and heroine (and occasionally future h/hs in the family). And I know I’ve read others whose relatives are all trials, yet the heroine just keeps giving and giving. I sometimes wonder why such excellent people don’t have any friends!
So, yes to community, but limited.
The saying that you’ll know how a man will treat you if you see how he treats his mother, to me at least is true. Nothing would make a woman run faster or have unease if he treats his mom like he just scraped her off the bottom of his shoe.
Community is important in real life and in books. You can flesh out a romance when you throw in family or friends. Whether they are good or bad people. You get to see more than one side of who they are. How they react to pressure (peer or family, take your pick), how they nuture standing relationships. (if they h or h calls their best friend every six months or daily). Let’s throw in kids while I’m talking. If the heroine or hero has nieces or nephews and they take an active part of their lives, I love seeing that in books. Could be because I’m a single mother…
All are essential to a romance. It’s probably why these type of stories stick with me longer. Also probably why series are popular.
Anyway, community is a plus if it’s done right. I get to see the who character is with the love interest and I get to see them outside of that. When you throw in community you get well rounded characters.
Just my 2 cents.
Had to comment on the introvert/extrovert thing. I’m an emphatic introvert, but I do like community in fiction. I’m not reading much romance these days, but community is one of the best things about Pratchett’s Discworld and Bujold’s assorted worlds. Sam Vimes wouldn’t be half so interesting without all the characters around him.
OTOH, I’ve always liked Anne Stuart’s books, and hers tend to focus fairly tightly on the h/h, as I recall.
On the third hand, I have read books where the involvement of extended family/friends is more distracting and irritating than appealing. But I think this brings us back to the skill of the author rather than the issue of community, per se. The times when I found the secondary characters most irritating were in series, when it just felt like the secondary characters were thrown in as an homage to past books (or set-up for future books), rather than having an integral role in the current story. Sort of like the author was forcing the community issue, rather than letting it unfold naturally.
I just read Lani’s “Fortune Quilt” (fabulous) and thought the community played a big role there. The heroine’s life gets completely cratered, and in rebuilding it she not only finds a new community, but also reconnects with the community of her old life and weaves them all together. The book is as much or more about that as it is about the love story. Although the love story is full of squee and greatness, too.
I think it’s important because it’s life, context, part of what makes up the whole person of the character you’re reading about. If I’m reading about a person hitting a huge turning point in life and growing/changing, I’m interested to see how that affects all parts of her life, not just the love part.
The community is higly important for me - I usually don’t enjoy romance not nearly as much when there’s no “real” community (like the people around e.g. your protagonists feel very real). It adds “meat” to an otherwise - at least for me - only two-dimensional plot (two people falling in love and eventually getting together, you can’t vary this endlessly). Also the people the characters hang out with, are friends/foes with, interact (and how they interact) are very very important, plus FUN.
Others may have said this all far better. What I wanted to say: I’d be bored pretty rapidly by the romance aspect itself if there wasn’t at least a small but well-written community added to the romance-plot. The more meat you give me this way, the better.
I find the community very important actually. I just finished Laura Lee Gurhkie’s “And then he kissed her” and while it was great, I found I missed there being a community. The hero had sisters and the heroine had neighbors but there wasn’t nearly enough interaction with the hero and heroine with the outside world. I think part of why I missed the community is because seeing the hero and heroine interact with people other than each other makes them fuller characters and shows why each is so special out of all the people in the world to each other.
And frankly, it’s just not realistic for a couple to exist in a vacuum, with all their needs being met by one single person. People don’t operate that way, and everyone has families, friends, and annoying aquaintances unless you’re living in the woods in a cave. I may not always have a boyfriend but I ALWAYS have my best friend and I find it unrealistic and lonely when the author doesn’t provide the heroine with a best friend to dissect her new relationship with.
I think at the heart of why a community is a plus in a romance story, at least for me, is that I’m looking for a good love story and a good love story doesn’t necessarily have to be about romantic love.
To be honest, until I read Fast Women, I had never encountered strong sense of community in a romance before. Admittedly, I hadn’t read that many at the time, and reading it spawned the Great Romance Year, where I read a new romance every few days.
I enjoy it because it is more believable. I never like those books where the heroine has had a brief affair with the hero (often his name is Jago: why?) and then spends five years living on her own in an apartment with no friends, and dressing in beige. No realistic woman (especially one who has gone through a hard time) cuts herself off from a community that supports her. Women relax when they talk - sharing their troubles with their friends and family helps to diminish them. Reading about these women frustrates me, they make no sense. I have a pretty hard time identifying with a heroine who has no community around her. And the same goes for the hero.
I also enjoy it when you get to watch different couples learning about each other and falling in love. They don’t all do it the same way, which is interesting, and since you love all the characters, you love them in love even more.
Plus, with books as with TV, the community in the story become your friends. Maybe because they have a sense of community, you feel more involved in the story - because you feel the characters would include you, rather than ignore you to go to their apartment on their own in their beige suit.
Possibly.
I didn’t read the previous posts because I didn’t want to cloud my initial response. I want, need, must have that community in the story. It is intregal to establishing and maintaining my relationship with the protags. I love the walk home scenes, or meet at the place on the corner, or in the park; they create the coccoon for the romance. Generally, I already know the he/she are going realize true love, but where? That is always juicy. I love revisiting past settings also. We all live chaotic lives, something familiar is comforting, and mostly shouldn’t romance be a genre of comfort. Not erotica or romantic suspense, but straight romance is about knowing something good is going to happen, but where it happens and who gets to see it unfold makes me smile and turn the page. Layering characters in, and watching the interactions and reactions are the perfect places for additional information, foils, triumphs and conflict. JMO, not well said, but I know what I mean.
It is hugely important to me. I just re-read Bet Me and the community just added volumes to the story.
I think the thing about romance as a story between two characters is that the otehr characters show you rather than just telling you about the hero and heroine.
I think better writers have the comunity and show you the facets of the personality…………..while lessers just tell you their characteristics.
the ones I think of are yours, SEP, Dennis Lehanes first series, some of the better Nora Roberts, Rachel GIbson, etc.
I think it is true also across genres and is not just a romance thing. Mystery fans love a series for the same reason, as do Sci fi fans.. thik of Lawrence Block’s series, as wella s melanie rawna nd others…
Camilla
GatorPerson said,
“Using Myers-Briggs, the Extroverts would want more community than the Introverts.”
As I stated earlier, I love community. However, I’m more of an introvert, so this comment got me thinking about what type of community I love seeing in a book.
The word “community” and the word “family” I think are the sticking points here. Community can mean the people around the h/h that indirectly or directly affect their lives- townsfolk, co-workers, etc. Community can also be much more intimate- friends, confidantes, people who directly influence the lives of the h/h. This second definition can also be the definition of family in the broad sense. So the question is, is it the community with the “cast of thousands” that is the draw, or the more intimate community/family that is the draw?
For me, I lean toward the more intimate community/family that is critical in my enjoyment of romance novels. The secondary characters that are fleshed out enough that you end up caring about them almost as much as the h/h. This mini-community is not usually more than about 6-8 characters, and all of them have a role in moving the characters or the plot forward. Without their contributions, the h/h would not be able to grow nearly as much; the shared history of the characters allows the members of the “community” to push the h/h in different ways than the h/h can push each other. Often times, the h/h are either just meeting, just reuniting after a long absence, or stuck in their own rut that they can’t get out of. The community is the constant during this period of change in the h/h’s lives- it allows us to see who they are individually as they explore who they are together.
I hope all of that makes sense…..
It’s not just the romance books I read - all the books (and tv) I return to have a rich community life. I have a group of close friends that I’m in touch with regularly, but our lives have taken us all over the country, and our work and families keep us entrenched in our own little spheres of life. In my daily life I deal primarily with aquaintences and family. So when I enter a fictitious world (your books, Tamora Pierce’s books, Veronica Mars) I’m looking for friendships, family, and smart people as well as romance.
I find it interesting that the word you used was community. I hadn’t thought of calling it that — and yet it’s why I like and read (and buy) particular author’s wors, particularly in series. I do like the continuing characters and that we get to see them grow and change and we understand over time the place where they live and their work and so on. The well-done, complete community sucks me in that I begin to expect to meet the characters in their physical places — well, only if they are contemporary, of course as I haven’t yet mastered time travel. Elizabeth Lowell’s Donovans are worth knowing and she frequently comments on how her fans would like to have more of their stories. The Brockmann books have been mentioned as doing this well, too, with the casual secondary character in one book later showing up in another as a main one and as a reader you are pleased to find out more about someone you “met” earlier. Jo Beverley’s Mallorens and her Company of Rogue books do this. And Stephanie Laurens Cynster and Bastion books. Some of these are just wonderful — so much so that I am willing to buy and read the ones that seem to be there simply to check off someone on the family tree in order to understand the place of those main characters within the larger whole.
I do think the idea that our introvert/extrovertedness affects our ‘Need’ or ‘desire’ for community is very interesting. I am a borderline I/E and have tested that way for years. And I don’t think it affects my reading choices. I am more likely now to choose Romance over mainstream fiction and fiction over non-fiction because I read heavy technical and legal non-fiction at work. I also am not a movie or tv person (except for Sports) and so I get my relaxation from reading. Meeting people one likes and knows in a book is very relaxing. Not having to work too hard to figure out the fictive world is good, too, which is most likely why i am not reading as much science fiction these days. Even if it is true that towns in Ohio are pretty much outside my normal plane of existence.
So, community in Romance: people I like in settings I know. what could be better?
I happened to spend this weekend reading Reading the Romance by Janice Radway for a course that I am taking. She says that the romance readers that she studied considered the best romances to have a “resolute focus on a single, developing relationship between heroine and hero.” However, I think that her work, however interesting, is now quite dated.
I think that romance readers want (or at least I want) to see the heroine/protagonist interact with the whole cast of characters that make up a life, family, friends, co-workers, etc. The book loses some of its capacity to draw you into its world if that world only has two characters that are developed.
Oh, jsut had another thought. Most people commenting here seem to prefer the community aspect but could it be that the type of readers who also read an author’s blog and comment are more community oriented?
Yep, hoppping on the band wagon here. Maybe it’s because I’ve got such a huge community myself, and add to it whenever possible, that I love community in my stories. But, mostly I think it’s because who your community is says so much about who you are, or, in this instance, who the character is. So much can be shown about a character through their community, be it friends, parents, children or even pets.
Furthermore, I don’t trust a person or a character who doesn’t have a community. Not at first anyway. A character without community seems sad and lonely to me. Ultimately, to me, the people in our lives give us something to think about besides ourselves and a better reason to get out of bed everyday than just to get a paycheck.
What’s that sappy song — “People, people who neeeeeeed people….”lol
chelle
Oh, gawd. I was just thinking the other day that my next book is only gonna be about the hero and heroine, ’cause all these other people who keep horning in are driving me freaking crazy!
Not that that’s ever going to happen. I’m just saying.
Apparently the only way I can write a romance is by showing the couple in context with their world — their interactions with parents, siblings, neighbors, co-workers show the reader so many more facets of their personalities than they’re likely to see if they’re only reacting to each other. The stand-offish hero may become a total softie with his little girl; in turn, we may see WHY he’s stand-offish in a scene between him and his rod-up-her-butt mother. The heroine who’s feels awkward at first with the hero may be completely at ease with her sister or best friend, and thus give the reader some insight into how she’s going to grow as the story progresses. It feels so much more real and dynamic to me, letting the protags bounce off other people.
And in many cases, a secondary character has saved my butt (or at least the book), when they’ve walked on stage and goosed some life back into the hero or heroine.
So, yeah, you might say I’m a fan of fictional communities, in reading or writing.
Karen T.
As far as communities go I have to say that one of my favorite writers to pull you into another world where you care enough about the characters to keep on reading the series is Lori Foster. She just re-released the Buckhorn Brothers series and she has another series that revolves around the UFC Fighters (Murphy’s Law and Jude’s Law)that keeps it in the family. I also love Tara Janzen’s books because they’re all about the same unit of friends/ex-cons/special forces pals (dont ask, you have to read the books).
The last one that I will mention is Sarah Mason, a little known british chick lit author who not only sets up a hilarious cast of characters (that you fall in love with instantly) but she also tells a great story, full of love and hilarious, ironic situations that make you feel like your on the inside of an inside joke. When I read about that family I always feel better.
Diane, you’re right, this is a flawed sample because it’s self-selected community people, but this isn’t a survey, I’m just trying to figure out exactly what I want to say and that means I have to figure out what I really think about this. I have a strong feeling that while community shows up in all genres, it’s somehow more important to romance novels, but I’m still working my way through some tangled ideas. The discussion here and on the Forums is helping enormously. Thank you all.
With regard to my reading romance novels-yes,but my favorites are the ones where community=family. I am a big fan of Mary Balogh for that reason-and I think it’s telling that my favorite Crusie novels are the Dempsey books. I would say that while I like the romance aspect of the plot,but that alone isn’t enough to really hold my attention. My siblings both died when I was young,and there’s something about reading series books with siblings,or parents and children,like Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades group.
Of course,I do like books where family/community is more loosely defined-Mary Balogh’s current series about the teachers, Charlie All Night,etc.I do think though,that these secondary relationships are almost as important as the main relationship and I think one reason why I mostly don’t read the categories-not that they’re bad, just they secondary characters are,on the whole,not that important.
With regard to other genres, I would say that it is one reason why romances skew towards women-a fact I know that seems to also support this is that mystery series sales also skew towards women-and not just cozies either-things like Ed McBain’s 87th precinct novels,for expample,do well with women,and this may help explain why.
Sorry for the clunky prose,I’m really tired.
I love being exploted, especailly by you.
I think a sense of community is more important in romances because falling in love generally has to do with wanting to belong. To fit in. even if the h/h in the book isn’t looking for love, their feelings for one another became a huge part of the story. I think it’s easier to identify with people when we see how they interact with everyone around them. Developing a strong community helps the reader figure out the people. Does that make any sense? Sheesh. I confuse myself.
Concerning the ‘blog community’ aspect: personally, I don’t join blogs because of the community but because of the topic. My goal is not to find out as much as possible about the other commenters but to read what they have to contribute to the topic in question. (Right, I am an introvert.)
However, I care a lot about a secondary cast of characters in a novel because I think it shows the craft of the author: how they are included in story and subplots, how you get to know them even if they only appear in a few scenes with a few lines of dialogue. But without them, you cannot really tell what kind of person the main character is (let me refer to the ‘foil’ mention over at the Crusie/Mayer workshop) because I need to see the interaction, the contrast, the communication.
It’s also interesting to see how the H/H interact with people they choose (friends) vs. people they had no choice in (family, colleagues, neighbors etc.)
For me, sometimes the community can detract from the main story. I admit that I get characters mixed up when there are too many. In your books, the side characters tend to be more fleshed out. If I use SEP’s “Ain’t She Sweet” as another example, though, the side character of the half-sister is pretty wooden. I still love that book, but I felt that the side story detracted from the main story. If there is a community of characters, they should be more than one-dimensional to really be beneficial to the story. Otherwise the reader (me) just ends up confused as to why so many characters were used.
I would agree with the other recommendations given and second Nora Roberts Chesapeake series, since the community was so loved that the readers pestered her until she wrote Seth’s story. And Eloisa James who talked in one of her afterwords (Duchess in Love, I think) about how in real life the sheriff swaggers into the bar and the heroine feels all melty but sitting next to her on the barstool is her best friend who rolls her eyes and makes a snarky comment. The point being that it is never just two people, its two people plus everyone else offering their opinions and the couple has to work with and through that.
And often novels work on an accelerated timeline - people falling in love and finding the murderer in four days. Involving the community helps ground it and make it seem this is a relationship that has a future past the end of the book.
As a PROUD ROMANCE READER, I find that I avoid most short story collections (except, of course,those by my fav authors)because they are too short to build a community. I find most books that I define as “wall-bangers” are short on community - or realistic community -for the characters.
Community impacts and sometimes defines characters, and the characters I really care about, impact their communities.
Thinking back over my keepers shelves:
Non-Romance Community stories: Gone with the Wind, all of S.E. Hinton’s “teenager” novels, Where the Red Fern Grows, John Jakes North & South books, and To Kill a Mockingbird are a few.
Romance Communities I love: J. D. Robb’s - Eve & Rourke, Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation, Lori Foster’s new Causing Havoc, Evanovich’s Stepanie Plumb books, any SEP, JAK’s Flashpoint and Family Matters, and the list keeps going.
I even expect community in my TV and Movies. Love ER, West Wing, Seinfeld, and The Lethal Weapon series (Riggs moves from alone and wanting to kill himself to attached and a kid over 4 movies. I know they are cheesy and violent, but I cared about that character and the community that adopted him.)
Good luck untangling your ideas for this paper.
P.S. Hurry up, cause we are still waiting for that new ficiton stuff!
Primarily, I read romances for the romance. It’s the passages of the book which make me tear up with its sweetness or passion, that obsesses me.
But if the book doesn’t have some sense of community - or at least some sense of time and place - then it feels much much less real, and often the romance between the couple just seems manipulated into place by the author.
I have to look at the CB community that sprang up. It is so strong that it has withstood the loss of the blog that started it. The CB community read and write romance books. Maybe needing community has more to do with the type of person who is attracted to that type of story. I know that the sense of community is one big reason I am part of the CB group. I also know that the interactions between the main characters and secondary characters is a very fulfilling part of the sense of satisfaction I get when I read a good book. The MacKensie family that LH wrote is a good example. I loved seeing how they all grew from story to story.
Romances that are too much just the hero and heroine have to be extraordinarily well done to interest me. I’ve read those books where that are scene after scene of just the main characters doing nothing but interacting with each other and nothing existing apart from them. Boring! Like eating a plain slice of white bread. Just not very satisfying. Give me the multi-grain bread spread with a bit of olive oil and lettuce and tomato and a really nice cheese. That’s what a book with a community means to me–a nice meal to be savored.
Okay, now that I’ve actually had a moment to think about this (instead of typing off at the mouth)…I think many readers enjoy community-grounded stories because they either a) reflect a positive experience with community/extended family in their own lives or b) give that feeling of connection to something larger that’s missing from many of our lives today. And yes, I realize that sounds contradictory, but people can be attracted to the same element for entirely different reasons.
However, it’s the second reason that most resonates with me, especially since discovering how popular small-town stories are with readers. Jennifer T. commented about how romances are so often about “wanting to belong,” and I think that really hits the nail on the head. Whether we hail from the country or the city, a small town or the ‘burbs, many of us are so busy these days it’s hard to keep up with friends and family, or even neighbors, whether they’re right next door or thousands of miles away. Reading a community-centered story, IMO, helps to alleviate that sense of disconnectedness for many of us — we can at least feel part of something vicariously!
And I’m not sure whether being an introvert or not affects that — I’m actually pretty much an introvert, not the type to welcome the new neighbor with homebaked cookies, hate shmoozing at parties with a vengeance — but I love making up communities as well as reading about them. They make me feel…whole, somehow. And, despite the conflicts inherent in any gathering of more than one person, oddly at peace. Like this is the way it SHOULD be.
FWIW.
Communities- Yes. Movies include a whole cast of characters and books are movies for the mind (does that even make sense?) I think romance especially needs communities b/c a relationship is about more than 2 people….it’s a merging of 2 families, groups of friends, etc…it’s not realistic if there is not a cast of characters involved (unless the H/H are on a desert island stranded) the “other people” form the H/H and make them who and what they are and their opinions and perceptions…(sex and the city, anyone?)
I really hope this is coming out intelligent…sometimes the hands and brain don’t always connect literally speaking….which is why I’m not a professional writer. You see alot of community or “spill over” from one book to the next in historical romance (J.Quinn, Bridgertons family series, the wallflower series by (i forgot!)stephanie ????) anyways- you get the drift…
hugs-
Siberia
After reading all the replies, I’m a bit confused as to what ‘community’ means. I can’t, of the top of my head, think of a book where the hero and heroine don’t interact with any other characters - so is a book that evokes the feeling of community simply a book where the secondary charcters are well drawn, or is there more to it than that?
Jane Eyre for instance, is that a romance with a community aspect? Probably is. What would be an example of the other sort of book?
My instinct, and I’d put myself down as an introvert, is that while I enjoy books with a community aspect, it’s not what I read romance for. But I’m flailing about trying to think of examples. Judith Duncan’s category ‘The Renegade and the Heiress’ is mostly focused in on the two main characters, and it worked well for me. However the author does make it perfectly clear that the hero participates in, and is respected by, his local community, so perhaps that doesn’t count either.
I think there are stories told in a short intense period of time that focus on two characters and everyone else is just window dressing or peripheral to the story. Sometimes the story is just two people…it just is.
As a reader I enjoy a community whether it is one the character was born with or one they’ve created out of need and necessity.
So, that’s as clear as mud. I close with this — I’ve read more books where I’ve said, “Where’s h/h family, friend, neighbor, co-worker? Doesn’t anybody else see what’s going on?” More than I’ve said, “Another POV heard from that is unnecessary.”
For me- often the community tells me so much more about the character- without the character having to say it directly. How they interact with others, how different social groups see them etc. Now when I’m writing I try and put in those differences. I’m different (trust me I’ve heard how different) with different people so I want my characters to do it as well.
okay- one more thing- I also think a community in a book keeps the world feeling less claustrophobic. When I am totally focused on one character it can feel very intimate- but also at times too small. Ok- now I really am done.
I need to clarify my previous reply. I’m not going to attempt to define community, and I think this may be where we’re having trouble.
I mentioned Laura Kinsale as having few characters. Her My Sweet Folly has the first 16 pages devoted exclusively to letters between the h and h. After that she includes other characters to sustain the story. This is the most extreme example I can think of that has no community, at least to begin with.
Suzanne Brockmann has many characters in her communities, but mostly devotes each novel to one pair with 1 or 2 side stories. We know the characters from previous novels. Sara Donati also has many of her characters in her communities appear in subsequent novels. In addition, she has a “Primary Characters” list in each novel. Both techniques keep me coming back for more; they don’t make me dizzy.
And finally, why do I read romance novels? I know there will be an HEA. Real life can be difficult enough. I need HEA’s.
I’m a little taken aback by how many people here have said community is extremely important to them. I guess I’m not a typical reader. What I want is to see the human interaction and I want it to be well-written. If that happens to be within a community (as I think I understand your use of the term) then that’s fine. But it could also be the interplay between two people stranded in a cabin; a murderer, his victims and the cops; or a PI and his sidekick. (Obviously, those are not necessarily romances and not what you asked about.) I don’t care if it’s a cast of two or twenty, I want to see the interaction between the characters. And I don’t particularly care if they have a HEA. What fascinates me is how they get there. Or don’t.
Maybe it’s because I have so much “community” in real life and part of why I read is to escape for a bit. It’s the quality of the writing that brings me back to certain writers over and over again. If they want to create a community and can do a good job of it, I’m not going to object, but it sure isn’t what I’m looking for. Apparently, I am in the very small minority on that.
Also– you wrote: There’s a lot of theory out there about the internet as a replacement for community, that it gives us the connection we need without the intimacy we fear…
I’ve been trying to figure out what about this doesn’t ring true for me, and I think it’s the “fear” part of it. I think the sense of control is part of the attraction (how much and when and what you put out there) and also the lack of true commitment, the sense that you could just walk away without explanation if you wanted to do so. No strings. I don’t think that’s quite the reality of it, but I do think it’s the perception and it lends a certain degree of ease not found in “real” relationships. I’m just not sure fear of intimacy it at the root of it. I could be wrong.
It’s the nathanial hawthorne thing - that the ultimate sin is to disconnect oneself, whether through pride or something else (usually it seems to happen to his characters through pride) from the great chain of being. All the fascination of those books comes from that choice - of the individual to set themselves apart from the community and then how they wind up interacting with it regardless, but so painfully.
So in romance (yes, sure, I’m overthinking. I’m the overthinking kind.), the appeal (to thinky me) is the stretch for the characters - the forging of significant relationship bonds, in the context of existing community, that are both more intimate and physically reflective of that intimacy and the struggles and joys of that - both for the romantic leads and for the people in their lives.
IRL, people who live outside communities seem to rapidly become exorbitantly self-referential and consequently pretty dull and often insane in a startlingly boring way. They might do an interesting thing, but they themselves are boring. Why read about them outside the inevitable newspaper article? Certainly not for buying in hardcover.
so yes - I prefer romance with community. community is context and people, all people, are more interesting in context. and who cares if the boring people get together? not me. I like interesting people to get together and stir some stuff up.
A really solid example of this is the work of Dorothy Dunnett. The Niccolo series and the Johnson Johnson series and also the Lymond series. Not only romance, but really graphic about the consequences of loss of community, loss of connection, not only to romantic partner, but to parent, friend, business partner, religious leader, child.
Just for a suggestion of romance author who includes ‘community’ of support characters: Suzanne Brockmann and the SEAL series.
This topic interconnects nicely with your earlier essays on the subject of character. Characters as they appear in a well written story must serve a purpose and, for the most part, do or be something to advance the plot. Jayne Ann Krentz was mentioned above. I remember reading one of her books (don’t ask me which one now) where one of the characters just popped up whenever needed rather than as what was required byt he story intrinsically. Very annoying. On the other hand, Stephanie Laurens writes books which, within a series, many of the same people reappear as supporting characters in eachothers books. I think the success of her series illustrates neatly the importance of community. As some of the other comments note, if the story is engaging and the charactes are well written, we care about them and want to know what happens to them outside the confines of the covers of the current volume. If that were not the case, Laurens would not be able to continue to successfully produce her Cynster and Bastion Club series. Even the more conventional trilogy format would be pointless if it were not the need for connection, the desire of the reader to know more about the supporting characters in the present volume. Roberta Gellis also successfully exloited this with her Rosalynde series, which for the reader is more successful than her stand-alone books because one can continue on with characters one has developed an emotional attachment to. Georgette Heyer seldom revisited the same people, but the books almost all dealt with the same social group, the Upper Ten Thousand, thus a sense of community developed wherein the individuals might be unrelated but once one developed a certain sense of what that world was, all the characters fit into the larger whole, if technically unrelated.
The Seppies told me about this discussion, so I had to come take a peek. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I wanted a romance that was tightly focused on the hero/heroine. I found myself skimmed the suspense plot that accompanied so many romances. (I still do unless Jenny’s written it. She could rewrite the phone book, and I’d read it. I’m a sucker for her wonderful voice.) But the older I get, the more I’m interested in broader family stories–relationships with sisters, parents, female friends. As the mother of 2 sons, I also love writing about the mother/son relationship–Heaven, Texas; Nobody’s Baby But Mine; and Natural Born Charmer. If I pick up a book now that only focuses on h/h love story, I abandon it. I need more now. (Being old and crabby!) Great discussion, Jenny.
I haven’t read through all the comments yet, so if someone’s already mentioned this, forgive me. But look at Pride and Prejudice — one of the all-time best romance novels ever. Of course, you need a hot conflict in a romance, but what a joy the side characters are — and so telling! The embarrassing family, where Elizabeth and her father are the only sane members; her friend, who takes the road not chosen and marries a boor; the boor — Reverend Whats-his-name — is such a colorful portrait; Darcy’s best friend, and *his* embarrassing family.
I don’t think you can have a great novel in *any* genre without those wonderful human portraits. Two characters floating in a bubble of conflict could possibly make a good story, but it would take the pen of a genius to make it a lasting, satisfying story.
I don’t think you can seperate it by genre. What books *don’t* have community? The only thing I can think of off-hand is The Old Man and the Sea (if that, in fact, is the work I’m thinking of — some guy catches a fish that he can’t pull in) — and even then, there is an implied community.
I wanted to say something about the introvert/extrovert difference. I think of myself as an introvert, but I love stories about community. (-: It’s a lot less mess than the real community I live in. Writers work hard to make it satisfying, and you understand the motivations of the different characters involved. (grumble: I could sure use a omniscent narrator sometimes at the PTA meetings.) (-: Stories about good community sometimes help me understand people; they surely give me the courage to try and see if life can live up to fiction (-:.
One last thing — I wonder if women writers are more involved in community. I can think of several series in SF, fantasy and mystery where the community is crucial. But then again, my reading is skewed toward women writers. Anyway, I don’t think the romance genre has a particular need for community. All good books need community, as far as I’m concerned.
The community enhances the love story for me because I don’t believe in the story world unless there is some sort of community. I can’t lose myself in the romance if there is no sense of community. I don’t care if he/she lives alone on the prairie with only gophers and butterflies for neighbors before he/she falls in love with the other person–that’s still a community. There’s got to be a sense for me that the two lovers are connected to a vast world beyond themselves before they can connect with each other. Otherwise, they’re cut-outs. Paper puppets. And I love how the community cheers them on, carries them toward each other, in a way, because they are part of that community and they reflect who their community is.
I love large communities, big families and lots of friends in the books. It gives you this warm and safe feeling. My husband and I do not have children or family. Not one person! But we are blisfully happy because we have each other AND a lot of great friends and we live in a small town with a great community. People need other people in their lives. How can you live without the warmt and love of other people? It’s impossible.
I’m still mulling over BCB’s comment since that’s the way I appreciate the internet. I decide how, when, where I communicate. Sometimes I sit and lurk and am content to do so, another time I chime in with my two cents’ worth. As I do now.
I guess that’s what I do with novels, too. Sometimes I get so caught up in the story that I continue thinking about it even after the book is finished, sometimes I don’t. Since I’m not a very adventurous person, it’s a kind of vicarious life I can lead by, say, accompanying Suzanne Brockmann’s SEALs to their mission. I might include myself in that cast of characters you call community. By the way, there’s an internet page called ‘Second Life’ where you can do just that - create your second life - and it’s so far advanced that people have already earned real money by it. And I read some estimates that in the near future, probably 50% of the internet users will have a second personality there.
I have some things that I look for when I go looking for a romance novel:
– I want either an outright comedy or at least something not too heavy that is marketed as “witty”.
– I want strong, memorable primary characters, in that I want them to be well drawn, and “real”, not just tokens. I also want them to be reasonably self-confident. Everybody has baggage, and characters must have the ability to grow and develop. But I don’t connect particularly well to characters who are so emotionally damaged that they are outright neurotic.
– I want a really good plot that fits the characters well.
– I enjoy a good supporting cast. I really enjoy characters (both supporting & primary) with eccentricities and odd little kicks to their stride.
Those are the things I’m generally thinking about when I’m looking at books. I don’t think, “I want a book that has a good community.” I think, “I want a good romantic comedy with fun characters, and a good plot with plenty of action.”
As for community, there have been some thoughts about “what is a community”. In the traditional sense, it’s a geographically based thing that encompasses friends, families, and coworkers.
But I find that more and more, “community” transcends geography. I think most people today live in multiple, overlapping communities, some geographic and some that are activity and people-based.
For me, the purpose of a community is to give people common traditions, to help recognize the milestones of life and support each other through those milestones, and to help preserve common memories and experiences. It gives you a social outlet, and an outlet to give “service” … to be needed by others and to contribute to something bigger than just yourself. It also gives you others who will help you when you need it. I also think that a really effective community has a generational aspect to it … older members to learn from, younger members to teach, and the ability for people to progress on the spectrum from clueless newcomer to “village elder”.
A community can be any size and any duration. It might just be a temporary one that exists for only a short period of time (a party trapped by a snowstorm in the mansion); it might be an intermittent community (a bunch of high school friends who see each other at reunions; or a widely scattered family that only sees each other at holidays); or it could be a continuous one (a close-knit extended family; the church you attend; the town where you live; the families that are active in youth sports leagues; whatever).
In historical fiction, I think communities are much more limited in that they are more geographically based and more family oriented (”back then”, people were less dispersed, lived close to where they were born, etc.). Not totally limited, but more “traditional” than they are now.
In the modern world, I think that we seek more creative communities because we are so much more dispersed. I don’t live where I was born. My parents lived states away from their parents throughout my childhood, and I now live 2 states away from my parents and brother & his family. My husband’s sister lives a state away from us. He & I live within an hour of his grandmother, but when she passes away he will have no “local” family at all.
So it’s more and more common to seek less traditional “communities”. More of us leave home and family and have to create our own unique families and communities to fill those needs.
My & my husband’s community is built from several different ones — our dispersed families that we see on a somewhat infrequent basis, some incredibly powerful friendships, participation in a widespread hobby/activity that functions as a non-geographic small town in many ways, and relationships with co-workers.
I’ve been thinking as I’ve been writing, and while I don’t consciously think about community, I think some form of community is inherent in most fiction. I believe that when I think “I want good characters”, an effectively drawn community will be inherent in that wish.
Man. Talk about rambling …
Jenny: So is the community in a romance novel important to you?
Me: Absolutely. Who we are is developed in direct relation to the people around us. “You are known by the company you keep” applies to fiction as well as real life. Little-miss-goody-two-shoes does not hang around with a bad-biker-boy in real life and if the two constantly in each other’s pocket in fiction either there is either a plot twist in the work or the writer is an idiot.
J: Obviously the core of the story is the romance, but do you want or need a community aspect, too?
M: Yes. It adds a level of realism to the work. Other people make me a more rounded person by introducing interests I would otherwise not know about. Characters reacting to other characters is what drives plot and development. It also make the hero/heroine dodge left and into difficulty instead of right when pursuing certain goals because dodging right around the obstacle would mean hurting their friends.
J: In romance novels that are heavy on community–most SEPs are, most of my work is–does the community enhance the story for you or detract from the thing you came to the story for? And most important for my purposes, why do you think that?
M: The community aspect enhances the story.
Having just been turned on to SEP by you and the Cherry Forums, (I never though the blurbs or premises of her books sounded interesting) I can say the community and how the character reacts to that community is what makes the books worth reading. In the case of Nobody’s Baby But Mine (the blurb read like a cliche), what kept me going was how Jane tried to build a community of her own at the expense of some pretty important personal morals. Her “doing wrong” ran her headlong into a tight-knit community that was trying to fix one of their own. So the comparison among the different insular-but-now-tangled communities kept my attention where the heroines actions and betrayal of self would have made me throw the book away. As things progressed, the tangled communities and challenges of “making things right” for the baby and with the people around her (whether she wanted to or not) is what kept me going.
In the case of Natural Born Charmer I have to say I read for the community more than I did for the romance. Like Jane in the other story, Blue was in search of a permanent community, only she was doing it unconsiously. It was only when Blue ran into someone who was conniving enough to keep her around for the sheer entertainment value (and against her will) that she discovered an equally colorful ensemble of people she could relate to and adopt. In this story, I would have been just as happy if there had been no romance and Happily Ever After.
I vote for community, but only to the narcissistic extreme: community that exists to shore up the hero and heroine, to make the plot more tangled, and so forth. In that sense, it’s a false community.
Community that just kind of sits there and waits for a sequel is really annoying.
Whether reading or writing I’ve always enjoyed the rich feel a sense of community brings to a story. It’s like only getting half the story without it. I thoroughly enjoy your books, Jenny, as well as Susan Elizabeth Phillips’, specifically because of the interesting supporting casts and what they contribute to the story, as well as your strong, sassy, comedic voices.
Of course, at the hands of lesser writers it can be a different story entirely. When community isn’t well planned and seems thrown in for the heck of it, or when the supporting characters are dull and tedious, I find myself yawning and skipping through the boring passages to get back to the main romance. If I have to do too much skipping, the book is usually set aside unfinished. So community is a good thing as long as it’s captivating and integral to the story.
I’d had a romantic comedy manuscript rejected years ago because I’d included too many side characters. The editor said she loved the story but I’d need to do a rewrite, cutting the others out and focusing solely on the hero/heroine before she could accept it. As an eager young writer it was a difficult decision for me. I truly believed it was more than simply a case of being in love with my own words–I was in love with the community I’d created and simply couldn’t imagine the romance without them. It would feel shallow and lackluster without the supporting characters. Wondering if I was making the biggest mistake of my life, I took a pass on rewriting the story and later it was published as I originally wrote it. Well reviewed and a reader favorite, the comments almost always included positive remarks about the community and how those characters enhanced the story. Readers liked the supporting cast so much they asked for a sequel. I was immensely happy I hadn’t followed the advice of the other editor.
Since then I’ve never changed my natural inclination to write my stories with a strong sense of community. I’m much happier for it and I believe my readers are too.
When I think of my favorite romance movies through the decades, whether they featured Hepburn and Grant, Day and Hudson, or today’s newest crop of actors and actresses, those stories were each enriched by the marvelous, well-drawn and often quirky supporting characters, whether they were neighbors, friends or family. Aside from good acting and direction there’s a solid a reason why those stories went on to become longstanding favorites. Those screenwriters obviously understood the value of community.
I think this is an interesting question. When I first read the post, I (like SEP) thought that it was a function of my age - when I was younger the other characters could stay or go and I didn’t mind as long as I have the h/h. Kind of that “world well lost for love” stage that seems to mostly go with youth. Now in my 40’s I am fascinated by the communities characters inhabit because I know how hard it can be to find and nurture that in life.
Then on further consideration I thought - Gee, Jenny isn’t your blog sort of a self-selecting sample in favor of community since that it such a major hallmark of your work? But maybe not - I have to wonder are people reading “Faking It” and wishing all those other Goodnights and Dempseys would butt out and leave Tilda and Davy alone? Hard to feature, but I guess it could happen.
I need community to really be satisified by a romance and believe in the HEA. That is what nourishes and replenishes me in my reading. A romance without community can be fun in the moment, but it leaves me with that junk food hangover feeling. Something I have less patience with these days.
oops - I see Jenny addressed the self-selecting idea in an above comment. Sorry - I get a little brain freeze going through lots of comments.
Community is highly important…in Romance books and in “real” life. Everyone needs a sense of belonging to something or someone.
These haven’t been mentioned, Nora Robert’s McGregor series certainly has community…as does Cait London’s Tallchief series.
BCB - I think you have a good point about the interaction. Its not just the ‘gosh aren’t we all wonderful people who really get along’ aspect, but rather how different people relate and influence each other that I interpret as ‘community’.
As to the internect, while I know the ’safeness’ is a draw for a lot of people, I think there’s also something to be said for having contact with people you have a common interest with. It doesn’t replace real relationships but its really nice to have that outlet.
Urp, I feel bad for picking on “Ain’t She Sweet” now that SEP commented. It was just an example! I still love the book.
okay, back to the discussion.