2009 Nov 28
Bev(BB)Journals hot topics, perspective, placeholder heroines
After my post yesterday, which linked back to a post on Racy Romance Reviews, there was a comment by AG there that I felt I could respond to more appropriately and more at length here and without getting too far off topic for Jessica’s post:
Despite the definition it kind of feels like placeholder heroine is a term similar to bodice ripper. It’s meant to put the reader of romantic fiction into a position of defense.
Actually, I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. We have to understand that this is something that respected and relatively popular authors within the genre bought into and wrote about – in more than one essay in that Dangerous Men, Adventerous Women collection. Authors who were and still are teaching other authors about the writing process within the community. They accepted it as being applicable to what they were writing then and maybe even still do. I honestly don’t know.
My impression is that it was (is?) more an attempt to explain why the genre moved from mostly 1st person to mostly dual perspective in such a relatively short period of time in what is mostly the post-bodice ripper era. That may sound weird but look at the title of the essay I quoted from “The Androgynous Reader” by Laura Kinsale in the last post. That era is considered to be the 1970s, more or less. I don’t remember dual perspectives showing up en masse until well into the 1980s or later and the book of essays was published in 1992. Do the math and one realizes it’s about a perfectly natural learning curve for the authors.
Then, too, Kinsale was one of the ones who attempted to explain placeholder heroines and reader identification to me over on the AAR forums right after I first read about them and questioned what in world it was all about. She quoted a lot of the same references Jessica talks about in her RRR post. Kinsale had all her own answers down pat, was very eloquent in her responses and it was still about as clear as mud to me in the end.
When you get right down to it, the dual perspective unlike simple third shows a merging of two perspectives into almost one voice and can go very badly if not done correctly, which is what I believe gives a lot of people considerable pause. Unlike 1st person or even limited third it isn’t a very clear-cut perspective to use in writing. Or in reading it, either, for that matter. It’s also a perspective that’s caught a lot of flack as being considered poor writing in many circles over the years, which has not added to the respect romance receives as a genre.
And yet romance readers love it, so are publishers going to desert its use? Hell, no. But why do readers love it? Simple, because it highlights the one thing that they hold sacred above all else – The Relationship. Not the individual elements that make it up, the hero or the heroine, but that ultimate goal of getting them together in the end.
See, that’s the one thing that’s misleading about the hero being all important to the romance, about the stories being written “by women, for women” or even romance being about a women’s journey solely – if any of those things were the ultimate truths about the genre, then dual perspective would never work because it would always be out of balance. Dual perspective would just be the wrong approach. It works, though, even in some of the most badly written stories because it was only with the use of dual perspective that the true nature of The Relationship’s importance in romances came into focus. Blindingly clear focus.
Romance readers loved it and we’ve never looked back. We don’t want to look back. We may occasionally accept and even love some stories told in other points of view but we will never give up dual perspective completely now that we’ve found it because it’s the voice of The Relationship itself.
But the writers and the academics, of course, they had to figure out a way to explain why we as readers were so strongly deserting limited perspectives in our reading choices. Why in the world did we love something that was yet again supposedly bad for our mostly female minds – I mean, we’d been perfectly happy to be the woman in control of the journey before (1st person/limited third povs) so why stop now? Wasn’t the story supposed to be all about us women? Romance = women’s fiction, after all. Why choose something so literarily wrong-headed and maybe even difficult (uncomfortable?) for them to work with? The genre needed the respect, you know.
And the placeholder heroine was born to explain how right everything still was and how everything still worked within the “complicated” female brain. If one just tilted one’s head far enough and looked at it the right way long enough, it would all become clear.
As mud.
One has to wonder if they’d have felt the need to wonder why if it’d been Holmes and Watson thinking and working in dual perspective, though…
Sigh.
2009 Nov 27
Bev(BB)Journals alpha heroes, by women for women, Dangerous Men Adventurous Women, hot topics, perspective, placeholder heroines
I’ve been mulling something over for awhile now and a post over on Racy Romance Reviews about Romance Fiction as Popular Culture made me bring something off the back burner and get it ready to post.
I first ran across the placeholder heroine concept back in the late 1990s when I read about it in Dangerous Men, Adventurous Women, which is a group of essays by romance authors edited by Jayne Ann Krentz and originally published in 1992. The placeholder heroine or “heroine as placeholder” was simply confusing when I first read about it. It was nonsensical psycho-babble all tangled up in reader identification to me unlike how I reacted to other concepts presented in the book such as alpha heroes, which I’m either for or against depending on its use, or even say the “by women, for women” mantra which I hate with a passion and argue against any time I have the opportunity.
Anyway, I read third essay in the book, “The Androgynous Reader: Point of View in the Romance” by Laura Kinsale, and thought that, okay, this is supposed to make sense? Right? How come it doesn’t? How come it doesn’t apply to what I’m reading? How come all I get from it is the impression that someone thinks we romance readers have split personalities when we read? I still have that essay bookmarked in the book. I’m not the only one, trust me. I distinctly remember the first time I ran across a discussion on the topic online after reading the book and asked what placeholder meant. No one could explain it. Not to my satisfaction anyway. And many tried.
It almost got kind of fun to try to see how many different ways people would try to explain it to me. And just how tangled up they’d get. 
So, basically, I just decided to ignore it as nonsense and move on.
That was then.
Recently, like just a couple of months ago, I ran across a discussion on the use of the first person point of view that made my reader’s antennae go up big time. It wasn’t even about romances per se, either. In the process of the discussion someone mentioned Sherlock Holmes and Watson. How Watson had narrated many of the books in first person… as the sidekick… but the point made was that Holmes was the hero, Watson was the sidekick.
The narrator sidekick. Watson was our eyes into the story.
My brain kicked into overdrive because this was a placeholder I could understand – and it wasn’t all tangled up in all the gender issues of The Mantra, alpha hero objectification or even romances being subversive, escapist women’s fantasy or fiction. It was simply the literary expediency of writing in a certain POV. Namely a very limited point-of-view.
Duh.
Here’s a quote directly from the essay by Kinsale about the placeholder heroine:
In the romance it is the hero who carries the book. Within the dynamics of reading a romance, the female reader is the hero, and also the heroine-as-object-of-the-hero’s-interest (the placeholder heroine). The reader very seldom is the heroine in the sense meant by the term “reader identification.” There is always an element of analytical distance.
Now, here I’ve reworded it for Holmes and Watson’s benefit and for comparison:
In the mystery it is the detective who carries the book. Within the dynamics of reading a mystery, the reader is the detective, and also the sidekick-as-object-of-the-detective’s-focus (the placeholder sidekick). The reader very seldom is the sidekick in the sense meant by the term “reader identification.” There is always an element analytical distance.
Change genres, use appropriate terms if necessary, apply to any limited point of view story, wash, rinse and repeat and tell me, is this a valid comparison or am I nuts? Now, can someone explain this one to me without the gender crap coloring the picture? I dare them. ;p
Of course, none of this is saying that I agree with the premise within the paragraph in the first place, just that I disagree that limiting this concept to romances works because these gender issues will defeat us every time if we let them. But, you know what, when the two characters share the stage as equal partners then why in the world would one of the characters be a placeholder for the other to begin with? Forget the gender and even the point of view, this is about who’s the focus of the story being told.
Which really brings up an interesting question about what some people are trying to say about what some romances are all about… but then again I’m not an academic and I’ll let them figure that one out.
Of course realizing all this did make me ask why it I didn’t catch onto any of it back when I first read DM,AW. It’s simple really. At the time, I’d moved well beyond reading 1st person romances to enjoying the dual perspectives that so many romances have nowadays. So had quite a few of the romance readers who were also scratching their heads in befuddlement over the descriptions and arguments for the concept of heroine as placeholder. So, I knew I wasn’t alone even then which only lead to more confusion.
What I didn’t know or realize, as simply a reader of the books, was just how tied the “truth” of the entire romance placeholder heroine concept was to the POV issue combined with the gender issue. Take one or both away and it falls apart. It simply is a house of cards based upon a limited perspective, quite literally all the way around.
Looking back now, I also realized I’d started to get a glimmer of light when I started reading first person again with books like Linnea Sinclair’s Gabriel’s Ghost. The thing is, the hero Sully isn’t the focus or even the “detective” of that book. He’s the puzzle to be solved, almost in the nature of old Gothic romances even though it’s science fiction romance. Chaz, the heroine, is the true focus – even though she’s the narrator. She is the protagonist on the journey and is the detective as well. Sully/Gabriel is the mystery she’s solving and also her love interest. We never see his thoughts but we do learn much about him. This story contradicts everything the placeholder heroine premise claims and does it with a bang.
Now, one could possibly argue that it’s part of new wave of stories that are different and therefore don’t apply to the premise but how exactly does that work? Academically, I mean? Because, either the older stories were about the heroines telling their stories or they weren’t. They were either the protagonists of their own journeys or they were the sidekicks in the first place. And it had nothing to do with how we readers perceived them in our fantasy life. Which is why I don’t agree with the premise of the concept as argued in the essays or other books. It’s flawed. Even in limited POV it doesn’t apply. I’m not sure it ever applied.
I guess what I’m saying is that in many ways I still see the heroine placeholder as pretty much nonsensical but I’ve finally found a way to argue against it that isn’t based on gender. Just look at other genres like we should’ve been doing all along. 
2009 Nov 02
Bev(BB)Journals book databases, catalogs, erotic romance, hot topics, science fiction, tags, Tilly Greene, Zandia
A recent discussion over on The Galaxay Express about how to promote science fiction romances to new-to-them readers has renewed my passion as an advocate for people using tags to help describe books to readers and also reminded me of a little experiment I did back in the spring on a book from my top favorites list. In fact, I chose Zandia by Tilly Greene specifically because it’s probably the most risque one on my top favorites list at present. I originally posted this in a thread on the AAR forum but since I’ve just now ran a check to see if the links and comments still hold, here it is again, with any updates/changes noted with ***
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I wanted to show ya’ll something because this is what got me started down this line of thinking. I was goofing around one day on the RomanceWiki site and just on a whim decided to do a search for one of my odd-ball favorite erotic romances to see if they had it listed, Zandia by Tilly Greene. They did. The description was the generic “back blurb” from the publisher, though:
Centuries from now, and millions of miles away, how are the sexes getting along?
Zandia, the farthest planet in the known universe, is usually peaceful, but they’re about to have their views on women blown apart.
Sui Erom has taken drastic measures to live as suits her, not society. Hiding on a transporter, she leaves her home planet for another world. Working as a translator, she feels intelligent and productive, if not entirely fulfilled. She has been unable to find a mate who satisfies any of her physical needs or one to trust with her heart.
The Zandian national speedball team comes to town for a Universal competition and sets in motion events that force Sui to make a decision on what exactly she wants from life.
Listening to the official translator’s voice, Xer Rieh realizes she is Zandian and asserts his right to mark her as his. He does not believe her claim that she is not Zandian—despite evidence supporting it. Xer will not be denied.
Now, here’s the thing, Zandia has a unique element that definitely should be taken notice of, i.e. exhibitionism. I mean if this isn’t mentioned when people are discussing this book, it’s a definite error on someone’s part because it happens not once, but three distinct times in the book on the part of the hero and heroine. It’s a biggie, shall we say. To overlook this is to overlook a huge part of the story and I did say story. You can agree or disagree all you want as to how much story is actually there or not but in this particular case the “exhibitionism” plays a hugh part in the development of the story. So ignoring its role is major. Except all RomanceWiki did was give the basic blurb and list it as “Categories: 2007 Releases | Futuristic | Erotic Romance”.
Well, maybe that wasn’t the best place to start. So I decided to backtrack and double-check to see exactly how the publisher and author described it. Oh, boy. Not helpful either. Samhain Publishing Ltd listed it as “Genre: Romantic SciFi-Futuristic, Red Hots!” & had a product warning of “spicy language and wild sex…okay, some kinky “take me” sex.” and it will be listed the same way on the My Book And More site so I won’t add them. Huh, so, no help there when they are usually so good. Onward and upward to the author site.
*** Tilly Greene, herself, now mentions bondage but not the voyerism on the page for the book on her site. Okay, weird, but undaunted I continued.
AuthorsDen.com lists it as romance. Period.
Barnes & Noble doesn’t even list it in a category at all.
Books-A-Million lists as “Related Categories: Books > Fiction > Erotica – General”.
So, in desperation, I resorted to the tried and true and here’s where we see the value of tags for the first time. Amazon.com doesn’t show categories either nowadays but the customer tags are:
- futuristic (4)
- erotic fiction (3)
- erotica (3)
- romance (3)
- bdsm (2)
- bondage (2)
- ebook (2)
- love (2)
- samhain publishing (2)
- sex (2)
- tilly greene (2)
- erotic futuristic romance (1)
- happy ever after (1)
- sexual equality (1)
Still no “exhibitionism” in, uh, evidence. Weird.
Finally, I found Videos from RWA (Romance Writers of America) which listed Zandia as having bondage and exhibitionism and oddly enough that info was added by the author, I think.
Head desk, head desk, head desk.
Now, does anybody begin to see what I’m getting at here about labels vs. tags? General vs. specifics?
2007 Jun 06
Bev(BB)Journals fandoms, hot topics, Readers, websites
Holly posted something on Book Binge that caught my interest and as I got ready to comment there, I realized that there was no way I could without getting totally carried away, so I’m posting my response. Hopefully, this is a good thing.
Anyway, it’s the first part of her post that fascinated me:
I’m just curious..how many of you keep up with the happenings at places like RWA, AAR, RTB, Avon Authors and etc?
Personally? I don’t visit them at all. Or rarely, I suppose. If I’m directed there, sure, I’ll check it out, but I don’t make a habit of it.
As a reader, I’m much more interested in what other readers have to say about books, authors, etc. I don’t like to keep my finger in every Romance pie out there. I just like to read.
Maybe I’m somewhat lazy, or maybe I’m a bit more discerning than others, but I don’t go to AAR or RWA for book/author recs. I go to The Good, The Bad and The Unread or Dear Author or Where’s My Hero or Rowena, Isabel, Jazz, Daph, Ames, Mailyn, CindyS, Nath, Devon, Lori (who almost always feels the same as me about books), my favorite book pimp Casee or any other number of romance-related blogs/sites/etc out there.
Am I missing something, though? Am I hurting myself by not checking AAR and RWA every day, looking for new stuff to read? For new recs? For new Author-type drama or Rabid Fangirls galore? I don’t feel like I am. I feel like I read a good balance of new and old authors, different sub-genre’s. I was a little slow to jump on the eBook bandwagon, but now that I’m here I’m not getting off anytime soon. Am I alright sticking with sites I know, love and am comfortable with? Or do I need to branch out?
I can so identify with what she’s saying. To be honest, I think a lot of us can. In fact, I honestly believe what Holly is talking about here, sensing here is exactly the “fracturing” that I’ve been observing and commenting on for several months now. The thing is that many time when I bring it up, people seem to think it’s a bad thing and it isn’t. I certainly don’t mean it that way.
How to explain it though.
I’m certainly not an expert on the evolution of the Internet but I do know that it has evolved and I’ve been here for more than a decade. In that time, I was part of a service called AOL and then moved outward onto the broader Internet itself. The significant point is that AOL, and services like it, at that time was a more or less closed community that offered people a way to get onto the web, relatively safely and securely. Through them, people could access relatively instantly something they had never had access to before – other people around the world.
And that was fine for me and others for a while. It served a need. It was safe. It offered that sense of community where we could find other people with like interests and hobbies. Where we could search out information as we needed it. Where we could access the broader services available on the web but without the threat posed by all the “things” that might be out there waiting for us. Whatever they were.
You have to understand. Most us had little to no knowledge of what the heck the Internet even was at that point. Some of us still don’t. Whatever.
And then something major happened. Some of us started realizing that there really was more to the Internet than just what was “inside” AOL. That one could actually get “on the web” without going through AOL. So we moved outside that safe community and started exploring the broader Internet. Heck, we even gave up that AOL subscription and simply got an ISP. We were on our own to “browse” the web.
Now at this point, some of you are thinking, “Well, duh.” Stick with me because this is crucial thinking for what I’m going to get to in a moment. The interesting thing is that many of the people I “met” within the AOL romance community are still around in one form or another. Some of the organizations are too. I couldn’t tell you what they were, though.
The point is that when I left the “safety and security” of AOL, I looked around for other romance communities to join. It’s a perfectly natural thing to do. It’s something we’ve been trained to do. It’s our egg instinct. There were several romance sites and forums that came and went in those first years. One of ones that stuck is AAR. It is a community to be proud of but it is still a community first and foremost and that’s an important point to remember. A one-stop place for romance readers to get everything they needed online, including controversy. More or less.
So the era of the romance “communities” began online. I’d like to say there were many but in reality I’m not all that sure there were. There are probably only a dozen or so that truly stayed strong enough to be viable for any length of time. I used to have a list of them and I’m definitely going to be checking that list to see which ones are still active but to be honest I’m not very hopeful that many are.
With the advent of blogs and blogging online, we are entering another new era, however. Actually, we’re not entering it. It’s here. Period. This doesn’t mean that more community focused sites are going to go away. At least not right away. And some of them may change and adapt. Who knows. What Holly is describing, though, is exactly the sense that the multitude of reader blogs make it possible for readers to visit with each other outside of those relative closed communities that have always existed. That is nothing against those sites. It’s just a simple fact that people’s needs change over time.
Is one way of doing things right and one way wrong? I honestly don’t know. I suppose one could argue that blogging is more what the Internet is about in that it’s like a living, breathing web that branches here and there while the communities tend to keep people in one place. Except I also tend to believe that ignores the needs of newbies for safety and security when they first get on the web. Strong communities are needed for individuals to find their feet and provide a gateway to those new landscapes. Like the blogosphere. So maybe there’s a place for both.
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