On Twitter, I’ve been hearing about a lot of romance and erotic romance, both new and old, and it’s inspired me to consume some of the books in my pipeline. Since I speed read, I’m able to get through a lot of books in a short time, and this allowed me to find a distinct pattern…
A lot of these books are half filler!
I don’t want to downplay the tremendous effort that it takes to write a novel. I have so much respect for anyone who can finish one, published or not, because that is a significant amount of work! But as a reader, I know what I like… and I don’t like those “filler” chapters.
What do romance novels and classical music have in common?
When I was studying classical music, in my composition class, we learned that there was the exposition of the theme, development, climax, and ending. Usually, the development was the longest — and hardest — part. We studied composers who did the development well, where every moment was emotion-filled, surprising, and a total pleasure to hear. In those compositions, it felt like the composer was thinking of the audience’s experience with every single note and giving it relentless attention to detail.
But we also could tell the composers who were just going through the motions of development. Marking time, so that they could get to the good part, the climax and resolution. Though I hesitate to criticize great composers, those works were quite boring! Not only did we have to wait for the development to be over, but it lessened our investment in the piece. When the climax came, we weren’t fully “there.”
Romance novels also seem to mark a lot of time — especially erotic romances. In a lot of stories, it feels like the non-erotic or non-romantic scenes are there just to fill the space in between the “good parts.”
Can’t the whole book can be a “good part,” not just the payoff scenes?
As a reader, I want to enjoy every moment, especially in a trashy pleasure read, be it erotic romance or dragons-n-swords fantasy! Isn’t that the point? The scenes that aren’t high intensity should still be vivid and entertaining. Some of my favorite novels are quite low-impact — for example, Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto — because of all the quiet, thoughtful detail put into every single scene. Kitchen makes me pay such close attention that when the emotional scenes hit, they hit hard.
In my local critique group, almost everyone gives this same comment to the many aspiring romance writers, so it’s probably not just me.
What do you think? Leave a comment, or email me directly with your thoughts.
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