Problems I have with American Novels

By now you should know that i'm a literary snob but I like novels and I have expectations, is that so bad? :D.

In an attempt to get back into literature (once I grew too old for the YA literature and cultivated my own taste I lost my way) I bought some American romance books. But before I go into that, i'll write some background down.

I find it hard to find books I like, preferring graphic novels. I think this is because of several reasons, the first being that "shoujo" manga is my favourite genre of all time, in these graphic novels the men are more my "type" that is, girly. Haha I receive a lot of stick from my house mates about this but hell :) it's my choice. Secondly, the female is often rather "pure" I don't mean this in a fundamental Christian sense, I mean that often they are happy, cheerful, somewhat silly and a little naive. They are often pretty funny as well which contrasts with western heroines quite strongly. Thirdly I love art and I love male art, so graphic novels are right up my street.

I found that with novels once I left the YA section I had three genre choices, fantasy, sci-fi or general fiction (I only watch Poirot on tv so i'm not big on contemporary crime).

Fantasy would be my first choice, as I write my own books in a fantasy setting but I found that fantasy except for a few instances (such as Ursula Le Guinn) is focused towards men. I feel alienated by that genre and I can get my fantasy fix easily from computer games such as Fire Emblem instead.
Sci-fi, I don't really care for, I write books based on history, so I have no use for books based in the future.

Lastly general fiction, now I used to work in a book shop and the only general fiction books that I stocked were the ones that go along these lines
-Sister and Mother reconcile and realise how badly they treated each other, go and live in Greece and start a greek restaurant among much hoot-an-nanny
-Woman leaves husband for better life in the city, meets hunky man but is torn between him and geeky neighbour (also known as chick lit)
-Woman in 1930s lives a scandalous life on the edge, seeking lover who abandoned her during the war
and etc. etc.
Why bother then, you may ask. Well my work suffers as a result, I need to read in order to aquire skills such as decent description.

None of these things really appeal to me. However thankfully a few months ago I was rifling through my father's old books and found some books by Tanith Lee. Now Freyashawk likes these books and I loving her blog and thinking she is an interesting person, I decided to read them. I loved them. I can read through them in a week. Her books are based heavily upon fairy tales and read like fairytales, which I love and not only that but they are dark which I also love, being a lover of all things gothic. Her work follows gothic tropes such as the muddling of preconceptions, such as gender and love and I adore her description.

Now onto the crux of this argument. I love Tanith Lee's work but I need some other outlets, once i've passed on the other genres, the only genre left (except for the classics, which I do read from time to time but it's a hella hard work) is romance. This is a vastly American genre and I buy most of my romance books from American authors recommended to me via several romance review blogs.

Most of the romance books i'm reading at the moment are "angel" books, as they give me nice descriptions to use in my own work. I gave up on Sharon Shinn's last book in her Angel books, "Angel-seeker" because I couldn't stand the character Rebekah (oh i'm a wilful woman in a repressed society, -_-) and that I couldn't seperate the fact that the Jansai who are viewed in a very negative light were based upon fundamentalist Muslim customs (my house-mate is muslim and I teach english to several muslims who face this sterotype daily, so it annoys me). However getting back into my novel, I realised I needed some inspiration. So I put my pettiness aside and began to get back into it. I'm glad I did because it exceeded my expectations.

My early work resembled Sharon's quite a lot, I would sit down and write and not edit, so it came out quite sloppy and spontaneous. I realised this wasn't the way forward and started to plan and edit, I assume that she also did this for her last book as she didn't have any cardboard characters unlike in the earlier books I read, Angelica and Archangel. Each had their own motives and I found myself actively enjoying Elizabeth's part of the story, I really found her story interesting. She had gone to Cedar Hills, to have sex with an angel and bear an angel child therefore being set for life as angel children are regarded as precious. However she also has dreams of meeting her true love and therefore comes across as a sympathetic character not just a gold-digger.

She has relations with one male angel but returns home feeling used and upset, I thought this was a realistic portrayal and I liked how it was handled. However I didn't really need the sympathetic side to feel connected to her, as my own main character in my novel is a concubine and feels no remorse what-so-ever. It was a main point that I wanted to make.

However some bad points still come through but i'm not tearing into Sharon here, these are weaknesses that are natural for writers, especially me. One is the putting the character of the previous novel up on a pedestal. Rachel from Archangel is still adored by Obadiah, despite her being married happily to Gabriel. I just thought... give it up already. Also other characters often mention her and how the traits she and Gabriel have which make them perfect for each other. I have seen this is other books and if I ever wrote sequels to my own books which I don't, then I was also be tempted to have my characters think well of my previous characters.

However this is not reality. In reality people don't really care about others who are not in their immediate vicinity. For instance I don't sit at home and wax lyrical about a couple I used to know at college at every interval, or the happy marriage of my uncle or aunt. I have other things on my mind. Also I know that sometimes its necessary for those who haven't read the previous books but many other things aren't explained that should have been.

Secondly, I can't stand shortening a characters name. You are writing, not speaking it's not that hard really. Also if you would prefer give your character a shorter name, rather than giving them a nickname. I don't mind if it is a single character and their nickname is a normal name, such as Sam, for Samantha (I had one character with a nickname in my previous unfinished novel QOWE, called Margy, short for Marguerite and she and the main character were teenagers) but for every single character, no.... noooooooooo. Also I hated this about Angelica, the heroes name was Gabriel-Aaron so it was shortened to Gaaron -_-. Also if you are going to shorten it, shorten it right. After hanging out with lots of Polish people, I know that the nickname for Magdalena, is not Maga but Magda.

Anyway Sharon is a best-seller so this works for lots of people, it's just be up on my high horse and I like to complain. But there is one last thing, many American writers seem to be stuck in their college years when it comes to sex. The scene where Elizabeth waits to have sex with David in his room could have been transported to any college dorm (he comes in drunk, the room is untidy, they have really bad sex with him guttering out an orgasm and she leaves without any cuddling). I found this also in Luis Bujold's the Sharing Knife which was a wall-banger for me, I found the character of Fawn so passive and childish that I felt creepy actually reading about the much older Dag's feelings for her. In that the wardens (or whatever they are called) have rampant sex with each other in inns, just reading it reminded me of walking back to my dorm late and night and seeing random people making out and then going into their rooms.

I don't know maybe i'm being a prude here but another thing that I made sure I wrote in this novel I am writing now is that Rana and Angelique's sex is not porn but an actual loving act, so much so that the cold-hearted Angelique thinks back on it often as the only moment she ever truly felt what love was. I'm tired of these books where people have sex without love, it's just tear the shirt off, bam-wham it's over. It doesn't work for me and merely reinforces the idea of female chauvinism (buy the book "female chauvinist pig" if you are interested in knowing more) and the idea of sex purely for sex's sake.