Friends, it’s me, The Brit! The Man and I have just started reading Returning For His Ruthless Revenge by Louise Fuller. It’s absolutely delightful so far. But you know what? The dramatic writing style reminds me of something:
A long way back, before I’d started teaching writing classes, I had a literary writing group. That group was committed and fabulous—but the feedback could also be harsh.
“Brit,” they’d cry, when they read my romances, “why are the characters eyes holding his? That’s gross. Is she a killer? Or is superglue involved?”
“Brit, why are her eyes now searing onto his? That’s vile. Eyes don’t sear. It sounds like she freezes people’s eyeballs then cooks them up on a griddle. Use ‘gaze’ for goodeness’ sake.”
“Brit, why are his eyes following hers around the room? Eyes remain in sockets, and their leaving said sockets is unsettling.”
It was actually all filled with good humor—we laughed a lot—but I often took their advice and changed “eyes” to “gaze” or similiar. But what helped to get me published in romance was learning this:
The reader’s experience is what matters, and if you love category romance, then you, as a reader, may love eyes searing onto other characters’ eyes. And of course, romance readers are smart, so we know it’s a metaphor! Besides, if those eyes stopped searing, we might feel something was missing. The drama mightn’t feel so fun and intense! The escape mightn’t feel so thrilling! And while my friends in writing group knew what was expected of literary writing, they didn’t know what was expected of romance.
I believe we must listen to the genre and our readers.
And even more so to ourselves.
Romancey Pants 