From Bedroom to Boardroom

By J.D. Reed

Romance novels court changing fancies and adorable profits

Tips from Gallen Books on Writing Romances

HEROINE: 18-30, spirited, intelligent, may have problems to overcome: selfishness, jealousy, imagined figure problems. Should have a career in a glamorous industry or want one. Need not be a virgin. HERO: older than heroine, but not by more than 15 years, PLOT: a love story between two dynamic people. Obvious padding not permitted, LOVE SCENES: within first 50 pages; we want to see foreplay, during play and afterplay. Euphemisms essential below the waist. Rape not recommended. Should it occur, it must move the story forward. POSSIBLE PROFESSIONS: disc jockey, bartender, scientist, securities broker, tennis -- instructor.

I 'm tired of being raped," complains I Marisa after twelve violations in 600 pages. "Don't I count as a person?" Indeed she does. Marisa's adventure, Wicked Loving Lies, has sold 3 million copies, and her fellow rapees, the heroines of paperback romances, were responsible for sales upwards of $100 million in 1980 --representing over one-fourth of mass-market softcover volumes. This year is expected to be even bigger. As gothics and antebellum adventures fade, the "contemporaries," as the trade labels them, are becoming the ardor of the day. Says Dell Vice President Ross Claiborne: "It's a license to print money." The license requires a plucky heroine up against heartrending odds (job problems; the other woman). Object: the tycoon or professional of her choice (see box). Unlike TV soaps or racier novels, the romances always view the boudoir in soft focus, and all true love affairs lead to the altar.

In the nearly virginal Harlequin romances, passion never goes above a whisper: "She gasped with helplessness and fright and another subtler emotion that she could not understand." Masters and Johnson could furnish her with a working hypothesis, but even the more oestrous Richard Gallen Books line purrs only a little louder: "Sweet spasms of oneness curled within her." All this heavy breathing is as calculated as a publisher's earnings statement; according to industry surveys, readers want the sex wrapped in euphemisms and the future tied in pink ribbons.

Thus, though skies may fall, and heroes may come and go, leading ladies obey the immutable laws of the genre. As Author Patty Matthews has it: "You get your heroine up a tree and then throw stones at her. In the end she gets the man, the money and the happiness." In Rhapsody (Pocket; $2.75), a typical contemporary, Lane is afraid to tell the desirable pianist, Michael, that she is a talent agent. When he discovers her occupation, Michael mistakenly believes that she loves him only for his signature on a contract.

The hotheaded (but lovable) musician goes off with a woman over 30--always evil--and Lane rebounds with Reggie, the opera singer, and Tom, "the sweetest guy in the world." After the requisite skirmishes and reconciliations, Michael is persuaded to play a concerto for two hearts, and the wedded Lane happily manages his life. Throughout her trials, she cooks not one meal and never worries about pregnancy or inflation. Romance heroines are too busy tracking and trapping their hot-eyed executives.

"Women's fantasies have moved from the bedroom to the boardroom," observes Gallon's editor in chief, Judith Sullivan.

"They're no longer dreaming of being kidnaped by pirates, they're thinking about the guy in the corner office. The core fantasy is wealth, power, clothes, travel and a glamorous career. But women still don't want to be responsible for their own pleasure."

Book packagers do. Pushing their products like brands of cosmetics, publishers offer rigid "lines" of fiction. "The sameness of the stories gives women comfort," says Karen Solem, editor in chief of Silhouette Romances. "They buy one line because they know they won't find something they don't want to see." Adds Bill Edwards, vice president of the 530-store B. Dalton Booksellers chain, where romances account for 30% of mass-market paperback sales: "The women know what days their new lines arrive here. They buy four or six novels at a whack, every month." The market is so febrile that Avon has published the first homosexual romance, Gaywick; Dell has done a black contemporary, and Jove plans a "Second Chance at Love" series, for divorcees starting over.

Fans now name children after characters (Shanna and Virginia are favorites). And they subscribe to several newsletters, among them Barbra Critiques, a monthly review by Barbara Wren, an Independence, Mo., bookseller. Sample appraisal: "Love at Sea ... Cute, short read. American gal, Greek guy, cruise ship ... lightly entertaining."

Who is writing the 100-plus light entertainments that appear each month? "It's not Joyce Carol Gates under a pseudonym," says Gallon's Sullivan. Given the turgid prose style, that much, at least, is certain. Novice authors, in fact, tend to be housewives supplementing the family income, like Parris Afton Bonds of Lewisville, Texas. Bonds spends her day with five sons, ages one to 13, and plots her amours "after the diapers are rinsed."

Concludes Bantam Vice President Rollene Saal: "I have a fantasy that as the sun sets across the land, the typewriters come out and the ladies go to work."

When the Romance Writers of America convene in Houston this summer, those workers will also include Christina Savage and Shana Carol a.k.a. Kerry Newcomb and Frank Schaefer, two male ex actors who have gleaned atmosphere from old John Wayne movies. Although these romanticists represent the new Grub Street, the income of some superstars is more suitable for Rodeo Drive. The authors' earnings from a single volume can reach $30,000, and novelists like Janet Dailey (80 million copies of 57 novels in print) produce eight books a year for a six-figure income. Experience is not necessary. Bestselling Writers Kathleen Wood-iwiss (The Flame and the Flower) and Jude Deveraux (The Velvet Promise) were dis covered in the "slush pile"-- the trade term for unsolicited manuscripts.

Romance fiction has also attracted some unsolicited (and scholarly) criticism as well. Columbia University English Professor Ann Douglas brands the genre "soft porn," that corrupts feminist ideals by glorifying male dominance. But Author Be atrice Faust in Women, Sex and Pornography takes a stand worthy of a romance heroine. In the right kind of contemporaries, she argues, "men have acquired tenderness and girls have matured into strong, independent women." These exemplars may help readers across the minefield of a new sexual culture. But the central question posed by Sullivan remains unanswered: "Why do women need so much fantasy in their lives?"

Simon & Schuster President Richard Snyder takes a more pragmatic view: "At least they're reading. Some of them may graduate to The World According to Garp. "Then again, that may be the most romantic fiction of them all.

--By J.D. Reed

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