Yesterday, the blog was about falling in love. We found out it is triggered by hormones and neurochemicals in our brains. As a writer, I’m forced to figure out a way to handle that in my writing. I can’t write, “Jane’s body reacted to the flooding of her with oxytocin and a number of neurochemicals giving her a feeling of euphoria.” I wouldn’t want to read that in the novel or short story. How about “Jane looked at Jack with a feeling of renewed interest.” That’s a little better. The trouble is I am male. I will never be able to fully describe Jane’s reaction to falling in love. Probably, the best I can do would be “Jane looked at Jack and suddenly wanted to know much more about him.” If you are female and would like to suggest how Jane would react to falling in love on the written page, use the contact button at the top of the page to give me your suggestion.
I have a female friend who writes romance novels. Many years ago, when she was starting out as a romance author, she got a notebook-sized set of instructions from a publisher about what to do and not to do in a romance novel. I guess the suggestions were broken down by the type, genre, of romance novel she was writing. There would be different suggestions for historical or contemporary romance novels. Not being a romance writer, but I am always amazed at the number of subgenres there are in the romance novels. The other day I ran across a publisher looking for “Regency Romances” manuscripts. This subgenre is about the time period from 1795 to 1837. Here’s a little better definition – “emphasis on the society, dialogue, and comedy of manners at hand. (Think the drawing room antics that feature in all of Jane Austen’s novels).”
The target market for romance novels is women. I am sure there must be a few male authors posing as females writing in the romance genre. However, they are primarily written by women for women. That explains the difficulty I have writing from a female perspective in my writing. I get my clues by reading women authors and doing my best to imitate them. As I commented yesterday, there is a distinct difference in the viewpoint of men and women when they fall in love even though the chemical basis is exactly the same. Isn’t it a wonderful falling in love – regardless of what sex you are?
