After yet another big blow-up in the M/M romance community, I was feeling pretty down. I blogged about The Incident last week, and you can read that here. I’m not going to rehash it. To be honest, I don’t have a dog in this fight in the sense of being part of the M/M community anyway. That’s the part I want to talk about today because I think it might be important.
A whole lot of people said their piece about The Incident, but this blog post was the one which really struck a chord. Not because I identify with the author’s specific journey (I obviously don’t) but because of this quote:
I started out writing stories as a form of therapy. It was my catharsis, my coping mechanism for processing my grief. I wrote from my core, from my very soul. It was never about appealing to the right demographic in order to sell a lot of copies.
I’ve been turning over in my mind what it is I get out of writing and why I do it. And I’ll be honest, whether or not I want to keep writing and/or keep reviewing books. I even had that conversation with some trusted friends and got some good advice. Namely, figure out why the hell I’m an author.
It was sort of an accident, but now that I’m here, I like it. I write because of the reason above. It provides a way for me to express some of the things I can’t say any other way. (I could write a whole blog post on why it makes me absolutely lose my shit when people demand “perfect” representation even in Own Voices books, but this is the main reason why. If I’m writing on a subject, it’s because there’s something deeply personal to me about it. Go away with expecting my actual life to look like your perfect representation or with telling me you’re “tired of” seeing people deal with issues.)
I don’t have a huge following, and I’m not sure I care. I have an oddly loyal fan group of open-minded straight men. I’ve also got a group of my fellow bi folk who like what I have to offer and a handful of others of various genders and orientations. Interestingly, even though I don’t write explicitly Christian fiction, I also have a following of Christians who like my work. Go figure.
What I’m missing, though, is the feeling of community. The biggest challenge for me has been in promotions. If I were self-publishing, it would be no big deal. But I’m not, which means I owe it to my publisher and colleagues to contribute to the company. That generally means having people review (and not hate) my books, as well as networking and some amount of marketing so I have actual sales.
Thus brings the difficulty: I don’t write romance.
That might not sound like a problem, but trust me, it is. Not writing in a specific genre can be a huge problem. Genre is, essentially, a marketing tool rather than a type of story. However, readers tend to get attached to their preferred genre. Books are categorized by various methods, but one thing I’ve found to be consistently true is that if there is a relationship between two LGBTQIA characters, it’s often classified as “romance” even if it’s also included in other genres. The problem with that is how it doesn’t match reader expectations, even if it’s true in a broad sense. The same thing can happen in any genre, but Romance as a category is one of the largest, regardless of the characters’ genders.
The other problem is in finding reviewers. There are a limited number of blogs reviewing LGBTQIA books in general. The majority of those cater to M/M romance because it’s the largest volume of books. Within the blogs which take other books, many reviewers still prefer or expect romance, even if it’s lesbian or trans or what have you. Even more narrowly, there’s still an expectation that within the context of those books, they will conform to certain standards. If a book’s genre is listed as Romance, then most people want the book to deliver. That’s not entirely unreasonable, but it does get frustrating when it comes to listing books which contain elements of different genres but don’t fit industry expectations.
With LGBTQIA books, there’s an emphasis on the “pairing” even when you make it clear you don’t write romance or that particular novel isn’t a romance. I’ve participated in a lot of promotional blogs/tours, and it’s unbelievable the number of places which want you to fill out data on the two romantic leads regardless of your stated genre. This is not always easy even when the story does involve some type of romantic plot. It’s downright impossible if there’s no pairing or the relationship is complex.
So what the heck do I do with a bisexual literary novel with a romantic plot involving a polyamorous family where there isn’t ménage? Or the one with a pair of men in a primary relationship, both of whom have partners unconnected to each other, including women? How about the one with a triad of a bisexual cisgender woman, a bisexual trans man, and their bisexual aromantic cisgender male partner? Those are the relationships, but neither the romantic elements nor the characters’ genders/orientations are the focus or the main plot.
I’m not the only one with this problem. A lot of us write crossover fiction (spanning more than one genre) or have a primary genre and a secondary one. It happens a lot in LGBTQIA fiction because the emphasis tends to be on people’s partner relationships. A constant struggle for me is that I often include a romantic/love plot, but it isn’t the biggest thing going on in the book. This puts people off who are looking for Romance Genre.
So here are some of the people affected by genre M/M Romance taking center stage:
- Authors writing romance that breaks genre boundaries or includes non-traditional elements
- Authors writing romance about sexualities, genders, and pairings other than cisgender male/male
- Authors of gay romance or erotica (distinctly different from M/M)
- Authors not writing romance, particularly literary fiction
- Readers looking for any of the above
My sense is that authors of romance outside traditional, genre M/M are finding each other and creating space. There’s an active lesbian romance community, and there are blogs dedicated to reviewing trans and non-binary romance. The asexual community is also connecting. So the people most affected are those of us who don’t write romance/exclusively romance.
There’s definitely some overlap, since some books may not be Genre Romance but contain a love story. Which is how we end up with muddled messes periodically, including fighting over what “belongs” in the category. A lot of us have felt that we didn’t have a home, so we needed to try to fit into the M/M community. I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, only mine. After my first novel, which was absolutely not a romance, I learned exactly how people feel when they think they’re getting M/M and discover the book isn’t that. I tried to write a “real” romance, and let me tell you, I am not good at it. But I didn’t see any other place for my work than to try to conform.
Please excuse me while I go laugh my ass off at myself. There is no possible way I will ever conform to anything.
I don’t really know how to resolve this. I know that after last week’s mess, I want nothing to do with a community in which someone can behave like that and not care one iota about it while others sit back and do nothing (or actively contribute to hate). I’m not very interested in all just getting along and having a love-fest. That should’ve been a time for people to step up and tell these folks that what they did was unacceptable. Instead, over and over and over both allies and even some queer folk stomped on the people who were upset. I don’t feel welcome, especially since I was never wanted anyway as a non-romance-writer.
So that leaves us…where? Many of us rely on “LGBTQIA” (read: M/M romance) review blogs to boost sales and get our books noticed. But if we don’t feel safe or welcome for whatever reasons, then where do we turn? I don’t have a good answer.
I’m only one author, with a handful of colleagues and readers. Even this blog will probably be read by approximately 10 people, most of whom will agree but may not have an answer or be in a position to do anything about it. I’m open to ideas, though, and I definitely want to find my not-a-romance peers, especially if they’re open to a wide range of LGBTQIA stories. It would be great to be able to read and/or promote each other’s work.
You broach a YUGE subject here my friend… Allow me to try and respond to two things you mention:
a) to your remarks about a lot of “romantic elements” in the “letter soup group”: Having been doomed to live solitary lives throughout most of history, I think a lot of LGBT members are still in catch-up mode, and “playing house” and forming relationships with “the one” are part of that, which is why “romance” is en vogue. Within the more radical queer movement, there are a lot of people who despise marriage equality because it means us being assimilated into the heterosexual norm, rather than celebrating our cultural distinctiveness which traditionally involves elements of polyamory and a healthy dose of promiscuity. Our literature is a reflection of who and where we stand right now as a culture. I still read a lot of trans stories revolving around “transitioning” and “coming out”, whereas gay/Lesbian stories revolve more around relationships, parenting, and e.g. bi about being truly bi. Not sure if that makes sense? I guess that is also why a lot of gay men love to read M/M romance novels, because it appeals to our dream of finding the “one true love” for us. On the other hand, romance novels are all about “how” a couple forms, whereas gay fiction deals with what a couple does, how they handle life. This is a distinction that may seem superfluous to some, but it’s nevertheless an important one. I often get the coupling out of the way in a chapter and instead look at the challenges we face in life, together, and how it affects us as a couple. A romance novel might do the same, but the couple wouldn’t become a couple until the end, and the challenges are thrown in as hurdles on their way to happiness.
b) the lack of community within the greater LGBTQIA+ “community”: I once had a straight man tell me that he couldn’t read my books because they’re “gay”. And while I think that’s utter BS (because I read pretty much everything if it’s good), it’s probably why it is so difficult for us to form a community. Why would a gay man read Lesbian fiction? Or a trans woman a-sexual fiction (unless she is?) As the rainbow accepted more groups into the fold, that which binds us has increasingly diminished. I remember when it was just the gays and the Lesbians. Little did we have in common, and there were a lot of struggles in the community then, but we both faced the same sort of legal discrimination in society. We had common goals. When we embraced (well, sorta it seems at times) the trans community, it was from the point of view of their sexuality (not their biology): they were either “homo” before, or after their transition, and they were also legally discriminated, just like us. And even that changed at times. We never really understood bi, so there’s that. (I’m being sarcastic here!) When the queers came along, it got political, and even more complex. Suddenly sex and gender were constructs to be deconstructed and remodeled to your own liking. We were still not done integrating our intersex siblings when the a-romantics and a-sexuals banged on the door, and suddenly we face a new conundrum: it’s no longer primarily about legal discrimination, because well, nobody denies selling you cake because you’re not interested in a relationship or sex… Why would you even need to tell them that anyway? Thing is, we are VERY different groups of people who’ve come together, and we share very few commonalities. What we all share is our humanity, but heck, we share that with everybody, and it’s just not enough to create a true sense of community. I am all for every human being to be the best and true self they can be, but just because we march under the rainbow flag at pride isn’t enough for me to form a strong bond with everyone. Mind you, I could say the same about most “gays”, too, because it’s such a small part of my life. I think if you want to build community, we need to begin with interests, things that are really important to us. Like writing, reading. You’ll find community there. I have. I have made friends in the writing scene who come from all walks of life, regardless of their personal identities, sex, gender, sexuality and what not. So maybe, rather than focusing on the letters they represent, we focus on that which truly binds us?
Great post Amy. I’m glad we get to talk about these things here and elsewhere! 🙂
That’s definitely parallel to things I’ve heard others say. And even within the smaller, individual letters of LGBTQIA, there’s so little agreement. (Don’t even get me started on the Label Wars in the bi community. We’ll be here all day.) Half the people I talk to want to read the fantasy, the imagined possibilities. The other half want their own experiences reflected. I am constantly dodging people who have politicized books to the point of long, vicious rants on folks not “representing” their own identities properly.
I don’t think I necessarily want to create a community where the expectation is that people will suddenly have to read about/review/engage with books that are not to their liking. What I want is a community of people who are willing to read “stuff that doesn’t fit in other places.” To be honest, I don’t think that a book with a bi couple in an open relationship belongs in “M/M romance.” Because it really isn’t M/M or romance. I can only give my personal experience, but my first novel (NOT a romance by any stretch of the imagination!) got a few low ratings…for not being a romance. And one of mine had a reviewer “warn for” heterosexual sex. (I could give examples of similar happening with other people’s books, but I don’t think their stories are mine to tell.) I also know a few people writing M/M romance but which has elements people tend to dislike (specifically non-monogamy that isn’t menage). I haven’t read it yet, but I know one author duo just released a book that’s a sweet romance (i.e., low heat) that’s M/M/F–very unusual, as polyamory and non-monogamy tend to be erotica. Those books deserve to find their readers.
I don’t want to dismantle all of M/M nor all of F/F, for that matter. Those genres have been really good to a lot of people, and many readers still want or need the fantasy. (I do wish straight women would shut up and listen now and again, but that’s a separate issue.) I just want to make sure that the right books get into the right hands. I don’t think we need to be one big, happy family to do that–we just need to create space for it to happen naturally.
Do you know how you fit into this genre?
With your elbows – that’s how.
There are those who don’t want this genre to change, to evolve, and have even gone so far as to exclude gay people from a genre of books that is solely ABOUT gay folks.
You’ve also had those who’ve been inclusive and wanted to work with gay folks.
And then there are those who – took look edgy – went out and found themselves some gay folks who work in the adult film industry.
*Kanye Shrug*
But whatever.
This situation keeps being brought up because like any relationship when there is an unresolved issue it finds its way back into the forefront every once in awhile. And that issue is centered around culture appropriation and how gay men are depicted and what the ‘industry’ accepts as truth when it comes to the lives we live.
And it leaves me gob-smacked at people’s reactions to protests of actual lgbtqi folks saying, “Hey – I’ve been queer a very long time. This isn’t how we all necessarily get down.”
Or when a review is left on a queer person’s book that applies the rules of romance to a work that’s more true to life and not the gay version of a bodice ripper saying things like, “That’s not how a relationship works.”
And you’re left thinking, “No, that’s not how a straight relationship works.”
But while the protestations of the lgbtqi and their allies are sound – just like with this last incident – the markets reaction is to turn around and reinforce those who mock gay people by handing them wads of cash.
What do ya do? Ultimately.
You dig in your heels and shake your head and say what our queer forebears said, “I’m here, I’m queer, and dammit – I ain’t goin no where.”
I’ve concluded that I don’t particularly want to fit in with a certain subset. It’s made me very uncomfortable. But I really don’t wish to fit in with “het fiction” either. It took me decades to be okay with who I am, and I don’t want to be forced into boxes (or closets) ever again.
I do have to laugh at the “not how a relationship works.” I’m generally taken to be “female” (nope) and “straight” (also nope), and I can tell you that my relationship doesn’t look anything like whatever these folks think one should look like.
I’m guilty of thinking I should try to be more like them, and it’s just not for me. Even more after this last incident and seeing just how many “allies” couldn’t be bothered to say something. Everyone is so damn fearful that their corner of the market is going to be ripped away from them. But if everyone actually took a stand, we might get somewhere. I have virtually no piece of the market, so I don’t really care what they think of me.
I had not seen the … situation (and so very glad I had not now that I read your post and the post on Jeff’s blog about it). All I can say is… I remember now why I stepped back from “identification groups” way back in the 90s, when I was first discovering my ‘identity’.
I understand your –valid– concerns about marketing and reviews and how a solid community can help people (and should be able to help people more than limit them). Humans tend to catalog things and ideas in little boxes because it is convenient and easy…. and relate-able. But too few people realize it’s also a crutch, and using crutches when you don’t need them can weaken your muscles and even make you lame.
It would be nice to have a community though. And a place to post those stories that just don’t fit into a label. I’ve had this issue since I wrote “The End” on my first manuscript. Yes, it has most of the flaws of the ubiquitous ‘first novel’, but want to know what killed it, according to most of the people who read it? It wasn’t easy to market. Sword-and-sorcery space-fantasy story with a (I guess you would call him ‘bi-‘) male lead, elements of mystery set in ‘the great Russian novel’ (to use a friend’s description). There was ‘coupling’ but it wasn’t the goal of the story, even if the occasional romantic encounters were part of the MC’s daily life and very much a part of who he was.
I probably -could- market it now easier than when I finished it (1998), because the market has changed, and self-publishing is a more doable option than it was back then. But my own storyworld has grown and that piece would violate so much of the new storyline… it would have to be published as something from an alternate reality now. It moulders in a drawer now.
To say I feel more natural writing male characters would be… dishonest and yet the absolute truth. I know I don’t see the world from the ‘male’ POV, but then I also don’t see it from the female POV either. I try to see it from the character I am writing, and of late, most of the characters who ‘speak to me’ are male (though the female contingent has been growing).
Does that make my stories appropriation? I hope not.
Do I want readers to ‘understand’ how a bi-/gay/asexual/etc. person feels through my writing? Hmm… well, I certainly want them to understand how THAT bi-/gay/asexual/etc. character feels during their time on the stage, but the character is the character and should be allowed their own individuality to be as they wish to be. I don’t like to label my characters into boxes.
A lot of them, like me, have been looking for a home for a while now. Frankly… I’ve come to the point where I don’t even try to write for publication anymore. I seldom talk about my attractions and passions to anyone save a select few friends and my husband because anytime I’ve spoken up, I’ve been told “Yes, but if you were really …(insert label here), you wouldn’t feel the way you say you do about (insert rather arbitrary preference or observation).” The “No True Scotsman” fallacy… in all its kilt-covered glory. Even if most of the Scotsmen I’ve met never wore a kilt in their lives….
That sort of thing.
So how to help you find a community, to find a place to help authors support other authors just because they like reading good books about fun characters whether or not those characters fit some predefined label? Don’t know… I fear that as long as we have groups who feel they own a label like a membership in some elite club, we may never have that. Sometimes we’ll find enough people with like interests to ourselves that we might be able to form our own elite club too, but…
do we really want to become the problem we are trying to solve and cudgel the readership with the power of our ‘more inclusive’ labels solely to show we also have power (which is what it seems that mostly female authorship of M/M romance is doing right now)?
I wish I had an answer. I wish this didn’t stress me out so much.
It is definitely challenging, and you’ve expressed some of what I’ve been thinking about lately. For me, it was really important to have labels and community and identity because I felt as though it had been denied to me for so long. I still feel attached to some parts of the community, while not feeling so much need for others.
I sort of feel the same with writing. I’m currently very frustrated with the “you must get all representation perfect” conversations. Is there some that’s actively bad/harmful? Yes, of course. But outside of that, there is no “perfect” representation. I’ve seen folks jump all over someone for having experiences different from theirs and calling it “bad representation.” For a long time, I tried to consider every word and whether or not it was “getting it right.” It’s a recipe for burn-out, stress, and anxiety. I was more worried that someone would read one of my books and blast it for being “wrong” than I was concerned with telling a good story. That says something right there.
When I write from a place of deep honesty, I generally get better results. I think I’ll always struggle with perfectionism, and I’ll always worry about whether I’ve done something “wrong” in how I’ve written about a character or subject. But I hope to move away from putting my energy into something that saps my creativity like that.
I absolutely agree that this conversation is about power and who has it and what they’re doing to gain it. If you caught the latest media kerfuffle, on the show Survivor, a gay contestant outed a trans man in order to save his own skin and not be voted out. (Yeah…that didn’t work, they voted him out anyway because it was an awful thing to do and sealed his fate.) That is a very clear case of someone feeling/being disempowered and trying to gain power by using someone who is disempowered in a different way from them. It does not give women any social collateral to step on gay men, but you can be absolutely sure that some of them believe it does. It’s widely known that women have difficulty rising to the top in any genre except romance. Instead of addressing the structures in place which keep women from achieving literary success (which benefits all women), some seem to be using their ability to achieve a false level of empowerment in M/M romance. This includes everything from owning businesses to writing bestsellers in their categories to running blogs, review sites, community pages, and promotional companies. I’m not saying this applies to all women involved in M/M, but it’s definitely the tone I pick up from certain segments.