Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 130

Romancing the Beast

Paranormal romance almost always features the hero as a paranormal being and the heroine as an ordinary human. How does this resonate with gender relations and power relationships in our society? Is it a way of expressing women seeing men as another species? And does it all come down to fairy tales?I'm going to ramble on these ideas for a bit, and hopefully I will shake some ideas loose that I

Paranormal Appropriation

There are a lot of paranormal romances and urban fantasies on the market, and certain mythological creatures--vampires and werewolves, for example--tend to be used a lot. For that reason, I can understand why writers look a little farther for inpiration, and hunt for mythologies that haven't been used as much in the romance genre.However, often, to me, the borrowing feels like stealing. I'm

World War One Recruitment Posters

I love looking at the material culture of the First World War as well as reading the rhetoric of the period. These recruitment posters are a good example of how men were convinced to enlist in the armed forces. Guilt and comraderie seem to have been used in equal measure.This is an Australian poster--note the soldier's "digger" hat and the ghostly figures of men dressed as athletes and ranchers

Normative Heterosexuality and the Alpha Male Fantasy

Normative(Adjective): of or establishing a norm or standard.Romance novels feature vast numbers of heroes who are so-called "alpha" males - usually taken to mean men who are better-looking and stronger than other men, with more dominant personalities, and usually some other advantage as well, such as high social rank, large amounts of money, or superpowers. They are usually coded as more

Edmund Blunden, "Concert Party: Busseboom"

Concert Party: BusseboomThe stage was set, the house was packed,The famous troop began;Our laughter thundered, act by act;Time light as sunbeams ran.Dance sprang and spun and neared and fled,Jest chirped at gayest pitch,Rhythm dazzled, action spedMost comically rich.With generals and lame privates bothSuch charms worked wonders, tillThe show was over – lagging lothWe faced the sunset chill;And

Moonlight Mistress excerpt - Food

Welcome to Snippets Saturday!While driving from Germany to France, Lucilla Daglish asks Pascal Fournier about his first sexual experience.#Pascal paused, as if remembering. "The widow Jacques stood behind a table that was dusted with flour. She wore an apron, decorated with flowers, and a cap over her hair, of the same fabric. She didn't wear these things in the front of the bakery. It is

Writers Never Run Out of Blog Topics

Since I've begun this blog, I've started to notice more and more bloggers who complain that they don't have anything about which to blog.My first thought is always, "then don't blog," but of course that isn't a good answer if you're blogging because you've set yourself a goal, or because you promised to write a guest post for someone, or some other reason that makes blogging feel more like a

Revision Metaphors

Sometimes I look back at what I've written in my zero draft. I see heaps of words lining the road. The heaps have shape, but they don't yet have architectural value. They're not smoothed and stacked. Sometimes I want to go back and tidy up those heaps, maybe build a little dome or pyramid for them to settle into. I have to wait until I've got a full manuscript before that will be a really useful

Food in Fiction

I like to put food in my fiction.First of all, people eat. What they eat can say a lot about their character, and about the world in which they live, and about their interactions with other characters. Does Oscar make breakfast for Max? If so, does he make Max's favorite (chocolate-frosted sugar bombs dipped in Nutella) or Max's least favorite (kippers with catsup)? Does Oscar even know what

Reviews, the Sweetest Pain

"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good." --Samuel Johnson I think writers often worry too much about how their work will be perceived, or rather, how they imagine their work will be perceived, before it's even finished. They worry about how other writers will see their work: hackwork, work of genius,