M/M Romance Vs. Gay Fiction
Recently Ann Somerville at Outlaw Reviews said of my book Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries “this is not m/m…it’s not even romance…it’s gay fiction, with male readers in mind” (see review here) and I have to say, I agree with her. I do write gay fiction. With a romantic, sexy edge certainly. And I do write for men, or rather, I don’t make any allowances for, or cater to, a female audience. I’m happy to have female readers, but I think my readers are looking for a window into a gay man’s world rather than an idealized gay romance. At least, the ones who like my work.
I imagine Ann’s opinion may confuse a lot of people writing and reading m/m today. Many of them are using the terms m/m and gay fiction synonymously. I’ve seen a number of m/m writers call themselves gay fiction writers. And, I’ve seen readers say things on boards and blogs like “Maurice by E.M. Forester was the first m/m novel I’ve ever read an I just love it!” and “My first m/m book was Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner.” While both books are romantic, that’s true, neither is m/m romance. The genre didn’t exist when they were written, each has structural differences, and neither were claimed by the romance community until now.
To be fair, it’s important to note that on Amazon, the go-to spot for books, the categories for books with gay content are limited – there is no category for m/m romance or even gay romance. There is also no category for m/m or gay romance under romance. And, when you get to the Kindle side things get worse – everything there is lumped under the all inclusive title of Gay & Lesbian. It’s easy to see how someone younger or new to either genre, would have no clue that m/m romance and gay fiction are not the same thing.
So, what are they? And how are they different? There are very few absolutes to hold onto and a lot of “I know it when I see it.” Certainly publication date is one of the few absolutes. Since m/m sprang out of slash fiction, an Internet phenomenon, any work written before the advent of the Internet is almost certainly gay fiction. If a book is written with a gay male audience in mind, it is gay fiction. Especially, if it lacks a strong element of romance and ignores the rules of the romance genre entirely. If a book is written with a heterosexual female audience in mind and adheres to the rules of the romance genre it is m/m romance.
Gay fiction at its core is about the formation of an individual identity (the basic coming out story) or the formation of a chosen-family focused on adults (Tales of the City). M/M at its core is about the formation of a committed relationship (Suzanne Brockmann’s series is a good example) or the formation of a family focused on child rearing, and the children are often already related (see the current top-selling Bear, Otter and the Kid).
Another determiner of genre would be the sexual behavior of the characters. Typically, gay men have the ability to separate love and sex. They can pursue both at the same time and in completely different directions. Typically, straight women view sex and love as intermingled. Gross generalizations, I know, but they do explain the preferences of the bulk of readers. I’m a fan of James Lear’s books. Though his books contain many of the elements you’d find in an m/m novel, he definitely falls on the gay fiction side of the fence (sub genre erotica, certainly), since his characters typically have a ton of sex as they pursue a romantic ideal, or at least acknowledge they have those feelings. Romance readers have a distinct preference for two men developing a relationship through sex. These books often only feature the protagonists having sex, many times certainly, but just the two men. (The Tin Star by J.L. Langley is a good example of this.)
Theoretically, you could write a book that is both gay fiction and still follows the rules of the romance genre. A cross-genre novel, as it were. And, I’d guess that a lot of writers are attempting to stand on this tiny scrape of real estate. In my opinion, the act of bending gay characters to the romance genre makes it a nearly impossible task to write much of anything with the authenticity necessary to gay fiction.
You’ll note I don’t mention the sex of the author anywhere. While it’s true that gay fiction is largely written by men and m/m romance is largely written by women, there are a significant number of exceptions — enough exceptions to make the sex of the author a poor determiner of genre.
Now, you could argue that anything with gay content should be labeled Gay & Lesbian and we’ll just let the readers sort it out. And I imagine this would be Amazon’s defense if they were called out on the lack of detailed categories. You could also say this discussion is little more than an academic exercise. I don’t believe that it is, though. I believe the distinction between gay fiction and m/m is vitally important.
Why do I think that? Because readers don’t sort it out. A hardcore romance junkie gets her hands on a piece of gay fiction and she’s angry and often very vocal. She gets on Goodreads or Amazon and she bashes the book strictly on the basis that it was an m/m romance. It doesn’t help the author, it doesn’t help the publisher and it doesn’t help other readers who might not pick up on why the book is being bashed and just think it’s bad. (To be fair, this reader may have gotten a gay fiction book from an m/m publisher. These publishers are, commendably I think, putting out a small amount of gay fiction. Typically, though, they’re not distinguishing it well from their other product.)
On the other end of the spectrum you have your gay fiction reader who goes to Amazon looking for something to read and finds that most of the top twenty books are romance novels. Now, the bulk of gay readers do not like romance novels – yes, I know there are exceptions and you may be one – but seriously, as a rule, gay men do not read romance novels. So, when that’s all they see they just think ‘Wow, gay fiction must have died” and go off to buy the latest mainstream bestseller. And then they don’t look again for a very long time. Of course, if a gay fiction reader actually gets a hold of an m/m novel there’s a lot of cussing and writing of catty comments in the margins.
Notably, well known gay fiction writer Alan Hollinghurst has a book coming out soon, The Stranger’s Child. From the synopsis it’s obvious the book is gay fiction, just like his other work, but his publisher will only list the book as historical and literary. Now, did they do this because they wanted to get a more mainstream heterosexual audience? Or, did they just not want to associate the book with the romance novels that rule the gay fiction category? Either way, I find it concerning to see gay fiction not labeled as such.
I’ve been reading gay fiction since I was a teenager in the seventies. At first, there was very little I could get my hands on, but then, as time went on I found more and more on the shelves. Over time the genre has grown, and contracted, stumbled and gotten up again. And through all that it has shaped and informed the lives of gay men. The romance genre has an enormous readership and the speed with which readers and writers have rushed into m/m is a demonstration of its power. It’s great that m/m writers are making money and making readers happy. It’s also terrific that these writers and their audience are such staunch supporters of the gay community. It would be terrible though to watch m/m romance choke off the growth of gay fiction
So, what to do about all this? Obviously, it’s not going to sort itself out overnight. But, I think if writers and publishers become aware of the problem and begin to correctly identify themselves and their product things will slowly improve. In the past, I’ve called myself an m/m romance writer. I’m really not. And this is definitely my first step in removing that label. Hopefully, at least some, m/m romance writers will follow my lead and stop calling themselves gay fiction writers when they’re clearly not. Ultimately, I think it’s beneficial for everyone.
I imagine Ann’s opinion may confuse a lot of people writing and reading m/m today. Many of them are using the terms m/m and gay fiction synonymously. I’ve seen a number of m/m writers call themselves gay fiction writers. And, I’ve seen readers say things on boards and blogs like “Maurice by E.M. Forester was the first m/m novel I’ve ever read an I just love it!” and “My first m/m book was Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner.” While both books are romantic, that’s true, neither is m/m romance. The genre didn’t exist when they were written, each has structural differences, and neither were claimed by the romance community until now.
To be fair, it’s important to note that on Amazon, the go-to spot for books, the categories for books with gay content are limited – there is no category for m/m romance or even gay romance. There is also no category for m/m or gay romance under romance. And, when you get to the Kindle side things get worse – everything there is lumped under the all inclusive title of Gay & Lesbian. It’s easy to see how someone younger or new to either genre, would have no clue that m/m romance and gay fiction are not the same thing.
So, what are they? And how are they different? There are very few absolutes to hold onto and a lot of “I know it when I see it.” Certainly publication date is one of the few absolutes. Since m/m sprang out of slash fiction, an Internet phenomenon, any work written before the advent of the Internet is almost certainly gay fiction. If a book is written with a gay male audience in mind, it is gay fiction. Especially, if it lacks a strong element of romance and ignores the rules of the romance genre entirely. If a book is written with a heterosexual female audience in mind and adheres to the rules of the romance genre it is m/m romance.
Gay fiction at its core is about the formation of an individual identity (the basic coming out story) or the formation of a chosen-family focused on adults (Tales of the City). M/M at its core is about the formation of a committed relationship (Suzanne Brockmann’s series is a good example) or the formation of a family focused on child rearing, and the children are often already related (see the current top-selling Bear, Otter and the Kid).
Another determiner of genre would be the sexual behavior of the characters. Typically, gay men have the ability to separate love and sex. They can pursue both at the same time and in completely different directions. Typically, straight women view sex and love as intermingled. Gross generalizations, I know, but they do explain the preferences of the bulk of readers. I’m a fan of James Lear’s books. Though his books contain many of the elements you’d find in an m/m novel, he definitely falls on the gay fiction side of the fence (sub genre erotica, certainly), since his characters typically have a ton of sex as they pursue a romantic ideal, or at least acknowledge they have those feelings. Romance readers have a distinct preference for two men developing a relationship through sex. These books often only feature the protagonists having sex, many times certainly, but just the two men. (The Tin Star by J.L. Langley is a good example of this.)
Theoretically, you could write a book that is both gay fiction and still follows the rules of the romance genre. A cross-genre novel, as it were. And, I’d guess that a lot of writers are attempting to stand on this tiny scrape of real estate. In my opinion, the act of bending gay characters to the romance genre makes it a nearly impossible task to write much of anything with the authenticity necessary to gay fiction.
You’ll note I don’t mention the sex of the author anywhere. While it’s true that gay fiction is largely written by men and m/m romance is largely written by women, there are a significant number of exceptions — enough exceptions to make the sex of the author a poor determiner of genre.
Now, you could argue that anything with gay content should be labeled Gay & Lesbian and we’ll just let the readers sort it out. And I imagine this would be Amazon’s defense if they were called out on the lack of detailed categories. You could also say this discussion is little more than an academic exercise. I don’t believe that it is, though. I believe the distinction between gay fiction and m/m is vitally important.
Why do I think that? Because readers don’t sort it out. A hardcore romance junkie gets her hands on a piece of gay fiction and she’s angry and often very vocal. She gets on Goodreads or Amazon and she bashes the book strictly on the basis that it was an m/m romance. It doesn’t help the author, it doesn’t help the publisher and it doesn’t help other readers who might not pick up on why the book is being bashed and just think it’s bad. (To be fair, this reader may have gotten a gay fiction book from an m/m publisher. These publishers are, commendably I think, putting out a small amount of gay fiction. Typically, though, they’re not distinguishing it well from their other product.)
On the other end of the spectrum you have your gay fiction reader who goes to Amazon looking for something to read and finds that most of the top twenty books are romance novels. Now, the bulk of gay readers do not like romance novels – yes, I know there are exceptions and you may be one – but seriously, as a rule, gay men do not read romance novels. So, when that’s all they see they just think ‘Wow, gay fiction must have died” and go off to buy the latest mainstream bestseller. And then they don’t look again for a very long time. Of course, if a gay fiction reader actually gets a hold of an m/m novel there’s a lot of cussing and writing of catty comments in the margins.
Notably, well known gay fiction writer Alan Hollinghurst has a book coming out soon, The Stranger’s Child. From the synopsis it’s obvious the book is gay fiction, just like his other work, but his publisher will only list the book as historical and literary. Now, did they do this because they wanted to get a more mainstream heterosexual audience? Or, did they just not want to associate the book with the romance novels that rule the gay fiction category? Either way, I find it concerning to see gay fiction not labeled as such.
I’ve been reading gay fiction since I was a teenager in the seventies. At first, there was very little I could get my hands on, but then, as time went on I found more and more on the shelves. Over time the genre has grown, and contracted, stumbled and gotten up again. And through all that it has shaped and informed the lives of gay men. The romance genre has an enormous readership and the speed with which readers and writers have rushed into m/m is a demonstration of its power. It’s great that m/m writers are making money and making readers happy. It’s also terrific that these writers and their audience are such staunch supporters of the gay community. It would be terrible though to watch m/m romance choke off the growth of gay fiction
So, what to do about all this? Obviously, it’s not going to sort itself out overnight. But, I think if writers and publishers become aware of the problem and begin to correctly identify themselves and their product things will slowly improve. In the past, I’ve called myself an m/m romance writer. I’m really not. And this is definitely my first step in removing that label. Hopefully, at least some, m/m romance writers will follow my lead and stop calling themselves gay fiction writers when they’re clearly not. Ultimately, I think it’s beneficial for everyone.
WeaselBox wrote: "Interesting piece. I hadn't ever thought about the problems of unintentional crossover. I actually stumbled here after happening to see your review on Chandler's Playback (Which I just finished.)..."You might like The Perils of Praline - I set out to write the silliest, dirtiest book I could think of. The Boystown books do get darker as you go along, though hopefully they're not depressing. Certainly, in the 90s when there was a lot of AIDS literature and we didn't yet know where things were going it could be depressing. I've gone back and looked at some of those books and they're not as depressing because there's no longer that ... the world is ending kind of feeling to them. Though it is still all very sad.
Anyway, thanks for the comment. And thanks for taking a look at my work.
I once received two comments from readers on the same day. One, from a leatherman, said, "Nice story. Hot." The other, from a yaoi fangirl, said, "Squee! I just love this story! *Hearts*" They were commenting on the same story.Having marketed my fiction to both gay-male-fiction audiences and m/m-slash-yaoi audiences since 2004, I'm prepared to say: It's all in the marketing techniques. John Preston was able to take hardcore porn and publish it as "erotica" for the literary fiction readers. Likewise, one can get away with marketing murder, just by putting the right label on a story: "hot stroke story" or "erotic romance." That could be the same story, marketed two ways.
This isn't to say that there aren't certain types of stories that are more characteristic of gay male fiction than of m/m fiction. I just think the overlap between the two is larger than you think. My apprentice is able to find a never-ending supply of gay-male-fiction romance stories . . . whereas my first encounter with leather fiction was in the slash world.
A few factual matters: An informal meta-study of about a dozen surveys of slash readers found that more than 50% of slash readers identify as queer. The press likes to play up the "m/m readers are cisgender heterosexual women" angle because it sells copy, but in the very articles where they do so, they often interview bisexual or trans writers.
I'd also point out that a sizeable number of novels with gay male characters (before the term m/m was invented) were *not* marketed to gay male audiences but to general audiences, and many of their writers were female. This is why some m/m readers see the roots of m/m going further back than you do. Myself, I hate terminology arguments; can we agree that certain novels are equally popular with readers of gay male fiction and m/m?
And finally: A lot of slash isn't romance. This is a fact that tends to be overlooked in discussions of m/m and slash. The slash writers who wrote romance were able to get published. The slash writers who didn't write romance are still hammering at the publishers' doors, for the most part. This is another reason why I'm reluctant to divide the gay-literature world into only two camps. It seems to me there's a spectrum of gay literature, with different categories shading into each other.
Theoretically, I agree with the idea that "certain novels are equally popular with readers of gay male fiction and m/m." Certainly, Maurice is a perfect example of that. I think that anyone who enjoys m/m romance would enjoy Maurice. But not because it is m/m, it's simply a very romantic piece by a great writer."A sizable number of novels with gay male characters... marketed to general audiences..." That I find a little odd. Certainly, The Front Runner and Mary Renault's work were both marketing to broader audiences. But there we're talking about lesbians who found a way to write about sexuality and work with big publishers - mainly by allowing themselves to be presented as straight women. And the attraction of these books often had nothing to do with gay men. My mother read the Persian Boy when I was a teenager. I asked if I could read it and she told me that there were homosexual scenes in the book. Then she said, "Just pretend that the eunuch is actually a girl. That's what I did." The audience then was very different from the one we're talking about today. And, I really question the idea that there were a sizable number of novels...
I'd have to look at study you're quoting to really comment on it. However, simply by looking at the at the top ten gay & lesbian kindle books all of which are selling between 20 and 30 copies a day it's difficult to believe these books are being bought by a queer anything.
Finally, I think you misunderstood some of what I'm saying. I don't "divide the gay-literature world into only two camps." There are all sorts of of camps in the gay literature world. M/M romance books, in my opinion, are not part of the gay-literature world at all. It's a romance sub-genre.
I thought of an example that may make this all clearer. Nicholas Sparks is a popular novelist who writes romantic stories, but I would not call him a romance writer. There are significant structural and stylistic difference between a romantic story and a romance novel. He's said quite clearly that he's not a romance novelist.Now, I would guess that a large chunk of Sparks' audience also reads romance novels, while another chunk of his audience would never dream of picking up a romance novel. I also think that a large chunk of romance novels fans would not enjoy his work. Readers do run the gambit.
The reason that Sparks goes to such lengths to define himself as not-a romance novelist, is that many people do classify him as such. They look at his books and say "oh they're romantic, they must be romance novels."
But, in my opinion, they're wrong. Content alone does not define genre. If that were the case, since the bulk of romance novels are about women, there would be no reason not to label them all as feminist literature. A classification that would be of no help to anyone, reader or writer or publisher.
And that really is the point. Genre is meant to provide guidance to readers so that they can find what they'd like to read. The current mis-mash of gay fiction with m/m romance is not helping readers find what they'd like to read - and I think it's damaging gay fiction. Readers who want it are having trouble finding it.
"I'd have to look at study you're quoting to really comment on it."Sorry that I didn't supply the link last night; I was on my iPod Touch, which makes surfing difficult. Here's the study. It's a gathering together of a number of very unscientific studies - but the fact is, no scientific study has ever been done. The idea that slashers are all heterosexual women appeared in early academic studies of slash, back when queer folk were much more inclined to be in the closet (especially if they were heterosexually married). Ever since then, every academic who has studied slash has simply assumed that "slash = heterosexual cisgender women." The informal surveys taken by slashers themselves suggest otherwise.
"However, simply by looking at the at the top ten gay & lesbian kindle books all of which are selling between 20 and 30 copies a day it's difficult to believe these books are being bought by a queer anything."
Obviously, I don't have access to the list of readers for those books. But out of the 17 semi-pro or pro m/m authors I list at my fiction recommendations site (folks published by m/m presses or coming out of the slash community), here are the numbers:
Bisexual, trans, and/or male: 8.
Sexuality unknown: 9.
It's that "sexuality unkown" factor I'd like to pinpoint. There's been a general assumption among academics and journalists that, if a biological woman reads m/m, they must not be lesbian, bisexual, or trans. I'm skeptical of that assumption, for the above reasons.
Getting back to the differences you stated earlier between gay fiction and m/m romance: for the most part, what I'm seeing is not a "gay vs. straight" difference, but two other differences.
Male vs. female. You said, "Typically, gay men have the ability to separate love and sex. They can pursue both at the same time and in completely different directions. Typically, straight women view sex and love as intermingled." But that's not a gay vs. straight thing. That's a male vs. female thing. Lesbians are inclined to identify sex with love; heterosexual men - notoriously, from their female partners' perspective - are inclined to divorce sex and love.
Slash and m/m have definitely been shaped by female tastes. Not because much of it is romance; there are tons of sites online, aimed at gay men, that have romance stories. But the particular *form* that slash and m/m stories take are especially popular with female readers. Sexual orientation really doesn't come into the matter.
Contemporary fiction vs. genre fiction. You state, "Gay fiction at its core is about the formation of an individual identity (the basic coming out story) or the formation of a chosen-family focused on adults (Tales of the City)." But that's mainly true of gay contemporary fiction. Gay SF/F has often had a different focus. Gay historical fiction has often had a different focus (which is why you didn't think of Renault's writings as "gay").
I come out of the SF/F world, and what struck me, at the beginning of the last decade, was that the recommendations lists put together by slash readers were almost identical to the recommendations lists being put together by GLBT SF/F organizations such as Gaylaxicon chapters. In fact, in those days, most of the slashers I knew who were aspiring to publication were aiming at the SF/F market.
Instead, the genre romance presses picked them up. As far as I can tell, from looking back at how it happened, that was a complete accident. It could have been, say, the mystery presses that opened their doors to slash writers. If that had happened, I'm sure we'd see tons of m/m mysteries being published. Or it could have been the gay erotica world; some of the slash authors I knew were being published there (and still are).
But I think that it would have had to be a genre fiction community that made its bid for the slashers. Slash has been heavily genre fiction since its beginnings. That's why it was very difficult for slashers to interest the gay presses (though m/m writers *are* being published by the gay presses): the gay presses tend to publish what you identify as gay fiction. I would call it gay contemporary fiction, as opposed to gay genre fiction.
"I really question the idea that there were a sizable number of novels..."
There were. Most of those general-readership books were genre fiction, simply because it was easier to get away with inserting gay characters into faraway settings. Contemporary fiction was a more difficult marketing challenge, though I well remember that, as a teenager, my first encounter with gay fiction was through Isabelle Holland's The Man Without a Face. Of course, that novel could not be published as gay fiction today . . . which just goes to show that the definition of gay fiction slides around. When m/m fiction was first published, it was labelled "gay" by most romance publishers.
"Genre is meant to provide guidance to readers so that they can find what they'd like to read. The current mis-mash of gay fiction with m/m romance is not helping readers find what they'd like to read - and I think it's damaging gay fiction. Readers who want it are having trouble finding it."
That I heartily agree with, not because I think that m/m isn't part of the GLBT literary tradition, but because I think that bookstores ought to be doing a better job of categorizing books. There ought to be subcategories at the Kindle store for gay contemporary fiction, gay romance, gay SF/F . . . And in fact, there are. Amazon demands this type of information from publishers; it just isn't passing on the information to its customers, which is frustrating.
What I would point out is that the problem that readers of gay contemporary fiction are facing currently is the exact same problem that readers of gay genre fiction have faced for years. I used to browse through the shelves of Lambda Rising in the 1980s, desperately trying to locate the few SF/F works placed there. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. Before Lambda Rising's sad demise, they finally established an SF/F section, as well as a mystery section, but they still intermingled contemporary fiction and historical fiction, so I continued to do that "needle in a haystack" search.
So now the situation is reversed: a particular form of genre fiction (genre romance) is flooding the gay sections of online bookstores. The solution is the same as Lambda Rising took: categorize better. Genre romance readers - including gay men who read genre romance - ought to be able to find what they're looking for without stumbling over "Tales of the City" and such-like. More importantly - because genre romance is so dominating the field currently - non-genre-romance readers ought to be able to find what they want.
I count myself among them. I'm not particularly fond of the conventions of genre romance (though I do read a handful of m/m romance authors who write on particular topics I like). It's frustrating to me to go on a search for gay SF/F and find only genre romance stories that just happen to be SF/F too. It's also frustrating to me, as a writer, that there are so few resources (publishers, review sites, etc.) that are aimed at readers of non-romance gay fiction. Those that exist are - wait for it - aimed at readers of gay contemporary fiction.
So I feel your pain. I think everyone would benefit from better categorization and more diversity in GLBT publishing.
Thanks for the response... and for feeling my pain. On the studies, those were interesting, however, I'm unclear as to whether we're counting slashers as authors or readers. I was recently at the EAA convention and I noted that a number of lesbians and bisexual women said they wrote m/m. I'm not sure that the audience directly mirrors the make-up of the writers. Interestingly, several of those women expressed the same sort of concern about m/m conventions that I felt.
That said, yes, it's always dicey to view any group as homogenous - so the press may overstate the number of het women reading this stuff. But still... since the most successful books seem to be bending gay men to a heterosexual model I tend to think they're the bulk of the audience. Are queer women that attached to heterosexual norms? I'm not sure. I have to think on that one. In the past I've always perceived bi- and lesbian
Your points on woman vs men as opposed to gay vs straight are well taken. I used to think one of the cool things about m/m was that you could let women know what men are like in a non-direct way. Gay men are not all that different from straight men when it comes down to it. Unfortunately, I feel that a big portion of the female audience rejects male behavior whether it's gay or straight. A very uncomfortable thought.
I have to admit that I know virtually nothing about science fiction. I think I have heard that SF has been more open sexually for a long time. However, I took your original comment to be much less contemporary than that list you linked (which includes Cecilia Tan who was on a panel with me at EAA and is a good twenty years young than I am). I really thought you were talking about writers dating back to the 60s and 70s. Which would make my objection to it much more relevant.
I was at a party a couple years ago and I asked a gay friend of a friend what he liked to read. He said he read only sci-fi. I said, oh, I've heard there's a lot of gay sic-fi going on. And he had absolutely no interest. That surprised me. And I have not idea why he had not interest but he didn't. If that kind of attitude is prevalent it would explain your difficulties finding gay SF in bookstores...
Okay, thanks for you comments. Very interesting. I appreciate them.
First: After all my comments about genre fiction, I would discover you're a mystery writer. Well, you'll have figured out by now that I don't know much about what's happening in the gay mystery world. It's more like gay (non-genre) contemporary fiction, I take it?Secondly, a small smile: You met m/m writers at the EAA convention because I went on a recruitment campaign for m/m writers when I became director of the EAA in 2007. Virtually no m/m writers belonged to the organization at that time.
How was the convention, by the way? I was sorry to miss it.
"I'm unclear as to whether we're counting slashers as authors or readers."
Tends to be the same thing, in the slash community (most slashers both read and write stories), but the polls weren't specifically aimed at writers. I mentioned slashers simply because we don't have any stats yet for m/m readers. Since there's a crossover readership between slash and m/m, that may tell us something about the m/m readership.
"since the most successful books seem to be bending gay men to a heterosexual model"
Being a writer of gay history, I tend to take a long-term view of what constitutes heterosexuality. Male/female roles? Early twentieth-century gay literature. Impassioned declarations of love? Turn-of-the-century schoolboy romance literature. Tears and vows of life-long pairings? Classical and medieval homoerotic literature. I've rarely seen anything in m/m that I haven't seen in earlier gay literature. It looks very vintage to me.
"Unfortunately, I feel that a big portion of the female audience rejects male behavior whether it's gay or straight."
Leaving aside the m/m writers who are realistic in their portrayal of contemporary men, or who are writing about times and places where masculine behavior was different than now: I think that, in a lot of cases (such as the infamous self-lubricating anus), what's occuring in m/m is ignorance of male/female differences, rather than deliberate rejection of them. In other cases, the readers and writers are rejecting male behavior only in the sense of preferring not to be realistic in their fantasies - the 12-Inch Dick phenomenon. I've run across very few cases of readers saying, "I wish men were really like the way they're portrayed in m/m."
"I took your original comment to be much less contemporary than that list you linked (which includes Cecilia Tan who was on a panel with me at EAA and is a good twenty years young than I am)."
Cecilia Tan actually predates the m/m genre by over a decade; she founded her GLBT SF/F press in 1992. The list I linked to unfortunately doesn't include dates, but a large portion of the works mentioned are from the 1970s or earlier. You can get a better sense of the gay SF/F timeline from this article. And this list shows what slashers were reading in 2004, just before the m/m fiction genre was invented. There was plenty of "slashy" literature written by then, usually by authors with no connection with the slash community.
So m/m didn't spring simply out of slash; it was drawing upon a long tradition of gay genre fiction by both male and female writers. Many of the m/m traditions (such as hurt/comfort) abound in genre fiction, whether gay or non-gay.
"it would explain your difficulties finding gay SF in bookstores..."
I don't know whether the books weren't there, or whether they were just hard to find amidst the contemporary fiction. But they were certainly known by fans. The Gaylactic Network (for fans of GLBT SF/F/H) was founded in 1986.
All right, I'm off to my college homecoming, probably to your great relief. :) Sorry to have chattered on for so long; you kept raising interesting points that sparked thoughts in me.
WeaselBox wrote:I formed the association "gay fiction" = horribly depressing rather young and I've never gotten over it."Choosing a genre to read is very much based on preconceptions of what that genre contains, I still think that WeaelBox's comments sums the situation up for most people's view of gay fiction which is possibly why in some ways there is an increasing gulf between the two.
If it is a misconception, then that needs to be addressed by gay fiction publishers and then they may find a lot more crossover readers.
If Dusk (waves) is correct then gay fiction needs to be better categorised into SF/F, historical, mystery but what do you do then add a warning that there is a romantic element?
Perhaps my problem with understanding the categorisations relates to what you said, Marshall. There are significant structural and stylistic difference between a romantic story and a romance novel.
M/m ebook publishers are looking for the latter but who is publishing the former?
Perhaps it's a case where the question needs to be asked to determine categorisation: what's the main element of the story? The fact that the protagonists are gay and what does that mean to them (gay fiction) or the focus is on the romance and the two characters just happen to be gay (m/m romance).
Lots of room for discussion!
To there credit, a lot of m/m publishers are also publishing gay fiction and/or gay romance and m/m romance. At the moment, they're not seeing much point in distinguishing their product, which I think works against some writers (part of why I wrote the post)... I have not found too many publishers out there publishing exclusively gay fiction. Those that were seemed to be winding down (like Alyson) ...To elaborate, I think the stylistic difference between a romantic story and a romance novel are... romance novels really prefer a third person pov split between the two protagonists. I write in first person or sometimes 3rd dedicated (almost 1st person)... this is always mentioned in reviews by romance sites, positively usually, but I always have the feeling they're also warning readers who don't want to read first person. I've also had reviewers say that writing first person is "wrong".
Character design is also an important stylist difference. Now when talking about this before people always point out that there are all sorts of gay men and that's true. However, there are commonalities that spread across the community. For example, a m/m writer might want to write about a gay virgin waiting for the right guy (I've seen this)... now to me, as a gay man, a gay virgin is a very young teenager and off limits... but if I were going to write something like that, I would either make the character very inexperienced (which I did in The Perils of Praline, before the book begins he's practically a virgin, though certainly not afterward) ... or I might write about a character trying to re-virginizing himself while looking for something more meaningful than what he's found on "the scene"... though in that case I'd make sure to have balancing characters who are just fine hanging out in "the scene" because a lot of guys are... and that plot line could easily seem judgmental...
There are probably other differences but I'd have to get out my how to write a romance novel book (which I've never been able to follow) and look at all the things I refuse to do... :)
Marshall wrote: "To elaborate, I think the stylistic difference between a romantic story and a romance novel are... romance novels really prefer a third person pov split between the two protagonists. I write in first person or sometimes 3rd dedicated (almost 1st person)... this is always mentioned in reviews by romance sites, positively usually, but I always have the feeling they're also warning readers who don't want to read first person. I've also had reviewers say that writing first person is "wrong"."Eek. Seems I don't write m/m romance after all!
I must congratulate Dreamspinner Press (who will hopefully publish my latest book which is a deliberate mix of first person and third and even has two chapters of present).....DSP seems prepared to accept crossover books.
Character design is also an important stylist difference. I think this goes back to the fact that many readers are still hung up on the Harlequin mindset where the heroine had to be a virgin (I know the more modern ones have lines where they aren't but traditionally it was expected) so because they're translating their expectations across this particular piece of baggage has come too.
I'd love to be directed to gay romances that best capture loving relatonships from a gay male perspective and not necessarily the "Classics"
lol... I've actually heard that dreamspinner is very flexible. I've worked with MLR and find that they have a real commitment to gay fiction and plan to work with them again.To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of romance so I haven't been seeking out gay romances. I just wandered through my house and the only book that comes close (though I love it) is PS Your Cat is Dead. Though, it is really a classic. If you haven't read James Kirkwood I highly recommend him.
I do think a couple of mystery series do a great job in capturing loving relationships albeit was subplots... Joseph Hansen's Dave Brandsetter Books, Copp's The Actor's Guide series. Then there's Christopher Bram's work... not romance but amazing relationship storytelling, particularly Exiles in America.
**Lou: Most genre how-to-books I've read allow for some deviance. And, as I think I've noted, the m/m publishers are really choosing a wide range of work. Your most romance oriented reader though is going to prefer 3rd split POV. If you enjoy writing that POV and are going for that audience that should be your choice. I've tried it and it's not comfortable for me... to be honest I don't even like reading split POV.
Marshall wrote: "to be honest I don't even like reading split POV.That's the mystery writer in you. Where's the sexual tension, the conflict when the reader knows the other person is in love with the other viewpoint character?
Split point of view, particularly on a paragraph by paragraph basis can be done, but it is amazing how difficult it is for the reader to see from just inside one person's head. I'm not sure if you're aware of the free online epic, Special Forces Over a million words done in this style. Co-written with each author taking different characters.At the start of the second book, "Mercenaries" the characters are thrown apart. Many readers found one of the character's actions inexcusable, but the problem was that they were too aware of the whole picture and couldn't see the action just from this one character's POV (the way it would be in real life). I ended up creating two separate stories of eight chapters, each told from a single viewpoint using the existing dialogue and seen actions, but splitting up the inner thoughts and non-shared experiences to the relevant person's "book". It was an amazing exercise and each book is quite readable in its own way.
This whole question of shifting POV and the difference between first and close third is an interesting one and one I'd love to get more involved with, if and when the book I just submitted gets accepted.
I even found switching first person to single POV close third added a different feel, even though the suggestion is often made to write in one and switch to the other simply because many readers don't like first. There is a difference. Subtle, but it's there. One feels more like it's addressing the reader and the other more like the reader is sitting on the character's shoulder. There is always that tiny separation with third. In some circumstances this is good, in others it's not.
But this is getting off topic. Sorry, Marshall!
WeaselBox wrote: "Marshall wrote: "To elaborate, I think the stylistic difference between a romantic story and a romance novel are... "As far as first person goes, maybe you're violating the norms of whatever subg..."
Thank you. You're right. Difficulty of access - geography makes a huge difference. And I buy older virgins in small towns all over the country ... oh wait, that sounds odd. I can believe in virgins in small towns, is what I meant. :)
Yes, of course, in the right hands any kind of character is believable. However, I'm bringing these ideas up as examples of how a lot of non-gay m/m writers aren't getting it. And it isn't just the nature of the characters.
You don't even have to read the excerpt to know an author doesn't understand what he/she's doing if the synopsis says... "Jim, a gay virgin, is struggling with his new lifestyle..."
Now, if the synopsis said "Jim, whose led a sheltered life in a small-town, struggles to come to terms with his sexuality..." I might feel like the author had some clue what they were doing. And it could be essentially the same story.
That's really what I'm trying to get at. If you can't convince me in a synopsis that you have some authenticity, I'm not interested. Conversely, I would say there's a portion of the audience (possibly large some of these books are doing very well) which is more attracted to the first synopsis.
Lou wrote: "I have hard time writing split POV. It's tricky to balance. When I finally did it, the protags ended up holding back information from the reader (and the other character).Victor J. Banis uses spl..."
I've chatted with Victor on this very topic and he'd agree with you. He does feel he straddles both genres. I've only read one book of his LONGHORNS which I really enjoyed and recommend. Though it definitely falls on the gay fiction/gay romance side of the fence. A lot of romance readers would not like it.
Marshall, one of Victor's that I really like, is "Coming Home". I'd be interested to hear which genre you'd slot that into.
I've been thinking about this question of "gay fiction" vs. "m/m" quite a bit lately. I would even go so far as to question the category of "gay fiction" as opposed to simply categorizing it as "fiction about gay characters." I didn't know there was such a genre as m/m when I wrote my contemporary novel which deals with same sex attracted male protagonists. I tried to make them human and real and fully dimensional and male. I had no though of writing a "romance" but it is a love story (among other things). I didn't think of my readers as women who have a particular interest in gay love stories. But I didn't think I was writing "for gay men" either. I felt as though I was telling a human story and my audience would be men and women of different orientations who related to the characters and situation.
Then you get to publishing, and your observations about books for gay men having lots of sex was of great interest, because I ran into this problem with finding a publisher for my novel-- the publishers thought it had too much Christianity and not enough sex to be a gay novel, too much gayness to be a Christian novel. The only publisher that was willing to take a chance on it was Dreamspinner (for their new spiritual imprint Itineris.) I was pleased to work with them because the publisher Elizabeth liked the book.
Yet one of the first reviews was disappointed in the book because it didn't quite correspond to her idea of a good romance. The review didn't bother me, because I thought it was quite fair if reviewing as a romance.
On the other hand, it is hard to get the actual gay press-- not the blogs that focus on the m/m genre to look at it, because I think there is an assumption that a book from an m.m publisher written by a woman is not really a book about real gay characters or issues.
I will say that the idea that women don't separate sex and love and that the idea that gay men are by definition having lots of sex seems like a stereotype to me. I have read lots of discussions on gay christian web pages from gay men who have very traditional views on sexuality and monogamy. Characters in books, like people in life, have to be individuals.
I don't know if the whole marketing niche/reader expectation thing is limited to the lgbt and m/m question. Any marketing niche seems to be a double edged sword.
I'm dealing with the whole Christian fiction/spiritual fiction label issue as well-- with people saying "oh that's going to be bible thumping" or it is literature out to convert you.
My main thought on the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction is that it is one of external vs. internal development. Genre fiction is often more focused on the drama of what happens and literary fiction tends to be more focused on how characters react to what happens and grow and evolve because of it. At least that is my current theory.
Laura wrote:"I will say that the idea that women don't separate sex and love and that the idea that gay men are by definition having lots of sex seems like a stereotype to me."
Is this a reference to my comment? Because I didn't actually say that. I was talking about societal tendencies, not individuals, and suggesting that certain tendencies arise from gender (whether due to biology or upbringing - that's a matter of argument) rather than from sexual orientation, as Mr. Thornton had been arguing.
I used to cover Christian gay news as a reporter, so I'm well aware of the variety of views on monogamy in the gay community. As for women . . . I once asked a gay male slash writer what differences he saw between gayfic (the handy term in fandom for gay fiction written for gay men) and slash.
He replied, "Slash has more sex."
Thanks for your comments, Laura. Part of my goal in thinking about all of this was to figure out where I "fit" in the scheme of things. Since so much of the promotion is left to us writers, understanding where you fit is very important. It sounds like you're going through the same sort of thing.I've heard good things about Dreamspinner, and it sounds like you're riding the cusp of a new sub-genre since they've started an imprint for it. I've had a little success with the gay press but I've had to be very clear that I'm not a romance writer since my publishers are. You might have some luck if you make it clear you're writing in a new type of genre which is Christian but affirming - or some phrase that lets them know that.
It was not in reference to your comment. I was responding to this from the first post on this page: "Another determiner of genre would be the sexual behavior of the characters. Typically, gay men have the ability to separate love and sex. They can pursue both at the same time and in completely different directions. Typically, straight women view sex and love as intermingled."I'm really out of touch with all these genres. Gayfic, slash, chicklit...
There may be people who read my book and say that the characters don't view sex the way they think gay men would as a group. I haven't heard that yet, but I am open to that criticism. The straight men who have read it seem to accept them as male, and a couple of gay male readers have said nice things and if they thought the characters didn't ring true in their sexuality they didn't share that with me.
One female reader thought that one of my protagonists should be less monogamous in order to be more authentic as a gay man. I considered her point, but I decided that it was not where I needed the story to go.
I was concerned about trying to base my characters on something I might read about what gay men as a group are supposed to be, or what I read in other people's novels or watched on Queer as Folk or something. I was afraid if I did that and tried to make them representatives of all gay men that they might become charicatures. So I just had to go with my instinct on who these guys were and hope it rang true.
I have been kind of curious about the m/m genre since I discovered it. Romance novels in general don't seem like the type of literature that generally appeals to men. So I wondered if gay men would be likely to read romance novels whether they had gay characters or not.
I also wonder about the "romance" label, if a love story written by a woman becomes by default a "romance" and one written by a man gets a different label.
I'm probably more thinking out loud that responding to you, Dusk. The whole ups and downs of genre categories is just very present in my mind at the moment. Every label is both a help- it identifies your book to people who might be looking for whatever is in it, and it is a hinderence, in that every label is also a limitation.
Yes Marshall,I've been trying hard to do that. I've been trying to reach out to people who might like it, including the m/m audience, but trying not to confound their expectations too much. I want to try to make it clear that I didn't really view the book as a "romance" novel, but I don't want to, by saying that, make it sound like I disrespect the genre or its fans. I would be pleased as punch if romance readers liked it just for its love story, but I don't want to be stuck in a category that doesn't quite fit. So I'm just having a bit of a problem trying to figure out how to forge the right relationship with the Dreamspinner audience itself.
I agree, parts of the m/m audience will like it. You may want to say love story wherever possible and avoid the word romance when you can. Nicholas Sparks writes love stories (though he elevates them beyond that) and I'm sure there's a big crossover from romance readers on his work. So, the romance audience is used to the differences - or rather the greater freedom taken in love stories as compared to romance stories.I suggest you google some of the non-fiction books about reconciling Christianity with homosexuality. You might be able to get reviewed in some of the same places or find some other promotional ideas. You might also check out "more-light" congregations (I think they're still called that, they were in the 90s) ... find some of the larger congregations and donate books for fundraisers etc.
I've had some good luck with welcoming congregations (Unitarian and UCC in particular) adding it as a book club selection. Of course, getting listed as a book club selection and having the people read it and discuss it takes months. I am feeling fairly confident in the long run that people will "get" what it is when they have had a chance to be exposed to it, but it's slow and I'm not a terribly patient person. :)I do think it may be a bit easier for a man to avoid the romance label that for a woman, especially a woman writing about gay men. But Annie Prolux managed it with Brokeback Mountain, so...
I wonder if a publisher like Dreamspinner might be able to expand their reach by rebranding themselves as publishing books about gay characters, because they seem to span a lot of sub-genres just looking at their catalog, there are mysteries and werewolves and all of that. I think that may be part of what they're trying to do with Itineris.
Yes, I think publishers are having this same process at their level as well and we'll be seeing changes in the next few years. You'll also find that there are differences between those who buy books and those who buy ebooks. The romance audience adapted to e-readers quickly while I think gay men are slower on the uptake. They're more likely to use iPads and things and get pulled into apps rather than books. A generality I know, but that's what I'm seeing. For most of us, physical books are more promotional since they don't sell well. But you may find that, in the long run, you're selling more books than other Dreamspinner writers. Just guessing there but it's something to keep an eye on.
Laura wrote: "I wonder if a publisher like Dreamspinner might be able to expand their reach by rebranding themselves as publishing books about gay characters"That's not a bad idea, Laura. I do think that readers expectations of what a book is about can kill a book in its infancy. Rating a book badly because they don't like books with message when that's the main reason for writing the book seems a bit unfair.
Which brings us back to the whole concept of this blog, ie labelling and genre definition.
Take comfort that books can be around for many years, and sometimes the book with more meat on them may not be great sellers at first, but they do last.
Part of the problem is that ebooks have become equated with erotica, instead of seeing them as an alternate form of publishing.
The concept is still in its infancy and there is a place for a publisher to understand that it is a medium not a constriction. Dreamspinner is pushing the boundaries, hopefully readers will support them.
My initial impression too, and I'm not an expert by any means, is that the m/m genre audience appears to be fairly young as a group. So a certain type of story with younger characters and situations might be apt to appeal to them more. I'm so pleased to have this opportunity to talk to you. Most of the Goodreads forums seem a bit dead. Or you get a lot of cross talk from writers trying to promote their books at each other. This is one of the few times I've been able to engage is a real discussion.
Laura wrote: "Most of the Goodreads forums seem a bit dead. "There is an m/m forum which is huge and has a large variety. http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/2...
Your other avenue is Y/A writing if you're interested in addressing serious issues as paradoxically that seems the area you are "allowed" to explore ideas and beliefs.
There is also an m/m YA group. I can provide links if you like.
Many publishers have YA imprints. Noble Romance has one and they have chosen 18-24 instead of the more traditional (and to my mind wrong) 12-18 age group. They have gay relationships as well as traditional ones.
WeaselBox:I'm struggling with the "Christian fiction" label too, because I do have friends who write in that genre in the traditional way-- the sort of journey to find Christ as your personal savior kind of book.
I do want to express that it is a book that deals with spiritual themes, mainly because it is about a minister and his journey has to do wit his relationship to his faith. So, in a way, playing up the spirituality helps to contrast it with "just a love story."
On the other hand, I do understand the discomfort the "Christian" label presents to non-Christians, especially perhaps to people who have been vilified by the church.
Yet the alternative to putting labels on it is to say, "it's a book, read it," which people are not going to do unless they have some sense of why they should.
So even though "gay christian fiction" is probably a bad label for it too, it does make people say, "huh, that's interesting, tell me more." If they listen long enough after that to get an idea of what it is, then it might be a help rather than a hurt...
A.B. My book initially showed up on Amazon labeled as "erotica, explicit sex and homoerotica." My book would be so disappointing if you bought it for the explicit homoerotica. And if someone bought it for those labels and gave it a two star review because it was really a pathetic attempt at erotica, I would probably think that was fair too.
Laura wrote: "A.B. My book initially showed up on Amazon labeled as "erotica, explicit sex and homoerotica." My book would be so disappointing if you bought it for the explicit homoerotica. And if someone bou..."Part of the problem is that many book retailing sites immediately lump anything with gay characters as erotica even if the most they do is kiss. This is probably the area that needs to be addressed as it is discrimination.
Publishers tend to encourage writers to add sex so as not to disappoint readers rather than standing up to places like Amazon and getting them to remove those tags. Perhaps we are all addressing the wrong end of the donkey.....
A.B. I am a member of the m/m romance group that you mentioned, but I haven't really managed to get any conversations going there. The thing is that I don't really read in the genre. So I don't have much to add to the book discussions. I have poked around over there though. Maybe I need to dig more.I don't think I'm likely to write in the genre again. My characters happened to be gay men this time around but not because that's a particular focus of mine as a writer.
As to the erotica label, at one point in the marketing process, before I came to Dreamspinner, I felt like there was a sense that the only way to have the book picked up by the publishers who handle lgbt titles was to have a lot more explicit sex, almost as though that was the definition of what an lgbt book was (or a "g" book at any rate. The "l" ones probably can be cuddly).
I read an interview with Charles Lambert where he said that he wanted to do a book that had a gay couple with a boring, disappointing sex life because he felt like there was a requirement that gay men in literature all be having incredible sex all the time. I have his book, but haven't read it yet. It's on my to read list, which is very long.
I'm with you on the Amazon thing, which is another issue. I do think that is an issue of discrimination. Some people really do feel like a man kissing another man qualifies as "explicit sex."
Ms. Lee, have you tried sending review copies to gay Christian publications?On the topic of women and gay fiction, it does strike me that many people speaking on this topic (both men and women) show a lack of historical awareness. Mary Renault, Margaret Yourcenar, Patricia Nell Warren, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Rosemary Sutcliff, Isabelle Holland, Lynn Hall . . . All of them wrote novels featuring gay or bisexual men, between 1939 and 1980. (I'm sure there were many more female writers of gay fiction during this period; those are just the names that occur to me.) By 1992, so many women were working in this field that Jim Merrett wrote an article in The Advocate on the more narrow topic of women writing gay male porn.
If one is going to define gay fiction so narrowly as to exclude these earlier female writers, one needs to explain why these writers have appeared for decades on lists of gay fiction compiled by gay men.
Dusk,I'm aware of a number of gay Christian web pages and online publications. I don't know if I know of all of them, or the best/most likely ones, maybe there are some you can recommend.
I contacted one or two and one web master had me send her a book, but so far hasn't published a review. I haven't reached out to any that don't seem to review books, but maybe I should.
That's an incredibly intersting article. I had no idea of these differences. I would like to say that I *am* an exception!! Being a gay man, I still prefer the setting of m/m romance to what the author here calls gay fiction. So would it enhance authenticity, if I read m/m romance novels written by gay male authors??
Gosh, life is so complicated ;)
Since I wrote this, nearly two years ago, I've done a lot more thinking and a lot more reading. Your question about authenticity is interesting. Given my reading I'd have to say not necessarily. I've read a couple of m/m novels by men which seem, in a number of ways, very inauthentic. I had the feeling reading them that the authors were playing to the larger female audience in order to get sales. Have you read Every Time I Think of You by Jim Provenzano? It won the lambda last year for Gay Romance. I liked it quite a lot.
Thanks for that great response!!As I'm entirely new to the genre I haven't read many books yet. But I do know and love some classics like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Catch Trap and Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner - both again written by women.
I'm definitely gonna get me Every Time I Think of You. It's got incredibly good reviews here. Thanks for pointing it out to me.
I believe MZB and PNW are both lesbians. (Mary Renault should be added to this as well - The Persian Boy). They were all able to write with some success about gay men - because they were assumed to be straight women making the subject more palatable to the larger audience (something really not in effect today) ... there were lesbian novels but none with the kind of success these women gained writing about gay men.
Also, Marion Zimmer Bradley's first marriage was to a male-attracted man; a lot of The Catch Trap appears to be drawn from that experience.Another early author who wrote about gay men is Rosemary Sutcliff. A gay couple appear in a rather poignant subplot of Sword At Sunset, while a gay man (gay in the Ancient Greek sense; he's attracted to a youth) is a main character in The Flowers of Adonis. As far as I know, Sutcliff was heterosexual.
I have never heard of her. Interesting.
She's well known in Britain; not as well known in the U.S., except among Arthurian fans and fans of the recent British/American film The Eagle, which is based (somewhat loosely) on her most famous children's novel. (Not to be missed is this two-post commentary on the film: Brokeback Eagle. The title of the commentary comes from a quotation by the main actor in the film, Tatum Channing. Another quotation from Channing, this one via the commentary: "They were going to bring in Cottia, Marcus's love interest from the book, but the producers felt that it would be 'too confusing' and felt that, according to Channing, the love story should 'stay simmering between [him] and Jamie.'")
*Ahem.* Well. Getting back to Rosemary Sutcliff, her godson runs a blog about her these days.
Marshall wrote: "I've only read one book of his LONGHORNS which I really enjoyed and recommend. Though it definitely falls on the gay fiction/gay romance side of the fence. A lot of romance readers would not like it. "I loved LONGHORNS! And I agree that a lot of romance readers would not like it. But I can’t put my finger on why, not in a succinct manner anyway.
Marshall wrote: "I've read a couple of m/m novels by men which seem, in a number of ways, very inauthentic. I had the feeling reading them that the authors were playing to the larger female audience in order to get sales. "Do you feel this way about Damon Suede’s “Hot Head”? I happened to love it and I read it at least three times, bought the paperback, and the sweatshirt and befriended the author on Facebook. As much as I loved it, I did get the feeling that the writing was playing to a largely female, heterosexual audience and I could well imagine my own more literary gay male friends sooner scratching their own eyeballs out than punishing themselves by reading it.
I also seem to recall that “Hot Head” became a bestseller on amazon.com, under Kindle-Fiction-Gay Romance-male romance, or something like that.
I enjoyed Hot Head a lot. The whole gay-for-you trope is a little hard to swallow but I thought he did a really good job with it.
Marshall wrote: "I enjoyed Hot Head a lot. The whole gay-for-you trope is a little hard to swallow but I thought he did a really good job with it."As an astute reader on another discussion said, the whole GFY-thing is introduced and made a little less unbelievable when you read the story and keep a look out for the small, small clues, the little chinks in the armour of our heretofore straight MC, that would allow such a possibility. Something like a string of unsuccessful relationships with women, inability to connect emotionally with women, something like that.
I thought Damon Suede did a really good job too. There was a “guyness” about it that’s missing from other Fireman stories such as “Two In Two Out” by G.A. Hauser. With initials like G.A., I can’t imagine what the sex of the author would be.
I've met G.A. But I haven't read any of her books. I think she is popular, though.
Marshall wrote: "I've met G.A. But I haven't read any of her books. I think she is popular, though."Sorry, I was being facetious about the whole G.A.-thing. Not the brightest star in the firmament here, but I have learned a thing or two in my time reading m/m: when the author doesn’t display a picture of themselves or uses initials in place of a first name, or uses a bi-gender first name, it’s a pretty sure bet that they’re women.
No question. She’s popular, very popular. And very popular amongst the kind of readership who would take very little pleasure in reading a book like V. Banis’ LONGHORNS. I loved that book too, but am left wondering why many of my female-heterosexual co-readers of m/m would not be drawn to it.
If I remember LONGHORNS correctly, the younger guy fucks around while chasing after the older guy. A lot of women who read these books abhor promiscuity and infidelity. This is a comment left on my book The Perils of Praline "Considering this one. Not sure if it's for me b/c of the multiple partners over the course of the story. :/"
There are certainly a lot of women who are more open minded and even enjoy characters who get around... but a larger group of women just doesn't like to separate love and sex. They expect that once the two protagonists have met they instantly become monogamous without even discussing it.
Love the commentary.