Is Originality Gone from Romance?

I overheard a conversation the other day while waiting in line at the grocery story. “Vampires are so overrated,” someone said. I ducked my chin down to my chest and hid a grin. The person speaking obviously hadn’t checked out the the romance section in any bookstore for a while. In some respects the person’s comment was correct. Vampires as we knew them 5 to 10 years ago are indeed over-rated. Mainly because they’ve been written to exhaustion. However, that shouldn’t take away from the skills of the authors who made them popular. In fact, their popularity is a testament to how well those stories were woven. Stating something is “overrated” or “over-used” is just another way of claiming there’s a lack of perceived originality. There’s an old adage that states there are no new stories, only new ways to tell them. Sir author Thomas Quiller-Couch (that’s a mouth full), … Continue reading