Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / Open-Door vs. Closed-Door Romance, Kate Goldbeck on Writing Under Reader Surveillance, and a Case for Cheating

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Open-Door vs. Closed-Door Romance, Kate Goldbeck on Writing Under Reader Surveillance, and a Case for Cheating · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
0:09
Speaker 2: We're your hosts, Sinjon Obasker and Tyler McCall, and we're
0:13
Speaker 2: so excited to talk everything romance, from the novels and
0:16
Speaker 2: the tropes to the book discreen adaptations, and of course
0:20
Speaker 2: the drama of it all, you know, unpacking what the
0:23
Speaker 2: genre says about who we are and how we love.
0:25
Speaker 3: Big stuff, important stuff. Tyler, I want to start with
0:30
Speaker 3: a controversial topic today. Hell yeah, something that is the
0:33
Speaker 3: subject of much discourse on romance internet.
0:36
Speaker 1: Let me sit up straighter, let me get locked in.
0:39
Speaker 2: I don't know many people who feel weakly about this subject,
0:42
Speaker 2: and it is a closed door versus open door romance.
0:46
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly about this.
0:47
Speaker 2: I suspected that you would. I too, feel strongly about this.
0:51
Speaker 2: For the uninitiated, closed door is romance where either there
0:55
Speaker 2: is no implication of sex on page at all, or
0:59
Speaker 2: there is but it's fade to black moment. There's a
1:02
Speaker 2: suggestion that the main characters are about to have sex,
1:05
Speaker 2: and we just get the door closing on them functionally
1:09
Speaker 2: on page. And then open door is of course an
1:11
Speaker 2: explicit sex scene. And the thing is, I think depending
1:15
Speaker 2: on where you enter romance community from you might believe that,
1:19
Speaker 2: like all romance is open door, but there is actually
1:23
Speaker 2: a really large body of Christian and inspirational romances that
1:27
Speaker 2: exist in the genre. It's also not just Christian work.
1:30
Speaker 2: There are also people who take the position that like
1:34
Speaker 2: romance is too freaked out, there's too much sex. Yeah,
1:37
Speaker 2: there are a range of opinions here, and you can
1:39
Speaker 2: probably at this point guess how we feel about it.
1:41
Speaker 2: But I want to ask, how do you come to
1:43
Speaker 2: this conversation? Have you seen it online? Where do you
1:47
Speaker 2: stand on it?
1:48
Speaker 1: I am firmly open door romance for a number of reasons.
1:52
Speaker 1: I think the biggest that I should just say upfront
1:55
Speaker 1: is that I was a big youth group kid in
1:57
Speaker 1: high school. Like I accidentally got saved at a Christian
2:00
Speaker 1: youth camp, like I was, like really, which is a
2:02
Speaker 1: story for another day. I think I've literally only read
2:05
Speaker 1: like one proper true closed door romance. I definitely did
2:09
Speaker 1: not know what was closed door. But the way that
2:11
Speaker 1: these two adults were talking about the possibility of having
2:15
Speaker 1: sex with each other and how it was just very
2:18
Speaker 1: important that it be special for the first time, oh,
2:22
Speaker 1: really took me back in a way that I did
2:24
Speaker 1: not want to be taken back, you know what I mean,
2:26
Speaker 1: very like you only get one shot at this. And
2:29
Speaker 1: it was also, if I'm remembering correctly, this was years ago,
2:31
Speaker 1: mind you, But if I'm remembering correctly, the girl was definitely,
2:34
Speaker 1: if not a virgin, very virginal, and the guy was not.
2:38
Speaker 1: And it was this like, but for you, this is
2:41
Speaker 1: more important to me than sex, So like I just
2:43
Speaker 1: don't want to have sex, you know, on a broader sense,
2:46
Speaker 1: I think from a craft perspective, I think that sex
2:50
Speaker 1: is part of the character work. I think that there's
2:53
Speaker 1: so much potential for character work and sex scenes that
2:56
Speaker 1: you're leaving on the table, like stakes that you're leaving
2:59
Speaker 1: on the table either like I feel like the author
3:02
Speaker 1: is embarrassed to be writing a sex scene, or there's
3:06
Speaker 1: some moral judgment on like your too horny if you
3:08
Speaker 1: want to read a sex scene. There's just a lot
3:10
Speaker 1: going on there.
3:11
Speaker 2: For me, How do you.
3:12
Speaker 1: Feel, well?
3:14
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's safe to say that I
3:16
Speaker 2: agree with you in a lot of ways, Like I
3:17
Speaker 2: don't have the same personal experiences. For me, I share
3:21
Speaker 2: a lot of those critiques of like you're missing a
3:24
Speaker 2: craft opportunity like you're not taking a craft opportunity that
3:27
Speaker 2: is so singular in this genre, like the opportunity to
3:30
Speaker 2: like really watch people's bodies on page doing things with
3:35
Speaker 2: each other. And it's been really interesting to me to
3:37
Speaker 2: see in a broader culture that is, like, oh, why
3:41
Speaker 2: is there so much gratuitous sex in xyz media? Like
3:45
Speaker 2: every week Twitter is having a conversation about gratuitous sex scenes.
3:49
Speaker 2: I recently rewatched Pretty Women for the first time in years,
3:52
Speaker 2: and in my mind's I for whatever reason, Pretty Women
3:57
Speaker 2: a movie that follows a sex worker, and like Richard
4:01
Speaker 2: Gear is a billionaire who hires her. I was like, oh,
4:04
Speaker 2: out of the goodness of his heart, He's like, I'm
4:06
Speaker 2: not gonna sleep with you until the end of the week,
4:09
Speaker 2: and then they sleep together. Like in my mind, I
4:12
Speaker 2: had like rewritten that story because I mean I'd watched
4:15
Speaker 2: it when I was in like college. I think for
4:17
Speaker 2: the first time, they have sex on the first night,
4:21
Speaker 2: because Richard Gear is a billionaire who hired an escort
4:25
Speaker 2: to have sex with her, Like, there's an explicit scene
4:28
Speaker 2: around a condom. There's like a scene where he eats
4:31
Speaker 2: her out on a piano, Like it's it is an
4:33
Speaker 2: explicitly sexual movie from the very start, and there is
4:38
Speaker 2: a big iconic, pivotal sex scene where, like for the
4:41
Speaker 2: first time they kiss each other on the mouth, Like
4:43
Speaker 2: that is an iconic bit of character work. But like
4:47
Speaker 2: it is not a movie that shies away from the
4:50
Speaker 2: visual pleasures of sex in any way. This man hired
4:53
Speaker 2: a sex worker to have sex with her and it
4:56
Speaker 2: was not incompatible with him then becoming her night in
4:59
Speaker 2: Shining Armor. So there's that. I think a lot about
5:02
Speaker 2: something that this French philosopher Maurice Marlow Ponti said about
5:06
Speaker 2: how sexuality is a kind of a propriate reception. And
5:10
Speaker 2: this is like a paraphrase of a paraphrase of his work.
5:13
Speaker 2: Proper reception is like your sixth sense. It's how you're
5:15
Speaker 2: oriented in space. It's like beyond all of your immediate
5:20
Speaker 2: bodily feelings. It's like your vestibular sense of where you
5:24
Speaker 2: are in a location. That's how you know that your
5:26
Speaker 2: hands are five inches in front of your face. That's
5:28
Speaker 2: how you can kind of sometimes feel when other people
5:31
Speaker 2: are looking at you. It's that thing, and I think
5:35
Speaker 2: it is actually incredibly difficult from a craft perspective to
5:39
Speaker 2: accomplish that to capture intimacy without demonstration of sex and
5:46
Speaker 2: sexuality on page, because a huge part of a romance
5:50
Speaker 2: novel is attempting to locate where a character is in
5:53
Speaker 2: space and in relation to others. So when you pluck
5:57
Speaker 2: that piece out of it, you've lost an opportunity and
6:01
Speaker 2: you fail to accomplish something. So I just find it
6:04
Speaker 2: to be such a limitation.
6:05
Speaker 1: Even if there are people who say that they like
6:08
Speaker 1: open door romances, I feel like there is still kind
6:10
Speaker 1: of a moralization or like a moral spectrum there of
6:13
Speaker 1: how we talk about romances, which is like, well, I
6:16
Speaker 1: read like classy, upmarket sex scenes, Like I don't read
6:21
Speaker 1: like smut, right, Like that's kind of the big one. Well,
6:23
Speaker 1: like I'm not reading smut to me. It's like kind
6:25
Speaker 1: of a pipeline, if you will. Of like there's a
6:27
Speaker 1: correct way to write about sex and sex scenes that is,
6:31
Speaker 1: like I'm using heavy air quotes here, like classy, and
6:35
Speaker 1: then there's a way that is trashy tasteful, you know, tasteful.
6:40
Speaker 1: Tasteful is a word that gets used a lot that
6:42
Speaker 1: pisses me off. It tasteful for me is the same
6:44
Speaker 1: as like flattering. When we're talking about clothes, like shut.
6:46
Speaker 2: Up right, care on the flip side of this, since
6:48
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously we have strong feelings about this and
6:50
Speaker 2: we're mostly aligned, Like are there circumstances for you where
6:54
Speaker 2: you've been like, Okay, I get it, there wasn't a
6:56
Speaker 2: sex scene unless that was fine or it wasn't needed,
6:59
Speaker 2: or like the fact that it wasn't there didn't rob
7:02
Speaker 2: the story of its bones.
7:04
Speaker 1: I get it in Ya, like I get it when
7:06
Speaker 1: we're talking about like two teenagers. I think that it's
7:10
Speaker 1: important to show sexuality and to allude to something because
7:14
Speaker 1: you know that happens. But I get why you're not
7:16
Speaker 1: writing like an explicit sex scene about two teenagers, like duh,
7:19
Speaker 1: obviously right right? Do you have one that you're like,
7:22
Speaker 1: this is fine?
7:23
Speaker 2: No. I was also thinking about the Ya romance exemption,
7:26
Speaker 2: where I'm like, but it's also interesting the two Ya romances.
7:30
Speaker 2: I'm not a huge Ya reader, so that's like my
7:32
Speaker 2: own reading bias, I'll say that. But the two Ya
7:35
Speaker 2: romances that I've read and really loved that felt like, yeah,
7:39
Speaker 2: I would totally pick this up again. I would reread this,
7:41
Speaker 2: I would spend my own money on these books. Were
7:44
Speaker 2: Talia Hibbert, it's highly suspicious and unfairly cute, which was adorable.
7:49
Speaker 2: It was so sweet. And then I was also thinking
7:52
Speaker 2: about Checking Me by Ali Hazelwood, which is like one
7:54
Speaker 2: of my favorites of her books, Like it's such a
7:57
Speaker 2: beautiful book and they do have sex, but it's fade
7:59
Speaker 2: to black, like it's true fade to black, and there's
8:03
Speaker 2: enough discussion of what that sex means to these characters
8:08
Speaker 2: without us getting something explicit on page. So I think
8:11
Speaker 2: why similarly I feel this, like, yeah, I totally I
8:14
Speaker 2: see the room for that, and those stories are still
8:17
Speaker 2: really solid because they're playing on other things like the
8:21
Speaker 2: exploration of like youth and novelty and all of that
8:26
Speaker 2: is doing other work and also the purpose of the
8:29
Speaker 2: novel I think feels a little bit different the other situation.
8:34
Speaker 2: And I don't know that I've necessarily been in this position,
8:36
Speaker 2: but I'm trying to think. I think people often talk
8:40
Speaker 2: about ACE individuals like a sexual individuals or people who
8:43
Speaker 2: are on the ACE spectrum, where like they might experience
8:47
Speaker 2: romantic attraction but not sexual attraction. But here's the thing,
8:52
Speaker 2: I still think in novels about ACE characters, or at
8:57
Speaker 2: least the ones that I have read and also in
8:59
Speaker 2: my conversations with ACE people about their lives. It's not
9:03
Speaker 2: that their lives are totally robbed of the discussion of sexuality. Actually,
9:07
Speaker 2: I feel like asexual people are often having explicit discussions
9:11
Speaker 2: about sexuality and how they relate to and are intimate
9:14
Speaker 2: with people when sex isn't on the table. But there
9:17
Speaker 2: is serious consideration. And I think that's what counts, right that, Like,
9:22
Speaker 2: there isn't pointed omission because like you are hoping to
9:25
Speaker 2: erase the like polluting, corruptive influence of sex on the
9:29
Speaker 2: reader or whoever is involved with the book. There is
9:32
Speaker 2: pointed discussion because sex works differently or doesn't work at
9:37
Speaker 2: all in some people's lives. Like that I think is
9:40
Speaker 2: a key distinction.
9:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sex is still present. The sex is still
9:43
Speaker 1: present in the sense of like how it isn't physically present, right,
9:47
Speaker 1: Like it's still a consideration.
9:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I will also say that, like, not all
9:51
Speaker 2: sex scenes are created equally or for the same propos Like,
9:55
Speaker 2: not every sex scene is intended to titillate either. No.
9:58
Speaker 2: I also think that the range of sex scenes that
10:01
Speaker 2: exist in the world of romance and four different purposes
10:05
Speaker 2: is vast and all have their own merit and serve
10:09
Speaker 2: their own purposes narratively.
10:11
Speaker 1: One I think talking about good sex scenes is such
10:15
Speaker 1: a good open door sex scene is such a good
10:18
Speaker 1: segue into our guest Kate Goldbeck, who knows her way
10:22
Speaker 1: around a good sex scene. I have not been to
10:25
Speaker 1: a Chilies once since her novel Daddy Issues came out,
10:28
Speaker 1: and not thought about fucking at a Chili's. Kate is
10:33
Speaker 1: one of our friends, like friend of the pod, I
10:36
Speaker 1: was running a one woman fan club out of the
10:39
Speaker 1: proverbial trunk of my car aka my Instagram, where I
10:42
Speaker 1: was like, if you do not read you again, we
10:45
Speaker 1: can't be friends. And we're so excited to have Kate
10:48
Speaker 1: on today to discuss the pressures of being a romance
10:53
Speaker 1: author online in the Big Year twenty twenty six in
10:57
Speaker 1: terms of meeting reader expectations and readers.
11:00
Speaker 4: Are so I don't know if you know this extremely.
11:03
Speaker 1: Vocal online about their likes and dislikes in the genre.
11:06
Speaker 1: As we just were correct, us included's included, us included,
11:12
Speaker 1: And so I could not be more excited to dive
11:16
Speaker 1: into that conversation with Kate. Hi, Kate, We're so excited
11:29
Speaker 1: to have you.
11:30
Speaker 4: I'm so excited to be here.
11:32
Speaker 1: I'm really curious about this, both as a romance reader
11:35
Speaker 1: but also somebody who is about to have a novel
11:39
Speaker 1: of romance novel come out in the spring. This trend
11:42
Speaker 1: that I've noticed online, I don't want to call it
11:44
Speaker 1: a need to please readers, but I do think that
11:46
Speaker 1: like readers expectations have been maybe louder and more obvious
11:51
Speaker 1: than ever before, because you're assaulted by them anytime you
11:54
Speaker 1: log into any social media app of your choice. How
11:58
Speaker 1: have you, as an author sort of experienced that noise
12:03
Speaker 1: so to speak?
12:04
Speaker 4: Well, I think what happens is that before you debut
12:07
Speaker 4: as an author, you're naturally trying to like immerse yourself
12:12
Speaker 4: in the community a little bit or more. If you've
12:15
Speaker 4: been a reader, it's like you feel like, oh, I
12:17
Speaker 4: need to like follow more people so they'll follow. I
12:20
Speaker 4: need to build my you know, my community here, so
12:23
Speaker 4: you you end up engaging more than you probably did
12:26
Speaker 4: before or you ever will again in like reader circles,
12:31
Speaker 4: which I think is like a blessing in some ways,
12:34
Speaker 4: because when you're creating a product, you do want to know, like,
12:38
Speaker 4: what do my potential buyers of this product like want
12:42
Speaker 4: from it, So that all makes sense. But the more
12:47
Speaker 4: you consume from readers, the more like input you get,
12:53
Speaker 4: and the more you hear of the echo chamber. And
12:57
Speaker 4: it's also very manipulated by you know, the platforms that
13:02
Speaker 4: people are posting on, and that becomes even more of
13:04
Speaker 4: an echo chamber. And I think the negative stuff is
13:07
Speaker 4: definitely getting prioritized and pushed because it sparks conversation. So
13:13
Speaker 4: I feel like you're just hearing a lot more than
13:16
Speaker 4: you know, the average person would ever know about the
13:19
Speaker 4: preferences of romance readers.
13:22
Speaker 2: Part of what motivated this conversation is that I think
13:24
Speaker 2: you were uniquely vocal and transparent about your experience of
13:29
Speaker 2: writing shifting so radically between you again and Daddy issues
13:34
Speaker 2: and how like the process of coming to your second
13:36
Speaker 2: novel was challenging, and that's something that you were more
13:41
Speaker 2: transparent about than most. But like in many of my
13:44
Speaker 2: conversations with authors, that is not an entirely novel experience.
13:48
Speaker 2: Like many romance authors that I speak with, that I
13:51
Speaker 2: work with, that I know that I'm friends with, have
13:53
Speaker 2: talked about how radically different the experience of writing under
13:58
Speaker 2: some kind of visibility or in the wake of the
14:01
Speaker 2: reception to the first novel is like a fundamentally different experience,
14:05
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that part of it is that, like
14:07
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, people know who you are and
14:09
Speaker 2: have things to say to you. But I'm also curious
14:11
Speaker 2: if like there was something else about the process of
14:15
Speaker 2: writing the second book and trying to figure out how
14:18
Speaker 2: to be an artist who is known more publicly going forward,
14:22
Speaker 2: and how you made sense of that process and also
14:25
Speaker 2: like made peace with it or whatever it might be.
14:28
Speaker 4: I feel like, you know, once you get that feedback
14:31
Speaker 4: from actual readers, those voices are in your head, which
14:36
Speaker 4: is I think part of the problem with like writing
14:38
Speaker 4: the second book is you know, you're writing with people's
14:41
Speaker 4: I don't even want to say complaints or even critiques,
14:44
Speaker 4: but just sort of like all the little things that
14:46
Speaker 4: you've kind of like heard or just intuited or you're
14:49
Speaker 4: good reads writing or what you know, like all of
14:52
Speaker 4: those things where you feel like you've failed, you failed
14:55
Speaker 4: the people are kind of rattling around in your head,
14:58
Speaker 4: and that makes it really difficult to like draft something.
15:02
Speaker 4: When you draft, you're supposed to just like put it,
15:05
Speaker 4: you know, like vomit it out. Onto the page or whatever,
15:07
Speaker 4: and like, why would you feel like doing that if
15:10
Speaker 4: you're second guessing based on these like invisible But what
15:13
Speaker 4: about I don't like first person? It's like how can
15:16
Speaker 4: you write like that? So all you can do is
15:19
Speaker 4: really just decide, like, screw it, I just have to
15:22
Speaker 4: write what I feel like spending the next few months
15:25
Speaker 4: or years of my life with. I guess this is anecdotal,
15:28
Speaker 4: but it seems to me that there's this sort of
15:32
Speaker 4: like desire for romance books that are universally liked, almost
15:40
Speaker 4: in a way where I think in some other genres,
15:44
Speaker 4: more sort of polarizing or divisive or kind of conversation
15:47
Speaker 4: starting books are desired because they kind of like spark
15:51
Speaker 4: a lot of like discourse, and like memoirs for example,
15:54
Speaker 4: Like the memoirs that get the most attention in press
15:58
Speaker 4: are the ones that people are are arguing over. I
16:02
Speaker 4: think in romance you don't really see as many books
16:06
Speaker 4: that like people just have a lot of different opinions
16:09
Speaker 4: about becoming. The ones that are really successful, the ones
16:12
Speaker 4: that are the most successful, are almost always the ones
16:15
Speaker 4: where you barely find any people who are kind of
16:18
Speaker 4: saying like wait a minute, like I didn't like this
16:20
Speaker 4: or what about this? It's like it's just kind of
16:22
Speaker 4: like an interesting setup for a genre where it's like
16:26
Speaker 4: if if a book doesn't have that sort of like
16:29
Speaker 4: oh it's it's you know, rated four plus stars on Goodreads, like,
16:34
Speaker 4: people simply will not buy it.
16:37
Speaker 1: I have read some romance, and Sanja's heard me say
16:39
Speaker 1: this a million times. I have heard I've read some
16:42
Speaker 1: romances lately could have been an email, like this could
16:44
Speaker 1: have been an email. There's no stakes, there's no conflict.
16:48
Speaker 1: The man from the beginning is like this perfect therapized
16:52
Speaker 1: fantasy of a man who has never done ill in
16:55
Speaker 1: his life.
16:56
Speaker 4: I think a lot of romance writers honestly end up
17:00
Speaker 4: kind of creating that perfect man out of almost a fear.
17:03
Speaker 4: I think the dynamics are very like gendered the man character.
17:07
Speaker 4: If he does something wrong, it might come back to
17:12
Speaker 4: bite them when readers kind of point out like, oh,
17:15
Speaker 4: but he did this, so you know. I feel like
17:17
Speaker 4: there's so much ability for readers to publicly find, you know,
17:22
Speaker 4: like little out of context snippets of books now and
17:25
Speaker 4: kind of like post a thread about it, and I
17:27
Speaker 4: almost don't want to say that. They don't want to
17:28
Speaker 4: sound like, you know, there can't be that kind of critique,
17:31
Speaker 4: but I think that writers do have that in mind now,
17:33
Speaker 4: that like anything they write can kind of be like
17:36
Speaker 4: puled out of context and then like put under a
17:39
Speaker 4: magnifying glass, and then there can be some discourse about
17:42
Speaker 4: whether it's problematic. And it's a really nuanced issue because
17:47
Speaker 4: sometimes people do write problematic stuff and they should be
17:50
Speaker 4: maybe like called in about it. But on the other hand,
17:53
Speaker 4: I think it kind of leads to people defaulting to,
17:56
Speaker 4: I better not take a risk by making this character
18:00
Speaker 4: do something that could be criticized for that behavior. And
18:03
Speaker 4: you know, I feel like that's part of this whole
18:06
Speaker 4: like weird dynamic between readers and authors now, is that
18:10
Speaker 4: we are very aware of how, you know, just the
18:14
Speaker 4: smallest the smallest action or something they say can be
18:19
Speaker 4: put under a microscope and then analyzed in a way
18:22
Speaker 4: that we never intended. That's tough to write with knowing
18:25
Speaker 4: that as well, and I think it does lead to
18:27
Speaker 4: a lot of kind of milk toast perfect evolved men
18:30
Speaker 4: who you know, are asking for consent like ten times
18:34
Speaker 4: on the page because people are afraid it will be interpreted,
18:39
Speaker 4: you know, in a certain way. If it's not clearly
18:41
Speaker 4: given every time, when in reality, very few men are
18:44
Speaker 4: doing that and that's not most women's experience, but we
18:48
Speaker 4: have to adjust for that when it comes to writing
18:52
Speaker 4: a romance book.
18:53
Speaker 2: I appreciate you saying that because I think something I
18:55
Speaker 2: think about a lot is that people want to make
18:57
Speaker 2: good stuff, but like you have to let them.
19:01
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to let them.
19:03
Speaker 2: And similarly, like readers want to read good stuff, but
19:06
Speaker 2: they have to be trusted to read it. And like
19:09
Speaker 2: there's something about that contract between reader, publisher, market audience
19:16
Speaker 2: that feels fundamentally a little sprained. I'm not gonna say
19:20
Speaker 2: like fractured, but like sprained. And I think that that
19:23
Speaker 2: produces a lot of the circumstances that you've been talking about.
19:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I think you you stated that really beautifully.
19:30
Speaker 4: It sometimes seems like the people who publish romance are
19:34
Speaker 4: always kind of looking for like the perfect high concept
19:38
Speaker 4: mix of like the things that are currently Like that
19:40
Speaker 4: is how books are sold. It's like this meets this,
19:42
Speaker 4: and there's very little risk taking when it comes to
19:46
Speaker 4: like what they acquire, what authors even want to pitch
19:51
Speaker 4: because they just know, oh, this is going to be
19:53
Speaker 4: a tough sell or probably the agents know, like selling
19:56
Speaker 4: books is all about what has previously sold a book,
19:59
Speaker 4: most recently for a lot of money. That's kind of
20:01
Speaker 4: what determines like what you'll be able to sell. The
20:04
Speaker 4: only time it changes is when an indie author suddenly
20:08
Speaker 4: breaks out with something truly different. And I love when
20:10
Speaker 4: that happens because suddenly then it's like traad pops, Oh wait,
20:13
Speaker 4: we're also acquiring like four copycat books of this thing.
20:17
Speaker 4: The cycle starts over again. But like, I guess, thank
20:20
Speaker 4: god that indie publishing is so huge at Romance because
20:23
Speaker 4: that's kind of where a lot of the new you know,
20:26
Speaker 4: even some of the new like esthetic styles of covers
20:29
Speaker 4: have come more from like the indie side of things. Honestly,
20:32
Speaker 4: there's not a lot of incentive for even like the
20:35
Speaker 4: most popular authors who maybe could could say like actually
20:39
Speaker 4: I want to write something like this that's very different
20:42
Speaker 4: than what they wrote before. It happens very really and
20:45
Speaker 4: I honestly think they probably don't want to deal with
20:47
Speaker 4: the fallout either. You know, It's like they don't want
20:50
Speaker 4: to hear the blowback from you know, like oh, you know,
20:54
Speaker 4: the uproar for a day they don't want to be
20:56
Speaker 4: a trending topic on threads for a few hours. It's
20:59
Speaker 4: like who. So I think there's just like very little incentive. Honestly,
21:04
Speaker 4: I think what people will end up doing, they'll do
21:06
Speaker 4: a different pen name, they'll do it anonymously if they
21:09
Speaker 4: truly want to do something different, and they won't want
21:11
Speaker 4: to have to deal with what comes from doing something
21:14
Speaker 4: that's actually different, because there's just a lot of like
21:17
Speaker 4: negatives that can come from that.
21:20
Speaker 2: I think the points to really pull out from this
21:22
Speaker 2: is that, like, obviously the Internet has shaped the production
21:26
Speaker 2: of romance novels in such a massive way because this
21:30
Speaker 2: like relationship between author and reader has become so much
21:33
Speaker 2: more visible and essential and bidirectional. Like you can ignore
21:40
Speaker 2: a letter, it's very hard to ignore a DM or
21:42
Speaker 2: an email. And I think it's been really interesting to
21:45
Speaker 2: hear you talk about that pressure but also your own
21:49
Speaker 2: interest in making art that is not so deeply influenced
21:55
Speaker 2: by that. Which isn't to say that you're like totally
21:56
Speaker 2: impervious to these forces, but I think I think it's
22:00
Speaker 2: a really welcome reminder that like, ultimately people can make
22:05
Speaker 2: art on their own terms, and that means in some
22:08
Speaker 2: ways being brave enough to take the risk to do so,
22:10
Speaker 2: because like, structurally publishing is not built to be let's
22:15
Speaker 2: take big risks. So like the individual person does actually
22:18
Speaker 2: end up having to make choices to be like, I
22:21
Speaker 2: want to write the thing I want to write, and
22:23
Speaker 2: I think that's really lovely, especially in this very oppressive,
22:27
Speaker 2: surveilled environment where everyone is watching everyone and looking for
22:30
Speaker 2: signs of wrongdoing. Do you have words for incoming authors
22:35
Speaker 2: and romance about their relationship to social media guidance?
22:38
Speaker 4: Perhaps I will say this, Threads has made the whole
22:42
Speaker 4: book discourse situation much worse than it was prior to
22:46
Speaker 4: Threads being a platform. I have a feeling it's because
22:50
Speaker 4: of the way their algorithm works and because of the
22:52
Speaker 4: way that they push people towards very contentious posts. There
22:56
Speaker 4: is no advice you can give. You can't not be
22:59
Speaker 4: online as as an author, except well, I don't know.
23:02
Speaker 4: And there's a few really interesting and romance cases of
23:05
Speaker 4: people who are or have been anonymous do not show
23:10
Speaker 4: their faces. You know, it's like no one really knows anything,
23:12
Speaker 4: and I'm not going to say who they are, but
23:15
Speaker 4: you know, it's like there's certain authors that have had
23:17
Speaker 4: enormous success and haven't engaged really in anything, which I
23:21
Speaker 4: think is the most amazing. You know, it's like, wait
23:25
Speaker 4: a minute, why why does that work so well for
23:28
Speaker 4: this person? But literally everyone else is out there like
23:32
Speaker 4: posting crazy pictures of themselves to try to figure out
23:35
Speaker 4: trending stuff or whatever, like, and it all looks the
23:37
Speaker 4: same and like nobody care is you know, why are
23:40
Speaker 4: we making all these graphics? And people are in Canava?
23:42
Speaker 4: And then you have people who just like somehow break
23:45
Speaker 4: out as anonymous. It's amazing to me and I can't
23:48
Speaker 4: understand why we haven't cracked how everyone can do that.
23:52
Speaker 4: It just doesn't make sense to be.
23:55
Speaker 1: So delete threads that notice.
23:57
Speaker 4: Delete threads is terrible.
24:00
Speaker 2: Two, remember who you are as an artist, even if
24:03
Speaker 2: the Internet tries to make you forget Three, if you
24:06
Speaker 2: can hack it and be one of those totally anonymous
24:09
Speaker 2: romance authors at Lena Fronte Style, do it, do it?
24:13
Speaker 4: Yeah?
24:14
Speaker 1: Where to Live By? I'm running all this down, Kate.
24:17
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on this so lovely
24:20
Speaker 2: and so informative, and I'm so excited to see whenever,
24:24
Speaker 2: at your own pace and in your own way, whatever
24:27
Speaker 2: else comes out from you me too, Thank you.
24:30
Speaker 4: This was a dream.
24:40
Speaker 2: We just had such a lovely conversation with Kate, and
24:43
Speaker 2: I think it was also so lovely to get a
24:45
Speaker 2: chance to talk to her a little bit about you again,
24:47
Speaker 2: because we know it to be one of the most
24:50
Speaker 2: beloved revivals of When Harry Met Sally, at least in
24:53
Speaker 2: our lives if nowhere else. Yes, definitely in more people's lives.
24:57
Speaker 2: And it's got me thinking a little bit about a
25:00
Speaker 2: kind of funny question that we asked Nana Kamara a
25:02
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago about rom coms that she would
25:06
Speaker 2: like to adapt into romance novels that she hasn't yet,
25:09
Speaker 2: and she gave us two ensemble yeah rom coms, And
25:12
Speaker 2: it had me thinking about, like, what it is that
25:15
Speaker 2: we would want to see either revived or in media
25:22
Speaker 2: in romance that we like haven't seen in a while,
25:25
Speaker 2: or that we miss or entirely new, Like what is
25:28
Speaker 2: the new thing that you were dying for in romance?
25:31
Speaker 2: I gotta know what are your romance storylines?
25:34
Speaker 1: I think that I have a polarizing answer to this.
25:38
Speaker 2: I love a polarizing answer.
25:39
Speaker 1: I low key think we got to bring cheating back. Yeah,
25:44
Speaker 1: I get that I'm not going to get into the
25:45
Speaker 1: quagmire of the moralizing of cheating, notchinting, whatever. Right, But like,
25:50
Speaker 1: when I think about, like my favorite rom com is
25:53
Speaker 1: You've Got Mail, in a technical way, those are two
25:57
Speaker 1: people who are at least emotionally cheating. Want to get
26:00
Speaker 1: into the weeds either on whether I think emotional cheating
26:02
Speaker 1: is real, but those are two people who are having
26:04
Speaker 1: emotional affairs, like they have other partners. And I think
26:08
Speaker 1: that there is very useful data that you can get
26:12
Speaker 1: from characters in their romance by them being with the
26:15
Speaker 1: like quote unquote wrong people.
26:17
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, I have a lot to say about like
26:19
Speaker 2: our allegiances to like real world morality in romance in general.
26:23
Speaker 2: But I agree with you that, like, in order for
26:26
Speaker 2: stuff to happen in a romance novel, stuff has to happen, like, Yeah,
26:30
Speaker 2: people in their intimate lives do regularly hurt each other,
26:35
Speaker 2: and like it makes for an interesting story. And I
26:40
Speaker 2: have a friend Alice, who talks a lot about how
26:43
Speaker 2: jealousy is one of those emotions that tells you what
26:45
Speaker 2: you want. Yeah, And so I think when romance employees
26:49
Speaker 2: cheating and infidelity as like an entry point into that conversation.
26:53
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting.
26:55
Speaker 1: I agree, and I think that there's a spectrum of that.
26:57
Speaker 4: Right.
26:58
Speaker 1: It's more it's quote unquot unacceptable. If it's a character
27:01
Speaker 1: who's maybe unhappy in a relationship and can't put their
27:03
Speaker 1: finger on why they're unhappy in a relationship or in
27:05
Speaker 1: a dead relationship and can't figure out why, and like,
27:08
Speaker 1: rather than just a straightforward I'm in a really happy
27:10
Speaker 1: relationship and I want to go fuck this other person.
27:12
Speaker 1: If we can oversimplify the morality of cheating, I just
27:16
Speaker 1: want to be clear on what I'm suggesting to people
27:19
Speaker 1: before anybody yells at me on al Gore's Internet what about.
27:24
Speaker 2: You, I want more kind of ridiculous premises in Yeah, Romance. Yeah,
27:31
Speaker 2: there's a contemporary romance writer named Susan Elizabeth Phillips who
27:35
Speaker 2: wrote this book called Nobody's Baby but Mine, Oh Yes,
27:39
Speaker 2: which I have like detailed the whole plot of to Tyler.
27:42
Speaker 2: We simply don't have time for me to go into
27:44
Speaker 2: all of it today. But she is the queen of
27:47
Speaker 2: writing a romance novel where you're like, sure, what the hell?
27:50
Speaker 2: That was the craziest thing I've ever read. Eva and
27:53
Speaker 2: all of that like absurdity created a book that was
27:57
Speaker 2: so fun and funny to read. I think this is
28:01
Speaker 2: also partially because I come from paranormals. Like I love paranorias.
28:05
Speaker 2: I like found Kresley Cohle's Immortals After Dark series to
28:09
Speaker 2: be so deeply influential, and those are some like ridiculous,
28:12
Speaker 2: outrageous books at times. Again, people's allegiances to the real
28:17
Speaker 2: world feel like almost claustrophobic at times in romance, and
28:22
Speaker 2: I want people to play. I want people to write
28:26
Speaker 2: sort of diabolically nuts stories. I would love to see
28:29
Speaker 2: those kinds of stories also adapted on screen. I would
28:32
Speaker 2: love to see a piece of romance media that is
28:36
Speaker 2: willing to like really poke fun at itself, but with
28:40
Speaker 2: like great love and devotion to the genre, is telling
28:44
Speaker 2: a sort of ridiculous story with like total sincerity and heart.
28:47
Speaker 2: That's what I love. Let's get inventive. Romance is one
28:51
Speaker 2: of those places where like, yes, our intimate lives are
28:53
Speaker 2: so serious, Yes, our emotional lives are so serious, and
28:58
Speaker 2: sometimes we feel serious about ridiculous things, and like that,
29:01
Speaker 2: that too is its own kind of romance beauty. This
29:06
Speaker 2: feels sort of abstract, but I really do think that
29:08
Speaker 2: this is something like a flavor that we need to
29:10
Speaker 2: reinject into romance from stories of the past, Like we
29:16
Speaker 2: need to be able to seize that sense of humor again,
29:19
Speaker 2: I think in a big way.
29:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, have we ever done an episode with such a
29:22
Speaker 1: clear thesis? I feel like this episode has such a
29:25
Speaker 1: clear thesis, which is like, just let fiction be fiction again,
29:27
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, like quit bringing your real world baggage
29:32
Speaker 1: into these novels. Well, I think I harp on this
29:36
Speaker 1: a lot and feel so strongly about this because it
29:40
Speaker 1: is something that people are losing the.
29:42
Speaker 2: Art of doing. Oh, totally understanding the premise of fiction
29:46
Speaker 2: and understanding how fiction works. Understanding how genre works is
29:50
Speaker 2: a lost art. Like we are aware of the fact
29:53
Speaker 2: that people's critical thinking skills are diminished day by day.
29:56
Speaker 2: We are aware of the fact that we live in
29:57
Speaker 2: a misinformation era where like it is also hard to
30:01
Speaker 2: know what is fact in fiction, we also live in
30:03
Speaker 2: an era where people are like desperate to confer authority
30:06
Speaker 2: in places where they don't necessarily have it, And so
30:09
Speaker 2: the idea of like belief, truth lies, and then fiction,
30:14
Speaker 2: which is a separate enterprise, all get sort of mixed up.
30:19
Speaker 2: In the same terrible stew And I think I see
30:23
Speaker 2: it in the flavor of the discourse that is online,
30:26
Speaker 2: where people feel such real injury from fictional events and
30:34
Speaker 2: see fictional events and descriptions as like personal offenses in
30:40
Speaker 2: a way that I'm just like, that's not what we're
30:42
Speaker 2: doing here. Are we all on the same page about
30:45
Speaker 2: what is transpiring in the contract of the novel. I'm
30:48
Speaker 2: not always sure that that's the case, you know, And like, yeah,
30:52
Speaker 2: I think the discourse sort of reflects.
30:54
Speaker 1: That I do also wonder And this is probably a
30:56
Speaker 1: conversation for another day, frankly, but like what it is
30:59
Speaker 1: about romance specifically that seems to attract kind of the
31:02
Speaker 1: lion's share of that attention, because I'm thinking, like, I
31:05
Speaker 1: don't ever see thriller readers complaining about like the morality
31:10
Speaker 1: of a serial killer or like the realism of being
31:13
Speaker 1: able to pull off a certain crime, you know what
31:14
Speaker 1: I mean. Like, I don't see horror readers kind of
31:19
Speaker 1: moralizing the genre in the same way. And I could
31:21
Speaker 1: be wrong, because those are spaces I very rarely see.
31:24
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm there all the time the way
31:26
Speaker 1: I am in the romance space, but It is something
31:28
Speaker 1: that I wonder about because you know, I think people
31:32
Speaker 1: who read litfiic have a much higher tolerance for I'm
31:36
Speaker 1: thinking of a book like All Fours, which you know,
31:39
Speaker 1: not everyone's going to love the protagonist of All Fours
31:42
Speaker 1: Yester Year, Like there was a whole conversation about writing
31:45
Speaker 1: unlikable women around, Like it was like Yester Year Bell
31:49
Speaker 1: Burden's memoir. So there is some of that discourse in
31:52
Speaker 1: the air that's like inherently misogynistic, but like not in
31:54
Speaker 1: the same way I feel like it is in Romance,
31:57
Speaker 1: where it's like we demand that these two people be
32:00
Speaker 1: perfectly moral, upstanding citizens of the world to be deserving
32:06
Speaker 1: of love. I just think there's something really interesting. I
32:10
Speaker 1: like that our tropes are like, just let things be fictionalized.
32:13
Speaker 1: Everyone be a little bit worse, everyone get a little
32:15
Speaker 1: bit worse, a.
32:16
Speaker 2: Little worse, and also a little funnier. I believe.
32:22
Speaker 1: I need people to be silly. I need able to
32:24
Speaker 1: get whimsical immediately. That's the show. That's the show. I
32:28
Speaker 1: need people to get whimsical.
32:29
Speaker 2: Words to live by.
32:34
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Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, hosted by Sandana Bascar and Tyler McCall. The
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Speaker 1: show was produced by Liz Smith and for iHeart. Our
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Speaker 1: supervising producer is Emily Meronoff Special thanks to the whole
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Speaker 1: iHeart team and especially Ali Perry and Alison Kanter Graber.
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Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Claire Maser and Erica Cerulo. Our
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Speaker 1: music is Domino by James Ryan Carr and Love Is
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Speaker 1: What You Do by Alibi. We'll be sharing love here
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Speaker 1: again next week.