some of it is genre romance tropes that fanfic is using, which have now been imported into sff by writers who also write fic.
That makes sense. I have comparatively little experience of category romance and not much more of slash, to be honest. I can recognize something like The Wild North (1952) as slashtastic because good Lord it isn't subtle; also it's more than half a century old and its primary relevance to this conversation is as evidence that some of the tropes in current use are older than dirt.
Some of it, I think, is woobification (which may also be a romance trope; I don't read enough romance to be sure), where the sympathetic characters are excessively abused by the world but are nevertheless virtuous, kind, and good. Highly traumatized but not in any ways that are seriously difficult or that last for longer than it takes for them to be saved by love.
I agree on that pattern in most of the contemporary romances—het and queer—which I have encountered in the last few years, occasionally to melodramatic lengths. One of the reasons I want the mother of my godchild to finish her (nb/f) romance is that its central conflict is not based around anyone's aestheticized trauma but is instead a communications problem rooted in differing economics and life experience that both parties run slap into in a way that has to be talked out rather than dissolved by romantic gestures. I find that sort of thing fantastically compelling. And I have always gravitated toward characters who are trash fires, but I still found myself side-eyeing a romance I picked up on a recommendation and then found that one of the principals is terminally ill and the other has an opium habit and it's all very cozy and soft and what?
But I have noticed a pattern of books that make a splash, that everyone seems to love, and I read them and am unimpressed. (Part of the problem may be that I'm hearing about these books through fandom!)
You may in fact not be the target audience!
Do you like Kai Ashante Wilson's queer sff, speaking of? I've read A Taste of Honey, but not The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-06-14 10:16 pm (UTC)That makes sense. I have comparatively little experience of category romance and not much more of slash, to be honest. I can recognize something like The Wild North (1952) as slashtastic because good Lord it isn't subtle; also it's more than half a century old and its primary relevance to this conversation is as evidence that some of the tropes in current use are older than dirt.
Some of it, I think, is woobification (which may also be a romance trope; I don't read enough romance to be sure), where the sympathetic characters are excessively abused by the world but are nevertheless virtuous, kind, and good. Highly traumatized but not in any ways that are seriously difficult or that last for longer than it takes for them to be saved by love.
I agree on that pattern in most of the contemporary romances—het and queer—which I have encountered in the last few years, occasionally to melodramatic lengths. One of the reasons I want the mother of my godchild to finish her (nb/f) romance is that its central conflict is not based around anyone's aestheticized trauma but is instead a communications problem rooted in differing economics and life experience that both parties run slap into in a way that has to be talked out rather than dissolved by romantic gestures. I find that sort of thing fantastically compelling. And I have always gravitated toward characters who are trash fires, but I still found myself side-eyeing a romance I picked up on a recommendation and then found that one of the principals is terminally ill and the other has an opium habit and it's all very cozy and soft and what?
But I have noticed a pattern of books that make a splash, that everyone seems to love, and I read them and am unimpressed. (Part of the problem may be that I'm hearing about these books through fandom!)
You may in fact not be the target audience!
Do you like Kai Ashante Wilson's queer sff, speaking of? I've read A Taste of Honey, but not The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps.