In which Sky talks about Nora Roberts.

[cerulean_sky]

My roommate informs me that the best part about reading these books is that no one knows. They're supposed to be your guilty little pleasure and you keep them in your nightstand (if one has a nightstand) and you feel wonderfully guilty for reading those.

For the record, I've been reading Nora Roberts.

Yes, I hang my head in shame. But only because she does something that I swear I won't read if other authors do: She vomits out books. Can she really be taking the time to make each one good? (That's my argument against R.A. Salvatore, Anne McCaffrey, and Steven King, and why I refuse to read anything but their earliest works. Which I actually haven't gotten to yet, but they are on the list!)

However, I contend that the writing in Nora Roberts's books isn't actually all that bad. Ok, sure, every once in a while I wonder about some of her sentence constructions, but for the most part, she does a pretty good job. What people seem to be confusing for "bad writing" (and I don't know if I would make this leap personally) is that her stuff is all the same.

Nora Roberts wrote one good book. And ever since then, she's been rewriting the same book, over and over again.

Okay, there's something to be said for starting a romance novel knowing that the woman is going to get her man. And that somewhere in the middle of it all, there's going to be some really hot sex. (With a whole lot of euphemisms for orgasms. "Flying" and "shattering" seem to be her favorites.) Sure, there's less suspense, but that's not really the point of a romance novel. Nora Roberts has really capitalized on this. There's some variation on the details of the plot–she's an artist, he's own a gallery; she's a doctor, he's business man; she's a witch, he studies the paranormal–but it's really all just the spices on the entrée anyway.

As I said, I don't think I would make the leap from "similar plot lines" to "bad writer" but I suppose that might be a matter of perspective. I think Ms. Roberts is doing what she does really well, and what she's doing is giving women a good romance to read.

ETA: Coming Soon: Classics. *cue suspense music again*

Comments

[tenaya-owlcat.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, that bit of confusion. I don't equate "writing the same book multiple times" as "bad writing", per se. However, if that happens, I'm liable to stop reading the author. I stopped reading Brian Jacques for that very reason.

I think the reason that it verges on bad writing (and often gets called that) is because many people expect originality in their fiction and count it as one of the aspects of a good writer. If a writer consistently recycles plots/characters/settings/conflicts/what-have-you, readers are likely to wonder why.

[cerulean-sky.livejournal.com]

Nora Roberts also writes mystery romances, and I don't particularly like that, so I don't know how she does it. Which is to say that I couldn't tell you if she's even capable of writing something different.

That said, there's really not a whole lot you can vary in a romance novel. There's a meeting, some sex, and then they get married. Stuff happens in the middle, obviously, but that's the basic linear plot line.

I guess her books are different enough that I'll continue reading them. Or... it might be that I love her men. One of the two. XD

[tenaya-owlcat.livejournal.com]

I guess her books are different enough that I'll continue reading them. Or... it might be that I love her men. One of the two. XD
Hey, nothing wrong with either of those reasons. ;)

[lumi21.livejournal.com]

I fail to see why you would want to read the same story over and over again if you've already identified it as such.

I think the accusations of being a "bad author" typically encompass being a "stale author" as well. Look beyond the realm of trashy romance; do authors in other genres not get lambasted if the general opinion of their new releases is that they're just rehashes of the old ones?

A good author, in my opinion, can make the lightning strike more than once. A prolific writer, as you say "vomits out books". A great author can do both. But it's a financial decision, really. If you CAN keep vomiting out the same book and people continue to eat it up, then why bother being a good author when you can make a ton of money being a prolific one?

Also, Anne has published 83 novels, collections, and short stories over the course of 40 years. Many of those have been written in collaboration with other authors. Also worth noting, she's written about half a dozen stand-alone romance novels =P

[cerulean-sky.livejournal.com]

Her stuff isn't exactly the same though. There's enough variation on them that... it's like making chicken 47 different ways with different spices and toppings and whatever. When you get right down to it, it's still chicken. But it's a different dish, too.

You'll not that the authors that I cited aren't in the realm of trashy romance. They're in fantasy and horror. And yes, they do get "lambasted" for putting out the same books over and over again.

That said, I will believe that a "great author" as you say could write be both prolific and, well, a good writer. I would argue that none of the authors so far mentioned in this post and it's comments are such. I would like to go so far as to argue that there haven't been any of them for some time now, but I would have to think about that a little bit longer.

Also, I'm not sure what you're saying about Anne McCaffrey there. From those statistics, you're practically proving my point.

[lumi21.livejournal.com]

Please find me an example of McCaffrey being criticized for releasing the same stuff over and over again. My point was, she's released a ton of books, yet they're highly varied and of a high quality, too. And considering you've confessed to never reading any of her stuff, you're not exactly in a place to dispute that assessment =P

(Though admittedly it's all a matter of opinion in the end.)

The single biggest complaint against McCaffrey is that she somehow "betrayed her roots" by taking the decided fantasy-driven Pern series in a much more sci-fi direction, but that's really a matter of taste. I get why it bothered some people, and quite honestly it was jarring to me at first, but I'm pretty content with it now.

[cerulean-sky.livejournal.com]

I guess that's a fair point. I tend to make that particular judgement by how often I see "NEW BOOK BY XYZ!" in a bookstore. She made the cut, with all of her stupid Acorna books.

[lumi21.livejournal.com]

/shrug

Don't knock it until you try it, I guess. There's been a new Acorna every year from 2003-2007, but they've all been written with Margaret Ball or Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. I suspect you can release a book faster if you have two writer's working on it (this is not to say that more authors always means a faster writing period, of course, but I think two is probably faster than one, as long as there's good synergy between the two).

[lskull86.livejournal.com]

My contention that it's crack, possibly actually containing small quantities of said drug in ink that can be absorbed thorugh the hands as one reads, was soundly rejected

[inamirata.livejournal.com]

I must defend myself! Though you use what I said as a marvelous hook, so I think I'll forgo it and jump straight in to the content.

Reading the same book many times is a wonderful thing to do. I have read the same romance novels many times. I go into it knowing the ending, knowing the style, and no matter how many times I read "A Rose in Winter" I don't stop having the same reactions.

Nora Roberts isn't a "bad" writer. She loves what she does, works hard at it, and might pull names and situations out of hats for all we know. But the important thing is that the people who read her enjoy it.

Authors like Steven King (I want to be a hack just like him!) and Anne McCaffrey have a following. Sometimes they lose people because the quality of their content and overall writing goes down due to a lack of editing brought on by the publishing world's frenzy to make money. McCaffrey lost my father for her new books because he didn't like them, but he still rereads the original Pern trilogy and the Harper Hall trilogy. David Weber is another example of this same phenomenon. The content of his Honor Harrington series has become somewhat bloated over the years, though that might also be attributed to his world getting bigger and more complicated.

It's not as much an issue of being able to write "well." As readers we fall in love with characters and worlds and will continue reading new books by our favorite authors as long as the authors aren't actively abusing our love.

[lumi21.livejournal.com]

I reread favorite books all the time as well. But there's a difference between rereading "A Rose in Winter" repeatedly because you love that particular book, and reading a continuous stream of books that's just the same story being rehashed as the author attempts to pass it off as something new and original.

McCaffrey went in a certain direction with Pern (sci-fi); like I said, some people didn't like this. But it wasn't about rewriting the same story, and it wasn't about the quality of her writing degrading. It was a matter of people being upset with the direction she went.

Her son, on the other hand, is showing signs of the "bad prolific writer" problem (this makes me sad, since he gets to take over the series once she's gone). He's co-authored a couple with his mother, and written a couple on his own. I wrote a brief review on another site for his latest, and it basically boiled down to "dude, you JUST wrote this book last year, with a different title. Originality, please?"

Weber, specifically Honor Harrington, is another series I know you haven't actually read! Based on what do you claim that the series has become "bloated" over the years? How exactly do you define that? Simply because he's fleshed out his universe and added more characters? If his stories still flow smoothly and are well told and original, how is that a bad thing? I'd probably cite Weber as one of the more skilled authors in terms of writing an extensive series that manages to create consistently unique storylines for each book, rather than falling back on the same formula each time.

Yes, he has a lot of technical crap in there, I know =P

I agree that we tend to form bonds with favorite characters and worlds; I'll be the first to admit that I will give McCaffrey more leeway than the average author, but that's mostly because she's proven to me in the past that she deserves it. With the exception of bequeathing her most precious work to her idiot son (may he grow into a more mature and skilled author in time!), I feel she's done right by her fans throughout the series.

Other than Freedom, I haven't read her other works, so I cannot speak to the (change in) quality for those.

[lumi21.livejournal.com]

Hey, I didn't even realize I was responding to someone else this time! O.o

I know you've read Weber, so I stand corrected on that point, but I pose the same questions! How are you defining "bloated"?

[sbbo.livejournal.com]

I think one of the reasons people read romance novels is because you have both familiarity but also surprise. It's why we read/watch adaptations. We pretty much know how its going to end up, right? But the joy is in seeing how we get there this time. And that familiarity is a comfort.

I don't read only romance novels, all day, all the time. I read all sorts of other things. But I will read a Nora Roberts novel because I know her men will be interesting and the situation will be clever. Yeah, there is going to be a sort of pretentious/snotty girl with a heart of gold. And there will be the sweet, nurturing girl who needs a bit of extra protecting, etc. But she goes from a family of Ukranian immigrants in New York to a coven on a small New England island. Its fun in a way that allows me to relax and just enjoy.

[cerulean-sky.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you said here. I couldn't have put it better myself.

[amjhawk.livejournal.com]

There were two guilty pleasures of mine like this:

First was Anne Rice's Vampire novels. The first 2-6 (depending on who you ask) were good, but then yeah - same novel over and over.

And Robert Jordan. I once spent my entire junior year of HS reading the first seven in The Wheel of Time, then was like, "I should read something else."

Though, it always hung in the back of my mind... "I never finished the story!" So I went back to read them my first senior year at KU, realized I had forgotten everything, so started over... and within 3 books got tired of the endless fashion show wherein the models took way too long to walk down the runway.

[lumi21.livejournal.com]

You fell into the pit =\ He really flagged around books 6-8.

Then nine was AWESOME. Then ten made me cry. Then eleven was pretty awesome again.

We'll know how it ends in about four years or so X.x