Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion

I'm just really stuck.

I'm in a grad school publishing program and our exit project is the equivalent of starting our own publishing imprint.

I have this cool idea for a Literotic Romance imprint, where the exploration of our sexualities is coupled with intelligent character development, ranging from the realistic to the fantastical.

You folks are both readers and writers. Is this something you'd jump on? What sorts of things do you wish Romance novels covered? Like, for example, more queer subject matter? I don't know! All opinions welcome.

Hmm, I haven't really read romance like that since highschool. I think it could be something to look into though, a lot of that kind of romance recently seems to be rather clique :3

What if you could take your favorite fiction, regardless of genre, and be able to extract the romantic sub-plot. I see that happening a lot with fanfiction, and I'm trying to figure out what people want from those pairings that they don't get from conventional romance sources.

Wow. Interesting task. It could be a tough balance. If the romantic happenings don't move the story along, some people might get bored/annoyed. But for those who want all teh romance, they might get bored by the other plot... then again, I do like to believe there are people out there (like me!) who do enjoy a bit of romance, just not in the form of a purely romancentric (word? I know what I mean!) story... So, are you suggesting an imprint that specialises in, for example, epic fantasy (or Sci Fi, or horror) where there is a strong romantic storyline within it?

@Adrian what you describe also makes me think of books like Rabbit, Run by John Updike, where sexuality is explored in a realistic way. I have been thinking about writing something like that. I don't know if that's what you're talking about, though.

Adrian brought up an interesting idea, as that would give opportunity to put out another book that might appeal to an entire new group of readers.

As far as actually writing in the romance genre, though, I've never delved into that territory. Afraid I wouldn't be much help, there.

This puts me in mind of my latest book (The Glade) ... it is Supernatural Suspense - But, it has a strong romantic thread. There isn't currently a genre that fits this that well. It is in the suspense category, but that doesn't really allow for the sexuality or romantic element. It's not mushy romance, but more on the realism side of the spectrum.

Some interesting comments on this so far.

Good luck with your project Adrian :D