The Next Best Book Club discussion

Hi, all. Martin Rinehart here with a question about genre.

I am writing a novel which is basically a romance but it is about women who said 'I do' before my story starts and are doing their best to rekindle, preserve, the feelings that brought them to the altar years afterward.

In a country where half of all marriages end in divorce, it seems as if the topic might have some interest. (Actually, that's down from half to 42% these days. But I don't do statistics.)

I want to use the term 'married romance' to describe my novel, but not if its subject already has a name. My friends in the Beta Readers group tell me I'm exploring new territory (which seems odd!). Does 'married romance' work, or is their something better.

Thanks in advance!

There is a Boomer Lit group on GR; perhaps you question belongs there, as this is a later-in-life type story.

Rekindling is a word that might help.

When the kids finally leave home, the empty nest hangs over the parents if they've managed to stay together. What is it they always wanted to do? Can they still do it? Can they appreciate the effort each has put in to the common pot?

Oh, dear. My bad, Alicia. My heroines are in the pre-children part of marriage (ages 25, 26 and 30). If I can get them to Happily Ever After in that easy, early stage, I've no doubt they'll go on to mess it up again by having children. But that's another story.

The more I think about it, the more 'married romance' (or whatever we call it) stories there are. Before, during and after kids, certainly. Fidelity and infidelity. Lots of stories. Looks to me, though, like they're just kind of shoved in 'literary fiction' which has no rules. Romance has rules, which I observe and want to incorporate into the reader's expectation.

Martin, this does not belong in the Newbies folder since you are not introducing yourself. I moved it to book related banter because it fits better there.

Martin wrote: "Oh, dear. My bad, Alicia. My heroines are in the pre-children part of marriage (ages 25, 26 and 30). If I can get them to Happily Ever After in that easy, early stage, I've no doubt they'll go on t..."

Okay, this I don't get: why do they need to rekindle anything if they haven't been married that long (they're too young to have been) and children haven't come along to put their lovely and peculiar strain on a marriage?

Working too hard? Because other than that and grad school (which is the same as working too hard only different), that's still the honeymoon period in a marriage, when people don't need a sitter and the whole Western army just to go out to dinner.

Do not knock literary fiction - it has a wide spectrum, and I will admit to writing it if forced to. I just like to live at the end of the spectrum that actually has a plot, and where lovely descriptions are NOT allowed to stop the flow of the stories, and the characters have motivations which make sense. PLUS careful language and an allusion or two which makes sense (instead of confusing your audience). (The other end of the literary spectrum is the navel-gazing, nothing happens, end.)

I don't get your heroines. I would kill to get back to their problems.

typically that would fit into women's lit - normally about marriage, struggles within; finding yourself after being married for years; after childbirth etc

Thank you, Lori.

I agree, and object, Dee. Agree because I assume the vast majority of my readers will be women. Object because I'm trying to write for couples.

Read some of the reviews of Pride and Prejudice (including my own). Almost all feature some version of 'I thought this was chick lit' followed by 'but I loved it!'

My favorite beta reader comment was 'I gave this to hubs. He couldn't put it down.' (All my beta readers have been women, however.)

Statistically wise few men would read what you wrote (I can count on one hand the number of men who read romance or anything similar); setting your sights on couples is a pretty high reach/demand; but women may offer to their husbands to read (assuming husband reads and would listen)

More women than men read romance, Dee. True. About five to one.

https://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=582

(But don't miss that little parenthetical note. Women are down from 84% to a mere 82%! Nearing four to one. Go men!)