While in my creative writing class yesterday

While in class on Tuesday, it turned out to be quite…interesting.

To explain… Despite having already received my BA in English, I’m back at school, taking an undergraduate creative writing class. It’s one that I was unable to take while working on my bachelor’s degree.

Well, moving along… Today’s class proved to be interesting, because my professor chose to go over two student’s stories that dealt with romance. This peaked my interest since this is right up my alley.

However, I have to say while it all proved to be a good session and all of us had plenty of laughs, I wasn’t left with a feeling I liked…or can even identify.

The story I’m particularly focused on was the first story we read. It’s a historical piece about four pages long that was purely a love scene.

Doesn’t sound too bad right? A love scene! What could be more entertaining than a love scene in a college classroom?

Hoo boy!

I knew the minute the professor started reading it that this would be either really embarrassing or really funny. It proved to be both!

Most of the time we were just laughing. This classmate had written in so many euphemisms and flowery words to describe the man and woman’s private parts and their desire for each other, that it wasn’t romantic at all. Instead it proved to be downright hilarious! And yes, I admit, I laughed hard along with everyone else.

off topic here… As I was joking with another classmate as we left class, romances, in my opinion, were never meant to be read aloud. In fact, in a recent writer’s meeting I attended, we had a guest speaker who explained to us about writing meant to be read aloud, or writing to be read silently.

Thus, this leads back to my stating that romances were never meant to be read out loud. Am I 100% sure on this? I have no idea! I’m sure published romance authors around the U.S. and beyond might disagree. All I know is that I’ve never been able to read a romance audio book. The few times I did, it was nuts! I always used headphones, and the few times my headphones would accidentally pull out of the device I was playing the book on, I would immediately check to see if anyone had heard. Funny? You bet! Especially if I just happened to be reading a love scene! Lol!

In addition to the embarrassment factor, there was also (at least for me!) the problem of the readers. I once read an audio book where the reader, a woman, kept her voice normal while reading the female protagonist’s lines, and would deepen her voice when doing the male protagonist. Okay, maybe not so bad?

Yes it was! I mean no disrespect when I say this, but when the reader went high for the woman and low for the man, it only made her sound like she was reading a romance involving two female lovers. I’m sorry, it didn’t work for me! I merely felt incredibly awkward. And I have to also say… I’ve never been able to read that book since. Lol!

But I digress… The one thing about the discussion today that was troubling me was my professor’s comment to the student. It was said that if she were trying to make fun of romances, then she should keep all she had written.

Make fun of romances? Professor, wait just a darn minute!

Okay, I know what the teacher meant. I’m sure there was no intent to insult romances. At least, that’s the attitude I’d prefer to take. But just the thought of someone writing a short story with the sole intent to make fun of a genre makes me a wee bit upset.

Romances have always had a bad rap. I’ve been reading romances for fifteen or sixteen years now. For as long as I could remember, the genre has always had people looking down on it. I recall many times in my youth people saying with a straight face, right in front of me, that romances were “trash”.

Thankfully, my dear writer friends have told me how to arm myself against such people. I am to simply tell them that the romance publishing industry makes up 50% of the publishing world.

Imagine that? 50%! That means romances go up against the other half, which includes fantasy, science fiction, non-fiction, young adult and so on.

Okay, do romances get a little raunchy? Of course they do! However, I try to remind the skeptics that romances are not about the love scenes alone. There are stories to go along with it. Wonderfully written stories that authors will spend hours writing. Or researching.

Overall, my general thoughts on Tuesday’s class is that I feel sad that even in this day and age, romance writing doesn’t get the respect it deserves. People view romances as a joke, and something to giggle about when they’re bored. Now, is that to say I think badly or less of my professor and classmates? Of course not.

Ultimately, people are entitled to their opinions. I equate what happened in class and the ridiculing of romances to my dislike of rap music. Do I think that rap is music? Well… I don’t really want to go there. I don’t want to go so far as to say it’s NOT music, since the world has recognized it. However, I personally can’t stand it. But I also don’t go around bashing it.

The one thing I always try to remind myself is: “To each his own.”