A kiss its just a kis

[Lirineth]

I have asked myself this question many times before, and in an attempt to have an answer with more ‘weight’ to it, I asked some writers. Sadly, either they were offended by the question or couldn’t care less about it. Bottom line, I’m left with only my personal view about the subject.

But, in a moment of inspiration, I decided to post the said question in the forum and, who knows, maybe somebody will share a though.

The question is simple, I have read many, many books where the literary talent of the writers is of the best level. They can describe with painstaking detail locations, tools, armament, techniques of doing anything you could possibly think, battles, buildings, traditions, massacres and … on and on and on …. Sometimes all of the above in the same book.

So (and here is the question) how is it possible that the hero (its usually a ‘he’) goes through 300.000 words and when the affection moment comes, it takes 7 lines (if we are lucky) and off he goes again to the next battle, massacre and so on.

It doesn’t make sense, there is no balance. I don’t expect that they turn the book in a Barbara Cartwright novel, but please, let’s have some consistency. Sometimes it ends being funny because either the guy is on some kind of medication that we were not informed of or otherwise how do they cope, specially after all the hormones and pheromones loose in the air.

And whilst all this is going on, Heavens forbid, that any kind of same sex situation might be even considered. You know, sometimes I wonder why do I bother with these books, but then again, some of them are very enjoyable and so well written that you almost forget about it, well that is until the lack of feelings kind of robs the book of its truth.

So there you have it. What do you think, does this make sense?

 

[mosaix]

If the hero is a 'he' the it's likely the author is a 'he'. I know this is a generalisation but males are, more often than not, more interested in 'locations, tools, armament, techniques of doing anything you could possibly think, battles, buildings, traditions, massacres' than romance or 'same sex situations'.

 

[j d worthington]

That's quite true, mosaix, and a good point. There's also more going on here, I think, as well; and that has to do with our attitude toward sex in general in the west... where something that gets into it very much is looked on somewhat askance, as bordering on "pornography" or at least stepping into the realms of erotica; which, as we all know, is no proper subject matter for any decent story. Colin Greenland had a very good chapter on this problem with SFF in his The Entropy Exhibition, examining the New Wave of the 1960s, and how, with this movement, sex became more openly dealt with (if not always with artistic acuity) for the first time.... It's a holdover from Victorian attitudes, really -- or, rather, those attitudes that were openly held by the Victorian writers and readers. American writers are especially bad about this because, quite frankly, this country has always had a seriously schizophrenic attitude on the subject, tending to go too far one way or the other ... either it's simply not discussed without enormous circumlocutions (rather like this post, I suppose) or it's so in your face that it lacks all artistic ability and becomes either clinical or overdone. Even well-accepted writers today don't often seem able to handle this aspect of life, especally genre writers (nearly every time King approaches the subject I wince, as his handling usually has the air -- to me -- of a bunch of teenage boys attempting to be terribly worldly and failing abysmally; but at least he's trying!).

So all that is in there too, I think. And, by extension, it gets carried over to the sentimental themes as well. There's also the fact that it's very difficult to say anything original to oneself about such matters, as nearly everyone has felt these things and taken these actions (look how many writers make fun of young lovers' amorous poetry to their mistresses -- something they freely admit they've usually been guilty of themselves as well, but which an awful lot of young lovers do tend to do; yes, including me). So there's fear of being hackneyed and stereotyped in their handling of the subject, as well.

At any rate, these are the things that come to mind right off as to why so many writers don't deal with the subject in detail more.... That, and the fact that most men STILL react to this as if it's the hero in a western, and they're a 14-year-old boy who'd rather see him kiss his horse than the girl!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And yet outside of their reading material, men tend to be very interested in sex.

Besides, there seems to be a lot more sex than romance in SF and Fantasy. Which has always puzzled me. Men may go all "ah shucks, we aren't interested in all that mushy girl stuff" when the subject comes up, but in real life I'd say there are more men who want to find the right person and settle down than there are those who really want to lead the wild bachelor life.

(I keep thinking about that line in Much Ado About Nothing where Benedict -- Kenneth Branagh -- who has been railing against marriage all along, tries to excuse his sudden romantic interest in Beatrice, by shouting out, "The world MUST be POPULATED!" Uh, sure, Benedict, you went from confirmed bachelor to wanting Beatrice to bear your babies in no time flat, and it's all for, um, humanitarian purposes.)

 

[Carolyn Hill]

I know what you're talking about, Lirineth. I don't know why romantic feelings get slighted in many books or why the Big Moment at the end turns into a Little Paragraph. All I know is, I enjoy books that take care to develop loving relationships along with whatever else the characters may be doing (be that hacking, hewing, building, or exploring), and I cheer when those feelings pay off and play out at proper length in the end.

I just finished reading Tanya Huff's Smoke and Mirrors, the second in an ongoing series. The same-sex relationship that's building between the protagonist and one of the main characters hasn't yet paid off (though it gets lots of attention throughout the book), but the reviews I've seen of the third novel in the series indicate that the relationship is about to reach a climax.

 

[carrie221]

I have also noticed this in books... it seems kind of silly how they just ignore it. Maybe these male authors don't want to be seen as too soft and girly?

 

[jackokent]

I don't think this is something peculiar to male writers. Sifi and fantasy generally doesn't seem to be particularly big on romance. I am just thinking of female writers now, Hobbs, Tanith Lee, JV Jones etc and it doesn't feel like they are any more romantic than the boys.

Possibly it's a genre thing not a gender thing.

 

[mosaix]

And yet outside of their reading material, men tend to be very interested in sex.

Quite true, but the question was about romance not sex.

Again I generalise but if most men started out writing about romance it would probably degenerate into pornography, hence most men steer clear of it.

 

[carrie221]

Quite true, but the question was about romance not sex.

Again I generalise but if most men started out writing about romance it would probably degenerate into pornography, hence most men steer clear of it.

That is a very good point and almost definitely true

 

[Karsa Orlong]

So all that is in there too, I think. And, by extension, it gets carried over to the sentimental themes as well. There's also the fact that it's very difficult to say anything original to oneself about such matters, as nearly everyone has felt these things and taken these actions (look how many writers make fun of young lovers' amorous poetry to their mistresses -- something they freely admit they've usually been guilty of themselves as well, but which an awful lot of young lovers do tend to do; yes, including me). So there's fear of being hackneyed and stereotyped in their handling of the subject, as well.

Yeah, this was my initial thought. Any writer who explores such topics without it seeming trite and clichéd has the utmost respect of me personally, as considering the wealth and diversity of such explorations in the past modern authors have very little untrampled ground to work with.

There has unfortunately always been a somewhat elitist reaction against focusing on romantic or sentimental feelings by many more artistically-minded writers, precisely because such feelings are shared by the great majority and thus inevitably dominate the mainstream of literature and other modes of expression, maybe instilling connotations with empty entertainment over *meaningful art*. This is increasingly becoming a problem with sex and love being cheapened all over the place by the sort of tripe you get on TV and the like - as a reader such connotations can put me off as well - but in my opinion these associations can't get in the way if a writer remembers the beauty that these subjects can hold, the humanity inherent to them, and does his/her best to tap into that. Most of my favoured fantasy writers manage this to an extent at least.

 

[j d worthington]

I'd agree that there's still plenty of room to do so; but I think a lot of writers feel that the imaginative potential has been drained here, and they'd merely be repeating what others have said, with no originality of their own. I also think they're intimidated by the great lyric poets' amatory verses, from Sappho down (admittedly, that's some very impressive competition for saying anything original on the subject).

Something else occurs to me that may make it (at least in part) also a gender issue: a lot of men are very hesitant to call up that part of their experience and use it as grist for the artistic mill because it is so private and personal; women seem to be better at sharing that part of themselves in art (again, generally speaking). But, certainly there are sterling examples of men who didn't mind dealing with either sex or love/romance, both ironically and with great respect: Cabell does it quite a bit; E. R. Eddison certainly has it as one of the major themes of his Zimiamvian books; Fletcher Pratt deals with it in both The Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star; it runs throughout a large amount of Fritz Leiber's work; Clark Ashton Smith, even, has quite a bit to say on the subject, ranging from fairly pedestrian aspects of romance to the very decadent aspects.... So there are some shining exceptions; they're just not very often noted.

And I repeat something I said a long time ago on another thread: It seems to me that it's often the older male writers rather than the younger, that are able to handle women characters with more depth and understanding and honesty -- and hence love/romance/sex -- which is an interesting note; perhaps because they were raised on older literature where men did discuss such aspects of life as part of the broad spectrum of experience, rather than on film and television, where it is almost made paramount at the expense of both itself and other aspects, being handled largely in an artificial and cheapened manner. Anyone else have any thoughts on this aspect of it?

 

[Karsa Orlong]

I'd agree that there's still plenty of room to do so; but I think a lot of writers feel that the imaginative potential has been drained here, and they'd merely be repeating what others have said, with no originality of their own.

Well, I wasn't saying there's plenty of room, in the reply to you I was saying there's so little room these days that those who do manage to pull it off earn my respect. Just making that clear if it wasn't before - I think we're basically in agreement.

I may as well add that I think this is a perfectly fine attitude to take - if you don't feel capable of breaking new ground regarding these topics, avoiding them is probably a good idea. A fresh way of exploring romance/love/sex is certainly a useful weapon to possess, but for those who don't have that weapon, I'd rather each played to his/her own strengths.

Something else occurs to me that may make it (at least in part) also a gender issue: a lot of men are very hesitant to call up that part of their experience and use it as grist for the artistic mill because it is so private and personal; women seem to be better at sharing that part of themselves in art (again, generally speaking).

Interesting, I think you're probably right - generally speaking as you say.

It seems to me that it's often the older male writers rather than the younger, that are able to handle women characters with more depth and understanding and honesty -- and hence love/romance/sex -- which is an interesting note; perhaps because they were raised on older literature where men did discuss such aspects of life as part of the broad spectrum of experience, rather than on film and television, where it is almost made paramount at the expense of both itself and other aspects, being handled largely in an artificial and cheapened manner. Anyone else have any thoughts on this aspect of it?

Well, one obvious possibility is that they will more often than not simply have more experience of course. Your theory seems very reasonable to me though, and more than likely applies to a number of facets in literature - as time goes on understanding, honesty and other such qualities seem to be increasingly becoming absent from the more widely available forms of entertainment/art, and in turn people are growing up with no capacity for exercising such qualities in writing.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Quite true, but the question was about romance not sex.

I was mostly responding to JD, who was talking about attitudes toward sex,

But on the question of whether the lack of romance is a genre thing or a gender thing -- as a genre in which at least half of the readers are male, SFF is going to be influenced by male attitudes in a way that fiction written largely for women is not. And women's fiction is very much about romance (and sex, too, but almost always in the context of romance). So to that extent it is a gender thing.

Although, I would say, a modern gender thing, because until about the middle part of the twentieth century, male writers and male readers were not so prone to steer clear of romance. Some of the most romantic fiction ever written -- and a very large percentage of the romantic poetry -- was written by men.

 

[j d worthington]

I was mostly responding to JD, who was talking about attitudes toward sex,

And on that, I must apologize for not being clear. I think the attitudes toward sex in literature have also influenced the attitudes toward the handling of romance, at least since the later Victorian era; and in the latter part of this century I think we've had an odd byproduct of that, as mentioned in posts above, of a division between pure prurience and complete abstention; and this, too, has had a strong influence on how romance and love are handled, with the confusion between these and sex per se.

 

[C. Craig R. McNeil]

Personally, I find romance in scifi/ fantasy to be a real drag. I want monsters, massacres, ray guns, space ships, fights, cameraderie, etc. Romance? Yeeeick! No!

But that's just me

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

So (and here is the question) how is it possible that the hero (its usually a ‘he’) goes through 300.000 words and when the affection moment comes, it takes 7 lines (if we are lucky) and off he goes again to the next battle, massacre and so on.

I think it depends greatly on whether the story needs it. It might sound a silly notion but a lot of novels are written from the perspective of two (or more) strangers meeting afresh and the story is how they build relationships during stressful events. The 'payoff' you're describing is either the end of the novel as a chaste kiss and left at that or as some grand tragic death scene for one of the protagonists, usually in the act of saving the other.

Certainly sci-fi & fantasy has elements of sexual frisson in it. How can it not when the characters commonly wear loinclothes or tight jumpsuits
I'm a little unclear from your question whether you want more graphic descriptions of romance & sex or just more time devoted to the characters exploring their growing feelings for each other. I've certainly read sci-fi & fantasy books which do go into this with varying degrees of success.
I suppose it may be that some authors view is that putting large chunks of detailed romance or sex into a novel can slow the pace of the book somewhat so they may avoid it unless there is a need to have the readers to be aware of a certain event or phrase which is said to act as a plot device later in the story.