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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-romance-fiction-rewrites-the-rulebook-183136>
"Romance fiction has one of the most recognisable brands in book culture. It is
known for a handful of attributes: its happy-ever-after endings, the pocket
Mills & Boon and Harlequin editions, the covers featuring Fabio (in the 1990s)
or naked male torsos (the hot trend in the 21st century). It is known for being
overwhelmingly written and read by women, and for being mass-produced.
But romance fiction is also the most innovative and uncontrollable of all
genres. It is the genre least able to be contained by established models of how
the publishing industry works, or how readers and writers behave.
Contemporary romance fiction is challenging the prevailing wisdom about how
books come into being and find their readers.
For our book
Genre Worlds: Popular Fiction and Twenty-First Century Book
Culture, coauthored with Lisa Fletcher, we conducted nearly 100 interviews
with contemporary authors and publishing professionals. Our research shows that
fiction genres are not static. They do not constrain artistic originality, but
provide the kind of structure that sparks creativity and passion.
Genre fiction can be understood as having three dimensions. The textual
dimension is what happens on the page. The industrial dimension is how the
books are produced. And the social dimension is the people who write, read and
talk about genre fiction.
These three dimensions interact to create what we have called a “genre world”.
Each distinct genre world (such as fantasy or crime) combines textual
conventions, social communities and industry expectations in its own way. And
romance is the most fast-paced, rapidly changing genre world of them all.
When it comes to genres of articles, we have a soft spot for the listicle. So,
here are five things you may not know about contemporary romance fiction – five
things that show the dynamism at the heart of book culture."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
