Books

The other day, someone asked me for a list of some of my favorite quick beach reads for a hot afternoon. This is by no means complete, but here’s what I passed along:

Robert Parker’s errors in APPALOOSA reminded me that a few weeks ago, my 10-year-old daughter Madison spotted a logic flaw in RL Stine’s book DEEP TROUBLE. In the scene, a mermaid is held captive in an aquarium full of water. RL Stine wrote:

The mermaid cooed. Then I saw her wipe away the tears that had begun to run down her face. She’s crying again, I thought, feeling guilty and miserable. She’s pleading with me. I put my face against the glass, as close to hers as I could get it…

"She’s underwater," Madison said. "How can he see tears running down her cheek?" That’s a darn good question, I replied. You’re very observant. You ought to be a detective.

I suggested that she write to RL Stine and ask him the question. She did. So far, he hasn’t replied.

The Romance Writers of America are so proud of their bold new initiative to define what qualifies as a romance novel that they’ve issued a press release about it straight from Romance HQ in Houston, Texas. It reads, in part:

Romance Writers of America has outlined two elements — a central love story and an emotionally satisfying ending — as the crux of their association’s official definition of a romance novel.

"There’s
no doubt about it, when you call a book a ‘romance’ it gets attention,"
says RWA President Tara Taylor Quinn. "But there are so many books
promoted as ‘romances’ or ‘love stories,’ readers, writers and
reporters who are considering our industry statistics are confused as
to what we mean. We see new titles released every month — from
non-fiction how-to manuals to women’s fiction — that are being touted
as ‘a new romance’ or a ‘timeless love story.’ Only a percentage are
actually romances. Many ‘relationship’ novels come close to being a
romance in our sense of the word, but in the end they don’t meet the
expectations our readers hold about the genre of romance. They are not
the same, and it’s confusing.

"In short, we found ourselves needing to officially define what a romance novel really is," Quinn says.

According
to RWA’s official definition, a romance is a book wherein the love
story is the main focus of the novel, and the end of the book is
emotionally satisfying.

I’m so glad they did this. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen many people shuffling through the aisles at B&N,  mumbling to themselves in a confused stupor… "is this a romance or chick-lit or fiction or what? Somebody PLEEESE help me!"  Thank God the RWA has finally ended the mass confusion and, dare I say, hysteria. I know I’m seeing things a whole lot clearer now.  The press release goes on to say:

This part of the definition excludes the type of novels that are most often incorrectly
considered to be romances: love stories with unhappy endings.
Bittersweet endings, like the conclusion to the love story in the film Titanic, for example, or the end of the novel Bridges of Madison County, prevent otherwise love-story focused books from being true romances.

"RWA
established a simple and straight forward acid test for classifying a
book as a popular romance novel. Our
central-love-story/emotionally-satisfying-ending criteria will allow
writers, readers, and other interested parties to fully understand what
RWA means when it discusses ‘the romance novel,’ and all the statistics
and demographics that refer to it," Quinn says.

Good thing the RWA did this, because we wouldn’t want someone mistaking TITANIC or BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY for romances. That’s simply unthinkable and confusing.

Now…is a book still a romance if it includes the words cock,
cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, shit, and tit? And what about all those pesky communists in the organization?

(PS – For more comments on this RWA press release, check out Paperback Writer and the comments to her post, particularly the one from writer Douglas Clegg)

You’d think the people at Bookstofilm.com  ("where literature meets Hollywood")  would have taken me off their mailing list after what I wrote about them here before. But no…today I got another come-on from them.

BookstoFilm.com publishes a semi-annual catalog which is
distributed to
over 2500 film producers, directors, studios, and film
agents nationwide…including those who produce educational and
documentary
films. The Spring 2005 catalog was a huge success, and it is available online now at
our website for current clients and film makers. The film industry is raving
over it!

Their website is  still wallpapered with bookcovers of bestsellers that were made into movies…implying that bookstofilm.com had something to do with them. They didn’t.  They still fail to list a single book sold to a major studio or production company  as a result of their catalog or their "numerous contacts in the United States film industry." Nor do they list a single author among their endorsers that you’ve ever heard of. The rave reviews touting their services are from the same handful of primarily self-published and PublishAmeica authors  as before (though they’ve stopped using the blurb from Sibyl Avery Jackson, author of "Degree of Caution,"
winner of the  "Sistah Circle Book Club’s 2002 Self-Published African African American Author Award for Best Mystery.")

The only new twist to their pitch is they now donate to charity a portion of the money they receive from authors who fork over $195 to be mentioned in their catalog.  It brings a tear to my eye.

My advice is not to waste your money on a listing in a piece of junkmail. Unagented authors interested in selling their books to Hollywood would be better off spending their money on sending their books, along with a punchy cover letter, directly to studio & production company development executives. 

You can donate to charity yourself…you don’t need "Bookstofilm.com" to do it for you.