Ooh, let's make a list of words in Romance we hate! At the top of my list? Inexorable and its adverbial form, inexorably. There is nothing in the least romantic about that word, but still I see it everywhere in Romance. Don't. Get. It. At all.

I'm in the romance novel reading closet. I never read romance novels in public on account of the titles and artwork on the covers, even when I'm forced to take the bus or metro and have a long ride ahead of me.

I love romance novels, don't get me wrong, I just don't want to seem like that sad pathetic single girl reading a trashy romance on her way home from work because she has nothing going on in her life; even if sometimes I -am- that girl.

Once I ran into an old English teacher of mine while I was in the waiting room at the doctor's. I made the unfortunate mistake of bringing a romance novel so she felt it was her place to lecture me on the immorality of women who only have sex on her minds. Ha! If she only knew...

Anyways, back to my point... You just can't take an obvious romance novel in public if you want to seem like you've ever had a thought in your head. What's with that eh? I'd like to think that I wouldn't judge somebody based on what they were reading but that's not true, I do it all the time. I suppose it just goes to show that deep down inside we are all book snobs in our own way.

And to Robin, I hate the word turgid. As in his turgid member. Ew ew ew ew! Doesn't that sound like a disease? Can't you just picture a doctor saying, "I'm sorry sir, I'm afraid we'll have to amputate, its become turgid."

I am in the romance reading closet too. I stay there because the people around me are unable to see any book remotely connected to the romance genre as anything other than trashy. No matter how wonderfully it is written. Like the equivalent to low brow humor and fart jokes, tolerable but not respectable. When discussing books with friends I find myself selectively leaving out the fact that a book like, Dark Lover for example, is a romance and positioning it strictly as a vampire novel instead.

How or when did romance become so synonymous with the word trashy? I guess I’ve read through more than a dozen novels in the genre now and while some are better than others I would hardly consider them trashy, no more so than a poorly written Private Investigator novel. I tend to think the word trashy more accurately describes the cover art than the actual books themselves. The whole Fabio era is going to be difficult to remove from pop culture’s memory. Sticking with stereo types is way easier than finding out for yourself.

This isn’t so much a word I hate… the simultaneous orgasm. Not to long ago I read a book where the MC had not one, not two but three. Please. Give me a break. Reading that definitely ruins the whole suspension of disbelief thing and plops me back into reality where I wonder if she was faking it.

Other romance novel words and phrases that need to be stricken from the vocabulary:

- Savage, and all derivatives thereof, e.g. savagery or savagely, unless used by characters in Ye Olden Tymes who are using it to refer to dark-skinned indigenous peoples in the pejorative sense

- Oxymorons like "gentle rogue"

- Beguile and all derivatives thereof, and this goes double for Teresa Medeiros

- "Aching" used as an adjective for somebody's voice

- Eroticism as used to describe somebody's actions, especially when coupled with adjectives like "unbridled"

- Referring to the heroine like she's a horse, e.g., she's spirited, feisty, needs to be tamed, etc.

- Every time an author likens a portion of the hero's anatomy (usually thighs) to tree trunks, she deserves to be soundly beaten about the head and shoulders

- No. More. Whorls. PLEASE.

- And orbs and cones of flesh are right out.

Oh, and besides the terrible cover art and titles, the gawdawful back cover blurbs don't help, either. Seriously, when it comes to the crap that gets slapped on the cover, romance novels consistently get the shortest end of the stick.

I have to say that like Beth, I have a soft spot for cross-dressers in romance. I wish it happened more often the other way around (men dressing up as women convincingly) but I think that's probably due to my fetish for pretty men who aren't afraid to go around in drag if they have to.

I do wish that Native Americans aren't quite as fetishized as they are in romance novels.

And how about the word "member" as in tzigane's "turgid member" example?

And shaft -- all I can think of is stalks of wheat, and that ain't a good image, let me tell you.

I think "sex" should go, too, as another euphemism, for that's what it is, and its surface clarity belies a whole slew of connotations that are not the least bit "sexy" to me.

I'm starting to hate "swollen," "aching" in ANY context, especially when it relates to swollen members, "hungry" as in gaze, and any language that seems to suggest that one's "swollen, turgid, savage member" has a life, will, and/or consciousness of its own, and that the little head is actually SMARTER than the big head. UGH.

oooh, good list. Just think what a boost it would give the genre if authors actually stopped using these words.

And Candy -- the Native American thing makes me crazy. That's why I am so guilty about liking Mackenzie's Mission.

...the little head is actually SMARTER than the big head.

Look, Robin, what you're suggesting will tear apart the fabric of Romancelandia as we know it. I mean, if the hero doesn't suffer from instantaneous and painful erections every time he catches sight of the heroine, HOW DO WE KNOW HE'S REALLY IN LOVE, HUH? I mean, the author would have to resort to action and dialogue to indicate the depth of the hero's feelings, and that shit's just confusing.

I just picked myself up off of the floor due to vocabulary induced hysteria. Husband (playing hooky from work) LOVES the list too. Could we win something for including as many of the words in one somewhat grammatically correct sentence?

Sarah, I am going to wholly support your plea for No. 2. That's what I really want to see, nearly more than anything else. I will even let the genre use the strange coinage, "manroot," in every sex scene ever written, in return for just easing up on the restrictions it places on its heroines. For God's sakes, women who aren't moral exemplars fall in love sometimes. They are deserving of love as much as: 1) virgins, 2) former virgins raped by evil men holding Daddy hostage, 3) former virgins who got pregnant in their one bout of sex with the villain (though without orgasming) and since have been purified & re-virginized through abstention, and 4) virgin windows. I want to see women who are more like women I know, with the sexual histories to match, get their happily-ever-after. Hell, I even want to see real prostitutes (not those feigning being prostitutes, for their indigent families' sakes) get happy endings. Furthermore, I do not understand why, in 2005, that is so subversive or even radical a notion.

Oops, that should be "virgin widows," not "virgin windows." When you read that phrase, you should **not** be picturing a sparkling clean window and a bottle of crystal blue spray fluid. You should be picturing a woman who stayed married for as long as a decade without ever, even once doing it. Ever. But who's eager to commence once she meets the hero.

These suggestions are so great. My "closet" is a bookshelf where I've restricted myself for financial reasons, to two Harlequin novelists (who started writing in the 1970s and the 1980s respectively). I've seen the variations on virgin lover go through all those layers and more.

The word one of my adored authors uses too much is "atavistic." One day I actually looked it up (much like I just looked up "turgid" - appropriate second meaning). Atavistic. Is it supposed to be a compliment that the guy is "a throwback?" Really. But we are talking fantasy here - can't forget the value of some reading as an escape.

Least sexy word for me? "Sexy." As in, a sexy smile, a sexy walk, etc. It brings no concrete picture to my mind whatsoever. Why not show the character doing something sexy instead of telling us s/he is sexy and expecting us to take the author's word for it? Arrrrgh! Ditto for "devastating."




Would a "virgin window" be one that had never even been looked through?

Look, Robin, what you're suggesting will tear apart the fabric of Romancelandia as we know it. I mean, if the hero doesn't suffer from instantaneous and painful erections every time he catches sight of the heroine, HOW DO WE KNOW HE'S REALLY IN LOVE, HUH? I mean, the author would have to resort to action and dialogue to indicate the depth of the hero's feelings, and that shit's just confusing.

Well, until the turgid erection takes its place in the vocabulary of American Sign Language as "I'M IN EVERLASTING ONCE IN A LIFETIME LOVE EVEN IF THE OTHER OTHER (DICK)HEAD DOESN'T KNOW IT YET," I'll pine for more big head action. And I'm not talking about being privy to swollen, throbbing, aching, pulsating brain tissue, either.

One of my favorite expressions of male desperation in this regard (quoted under fair use):

"Sometimes I wish I could just reach through the ether, through space and time, and pull you to me, feel you against me, look into your smiling eyes. In one sudden and blinding moment, I would crush this cage, make you feel my flesh and blood hands on you, my mouth against yours. I would cradle your face in my hands, place my lips very close to your ear, and breathe my thoughts and my feelings into you. And if I had the power, I would burn my image so indelibly into your mind and heart that you could never, ever forget me. And love, I just might be able to do it sometime. I've been working on it."
(My Sweet Folly, by Laura Kinsale, pp. 11-12 -- I know the quotation marks aren't proper, but, hey, you get the idea, right?).

And all this by letter. No turgid members anywhere in sight. But every time I read those letters I fall in love with Robert Cambourne, just as Folie did.

Robin -- excellent. It's a good idea to post bits like this during this discussion, to remind ourselves (and the lurkers) what a good author can do, when it comes to romance.

Okay, I feel like I have to say this: Every time I read through a list of "Attention Romance Authors, please stop using the following words", I wind up wanting to choke more than half of you. Because depending on the reader, I can't use sex, sexy, erotic, savage, beguiling, cock, penis, erection, arousal, member, aching, tender, throb, swollen, hungry, sensual, and god knows what else. Meanwhile, those words don't annoy some other readers.

And if I'm looking not to annoy any and all possible readers with my vocab choice? I'm going to lose EVERY TIME.

(Plus okay, I'll admit: my first thought is, "Yeah, I wanna see YOU write one that doesn't annoy anyone. Go on, TRY IT. Because there are only so many words in the English language, so it's frikken HARD. Hard and throbbing, so nyah!")

Beth: come on. Find me one example of TURGID in a romance novel that doesn't make you cringe. Same with SENSUAL.

These are not sexual terms that are being overused. Penis, cock, dick -- not overused. Throbbing manroot: overused.

Okay, Sara - turgid I agree with, wholeheartedly. Ditto anything having to do with nubs or nubbins, and of course throbbing manroot is objectionable simply on the basis of it being dumb, long before it ever got to be overused. But there are many people who really dislike penis (too clinical), cock (too blunt), dick (too much like lockerroom talk). And plenty of people who don't mind - and even barely notice - erotic or savage or hungry. Sure, it's best to avoid ALL of them, but I see this discussion come up plenty and everyone has their unique pet peeves. And it's impossible to predict all possible pet peeves. I mean -- savagery. I wouldn't think anything of using that. But now I will think twice because it's on someone's list and I don't wanna annoy anyone. It's just getting to be an incredibly long list.

OK, to clarify on savagery: it's not all bad, all the time.

For example, this:

"The ram hit the door of the keep, the savagery of the blows making Isabelle realize just how very little time they had left to make their escape."

Is acceptable usage.

This?

"He caressed her with tender savagery."

or

"His face reflected sensual savagery as he caressed her quivering breasts."

PUKE.

In fact: Quivering mounds of puke.

"Beguile" used to be a perfectly good word until a couple of romance authors drove it in to the ground.

Oh, how about "rod"? Loretta Chase uses this word, and it still pulls me right out of the scene, despite her mastery of language at all other times.

I know this is going to sound counterintuitive, but I think one of the problems in terms of romantic descriptive language is that certain things are OVERdescribed, while other things are UNDERdescribed. For example, for all the turgid members and swollen sexes in Romance, how much authentic sexual or erotic imagery are we really getting? I'm not talking just about literal v. metaphoric language here, but about florid and euphemistic language that, IMO, has taken a lot of the erotic power out of sex in Romance (and in some cases has taken the sex out altogether, IMO).

As to the argument about writers challenging readers to do it better, my immediate question about that (as a professional writer in another field) is: aren't writers readers first? And don't they get tired of reading certain things themselves? That doesn't mean it's easy to say it differently and in a way that's compelling for all readers, but I have yet to see a truly thoughtful and engaged reader reject a really good Romance for some off words or phrases or even more significant flaws that, IMO, attend every book (and let's face it; a great author can use those used-up words in ways we may still love). When it becomes an issue for me is when I feel that a writer is lazy or disconnected or uncomfortable with what they're writing in some significant way, and when the language (or some other element) seems to reflect that very strongly.

And now for another example of sex talk I like, this time from Judith Ivory's Untie My Heart

"He bent forward, kissing her harder. One moment, his hands were at the sides of her, gripping the chair posts over her head. He curved his hips, hard against her, and she knew the heady thickness of him. All so oddly familiar, yet not. The next moment, one of his hands was between them, at her waist, then the back of his hand glided down her belly, almost protective. Then he took his hand away -- and nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing whatsoever was between them. Unless one counted something else she hadn't felt in a very long time: a very capable, fully naked, and perfectly beautiful male erection. . . .

She felt herself swollen, lit, as the head of his penis dropped against her. It slid down the length of her in an instant acknowledgment of how ready she was. The warm movement of his hand was there, adjusting himself into position -- here was certainly the moment to protest. Did she want to? (p. 125)

Oh, how I love Stuart Aysgarth. And, for that matter, Emma Hotchkiss. I was thinking today about how much I adore this book, in part because the heroine is not the virtuous virgin. At times she's most definitely NOT virtuous, not even nice, and I was rooting for her from page 1. Ass much as I loved Stuart, I was perfectly willing to ler her have him! And I always think of "Light My Fire" by the Doors when I read this scene, a song that remains a sentimental favorite for me.

Robin -- this is one of my top ten romance novels, so you'll get no argument from me.

"My Sweet Folly" seems particularly appropriate for this discussion, since I remember very well the hero, Robert, trying to entice the heroine, Folie, to use the word "pussy" to describe her own genitalia.

There's a scene in that book which I love, in which the hero sits in the stables, and a beat-up barn cat (an actual pussy :-) jumps into his lap, and this cat's behavior brings on an epiphantic moment in the hero, helping him understand his behavior. I read that, thrilled to the very roots of my teeth, thinking, "My God, this is SO good."

I think My Sweet Folly contains some of Kinsale's best -- emotionally rawest and most beautiful -- writing. And I love that first pussy scene, especially the way Folie's total discomfort with saying the word keeps it in play for so long. That scene, IMO, is the erotic highlight in a book that I felt had a relatively disappointing final culmination scene. And ironically, that "pussy" scene is not nearly as explicit as, say, Emma Holly (another author who writers good sex, IMO), but it always strikes me as raw and totally erotic, racier, in a way, than what appears on the surface of the language and description.

That's what's so interesting to me: some writers can underdescribe the details of sex and yet magnify the erotic value of the scene beyond what some blatantly detailed language might be able to accomplish elsewhere (not that I don't like explicit language; I just don't need it if the author can draw me into the scene without it). To me, of course, the difference is in the emotional connection the writer builds -- between herself and her characters, between her characaters and us, and between her characters themselves -- a triangulation of emotional investment that can make even words like "aching" or "throbbing" or "swollen" or "arousal" sound almost fresh.

Granted, there will always be writers who are better at rendering these scenes than others (although I think Sherry's absolutely right that craft can be honed). And I wonder sometimes at all the readers who actually say they skip the sex scenes in Romance because they're boring -- has this admission de-emphasized the importance of writing them? As a reader who flinches at certain words, all I really want is for intention to carry through every scene, including and especially those scenes that seem to have such a built-in and well-used vocabulary for both readers and writers. I've been moved beyond a lot of awkward writing in books that have simply convinced me to care, and I think that comes from a fundamental conviction on the part of the writer that I should and an understanding why.

I've waited a long time to respond to the last comment, because I had to work up my courage.

But here it is: I think My Sweet Folly is one of Kinsale's weakest novels. The characters are good, the setting is good, all the elements are there -- but the plot? Way, way too complex. I'm not dense, but even after I read this novel twice, I wasn't sure what exactly was going on, drugs and poisons and India and philosophy and magic and schemes and Prince Regents and galloping back and forth, demented wives and dementia in general.

It was just all Too Much.

Whoa (definite call for an exclamation mark)- sacrilege! I can see why that took courage. Probably better to criticize DG - not that you ever actually did- than to criticize Laura Kinsale. I will confess to really disliking Midsummer Moon. I just cannot believe the ditzy heroine would call a duke 'Mr Duke', however engrossed she is in her experiments. That spoils the whole thing for me. My Sweet Folly I admit has an overly complex plot but I have just finished rereading it because of passages like that quoted above and because of point 8 in your reviewer's manifesto. LK has lines that make the invisible visible with almost poetic economy eg A wave of intense longing swept over him, a physical ache to be back in Calcutta on the hot verandah, the fan swinging with it's slow squeak above him, her letter held between his palms as if it were a small bird.
or ..Her throat ached in sudden longing, as if the days she had loved him in dreams had become reality again.As if, as if. It had always been "as if".As if he were hers, as if he were there, as if falling in love was a tangible joy that could last longer than the flash of a salmon in a stream, longer than the wisp of breath from the chestnut's muzzle;as if it could be more than this heart's toll of longing which was all it had ever truly been.
The joy of her prose outways a few quibbles about the plot, for me.Obviously not for you.

Dorothy -- I should have said (because in my view, absolutely true) that Kinsale's prose is gorgeous. She writes so beautifully that someimes a sentence just seems to glow on the page.

But I just couldn't get past the plot on this one.