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charlie_cochraneDelighted to be appearing in the Autumn edition of the Romantic Novelists Association magazine!
Scan not great so here's the original text:
Gay romance – debunking the myths
“Gay romance is badly written, badly edited porn!”
If you think that’s a bit extreme, it’s exactly the sort of thing RNA authors Jamie Merrow and Charlie Cochrane have heard time and again. They’d like to set the record straight on that viewpoint and some of the other nonsense talked about this part of the romance genre.
Charlie admits that some gay romance absolutely fits that charge against it, although she insists it wouldn’t apply to any of that written by RNA members.
“The poorly written, poorly edited smut bit is also true of some heterosexual romances, let alone books in other genres. There’s always going to be poor product put into the market. But, as with het romance, there’s a huge amount of high quality work, and there’s just as wide a range of heat levels and sub genres in gay romance as there is in het. If you want a historical that you could lend your grandmother, because any sex scenes fade to black, you can find it for her.”
Jamie agrees: “It was only last week that another writer (not an RNA member, I’m glad to say) asked me what made me start writing gay porn! I politely pointed out that I don’t, actually, write porn; I write romance. I have a sneaking feeling, though, that a lot of RNA members will be familiar with the nudge-nudge, wink-wink ‘Ooh, like Fifty Shades of Gray?’ response. I’ve often heard something like this even before I specify what brand of romance I write.”
The other myth is that the genre is solely written by women for women. Again, not so!
Charlie says, “I have plenty of male readers, some of whom have taken the time to contact me saying how much they enjoy my books. In some instances, they’ve said how the stories have related to their own lives or helped them through a rough patch. If you are writing about characters who are true to life, rather than caricatures, male readers will find that point of connection.”
Jamie concurs with that, too. “I’ve had some really touching emails from male readers, particularly from older men telling me how I’ve captured their experience of coming out later in life.”
For people who fit under the LGBT rainbow umbrella, the journey to find love is often less straightforward than for straight people, and to write that emotional journey can be very rewarding. The other side of the coin is that there are increasing numbers of men writing gay romance—as RNA members will know, the male of the species can be just as romantic as the female.
The third misconception is that this is a tiny, niche market. Charlie would point to the popularity of films such as Brokeback Mountain, and the worldwide fascination with the Jack and Ianto storyline in Torchwood, as evidence that gay romance has a potentially wider appeal than might first be apparent.
“Plenty of books in a range of genres have gay characters, which doesn’t detract from their appeal.”
And, as Jamie says, “Gay romance as a genre has grown markedly since I started writing in 2009. The MM Romance group is now the seventh largest on Goodreads and is very active.” Gay people are becoming more visible in popular media, and readers are coming to realise how narrow representation used to be. Although gay characters have always been around in books and films, for a long time they weren’t openly gay, just “coded gay”, meaning they displayed a range of characteristics that were thought to be more prevalent in queer people (for examples, see almost every Disney villain). Today’s more sophisticated audiences realise that such stereotypes are only a very small part of the picture. It’s been great to see mainstream movies finally including openly LGBT characters, such as in Deadpool 2 and even in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Long may the trend continue!
Scan not great so here's the original text:
Gay romance – debunking the myths
“Gay romance is badly written, badly edited porn!”
If you think that’s a bit extreme, it’s exactly the sort of thing RNA authors Jamie Merrow and Charlie Cochrane have heard time and again. They’d like to set the record straight on that viewpoint and some of the other nonsense talked about this part of the romance genre.
Charlie admits that some gay romance absolutely fits that charge against it, although she insists it wouldn’t apply to any of that written by RNA members.
“The poorly written, poorly edited smut bit is also true of some heterosexual romances, let alone books in other genres. There’s always going to be poor product put into the market. But, as with het romance, there’s a huge amount of high quality work, and there’s just as wide a range of heat levels and sub genres in gay romance as there is in het. If you want a historical that you could lend your grandmother, because any sex scenes fade to black, you can find it for her.”
Jamie agrees: “It was only last week that another writer (not an RNA member, I’m glad to say) asked me what made me start writing gay porn! I politely pointed out that I don’t, actually, write porn; I write romance. I have a sneaking feeling, though, that a lot of RNA members will be familiar with the nudge-nudge, wink-wink ‘Ooh, like Fifty Shades of Gray?’ response. I’ve often heard something like this even before I specify what brand of romance I write.”
The other myth is that the genre is solely written by women for women. Again, not so!
Charlie says, “I have plenty of male readers, some of whom have taken the time to contact me saying how much they enjoy my books. In some instances, they’ve said how the stories have related to their own lives or helped them through a rough patch. If you are writing about characters who are true to life, rather than caricatures, male readers will find that point of connection.”
Jamie concurs with that, too. “I’ve had some really touching emails from male readers, particularly from older men telling me how I’ve captured their experience of coming out later in life.”
For people who fit under the LGBT rainbow umbrella, the journey to find love is often less straightforward than for straight people, and to write that emotional journey can be very rewarding. The other side of the coin is that there are increasing numbers of men writing gay romance—as RNA members will know, the male of the species can be just as romantic as the female.
The third misconception is that this is a tiny, niche market. Charlie would point to the popularity of films such as Brokeback Mountain, and the worldwide fascination with the Jack and Ianto storyline in Torchwood, as evidence that gay romance has a potentially wider appeal than might first be apparent.
“Plenty of books in a range of genres have gay characters, which doesn’t detract from their appeal.”
And, as Jamie says, “Gay romance as a genre has grown markedly since I started writing in 2009. The MM Romance group is now the seventh largest on Goodreads and is very active.” Gay people are becoming more visible in popular media, and readers are coming to realise how narrow representation used to be. Although gay characters have always been around in books and films, for a long time they weren’t openly gay, just “coded gay”, meaning they displayed a range of characteristics that were thought to be more prevalent in queer people (for examples, see almost every Disney villain). Today’s more sophisticated audiences realise that such stereotypes are only a very small part of the picture. It’s been great to see mainstream movies finally including openly LGBT characters, such as in Deadpool 2 and even in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Long may the trend continue!
