I fought in the 2015 reddit wars to get male readers to see female writers as more than only romance and childrens authors, only to arrive on the doorstep of 2025 where female readers assume all female writers only write romance and send unhinged emails about no HEA in non-romance genre book 💀
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It was a liberating movement about expanding whom got to create/experience stories and how to experience/share humanity.
Human connection exists beyond romantic relationships and love can be valid in all places just no longer under the umbrella term Romance™.
https://bsky.app/profile/goshdarnitmel.bsky.social/post/3lch2lsknec2o
I, however, have endured years of death threats from Jim Butcher fans. I stopped giving a shit ages ago lol
Man, I remember when I played on AmberMUSH with Jim...and now his fans are assholes.
Then I got busy, and they fell off my radar.
People change over time. Not always for the better.
Beats all of 'em! 🤣
Lower Manhattan, doing Times crosswords with a friend in a bar - both of us friends with the female bartender.
I was talking to her about Ursula Le Guin, and she asked my friend what he thought.
He came out with: I don't read books written by women.
I'm a guy.
My issue is now having the reverse happening to a number of friends, which is an incredibly frustrating and bordering on harassment at times.
Both of us (bartender and I) were stunned. This was in the 70s.
Honestly, I'm getting nostalgic about my loser dudes.
Or emailing entire plot suggestion documents to fix what you did wrong to the romance.
Or having Google alerts set up to reply to anyone who mentions a book w/ massive spoilers bc not HEA"
The number of times I, writer of hard sci-fi viral apocalypse/military thriller trilogy have been asked: "What kind of romance books do you write?" Or "Oh, I don't read chick lit." before I can even pitch my book is staggering.
Specifically, the fantasy epic where the FMC's character arc involves her figuring out she is *aromantic*
Her justification was "well your next book will be a romance, we want to hook these readers early" um no???
It is not.
Also, readers keep waiting for her to pair up with her BFF. Like, I've given you a QPR. You ain't getting anything else.
https://www.whitehartfiction.co.uk/products/left-hand-ebook
I bring you...David Weber Writes A Romance.
It, of course, ends with a nuclear blast going off over a densely populated urban area.
Maybe I am too squishy and naive for this industry
My condolences on the headache that must have induced.
That book.
On a romance list. 🤦🏻♀️
That may be driving some of that. There's a hunger for happier endings, even in darker stories.
Not all books are romances.
Not all female authors are romance authors.
Not all books are going to have a happy ever after ending.
Some books are going to murder your MMC darling and have his flayed corpse in the middle of a road.
https://amzn.to/3Bet8zh
It might be the "decent" holding you back!
In 2015, I had "Who helped you write this book" pointing at my military SF b/c a woman couldn't write that.
In 2024, I had to repeat *several times* to female readers (plural) that the military SF is not a romance just b/c a woman wrote it.
(The series was Tanya Huff’s Confederation of Valor books)
Seriously, it's urban fantasy. People die all of the time in that genre. It's part of the fun of it.
*tosses table*
BUT
Follow me here:
Female writer writing in a non-romance genre writes book.
Reader assumes all womenz are romance writers.
Reader becomes unhinged at writer when book isn't a romance.
Mostly I suppose it's just easier to classify things by boxes, but we *have* those boxes for books.
If it's clearly one genre, why would you expect it to be something different because of the name on the cover?
Sigh