Too Old for Romance?
Rebecca over at Dirty Sexy Books, http://www.dirtysexybooks.com/Dirty_Sexy_Books/Home/Home.html posed a couple of interesting questions to her readers yesterday - Why are most romance heroines in their twenties and is thirty-five over the hill? Here’s a direct link to the post:
http://www.dirtysexybooks.com/Dirty_Sexy_Books/Home/Entries/2010/3/30_The_Importance_of_Age.html
I thought about this question all night, and I’m kinda pissed because I had this really great post written and then my damn computer shut itself off to update some POS and I lost the post - so here I go again!
I’ve come up with some answers. I’ll discuss them in no particular order. First, the no-brainer…
1. Because it sells. Readers seem to want to read about twenty-something heroines with thirty-something heroes. The truth is, women mature faster than men, so in my mind, there is not a great deal of difference between, say, a twenty-eight year old woman and a thirty-six year old man.
2. Guilty as charged. Most of my heroines tend to be between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine, except for Kate in You Might Just Get It, who is a forty-one year old confident, cute, sexy nurse dating a twenty-nine year old chef. (The Cougar Book) I looked deep into my heart and asked myself, why is this? Well…
3. Because in our twenties, we are not set in stone. We are still malleable and we are risk takers. At least some of us are - certainly our heroines are, even if they are reluctant risk takers. In our thirties, less so. In our thirties, most of the time we’ve discovered a pathway, a career path, a family path, a marriage path, and we are reluctant to put any of those things at risk. I look back on my twenties and wonder how in the hell I ever survived that decade. Jesus, I took risks, risks that I would never have taken in my thirties when I had so much to lose!
4. As a writer, I can spin a woman in her twenties any way I want. She is a blank slate. I can give my heroine what I wished for myself in that decade - actually what I ended up getting at the age of twenty-seven - my hero, my true love - and my life was pretty damn dysfunctional up until then. Maybe notorious would be a better word. I can’t do that quite as well with a woman in her thirties because a woman in her thirties is not a blank slate. She is full of history, mystery and in possession of a much deeper, more complex back story.
5. I can write a story about a woman in her twenties from the perspective of what I had learned by the time I was in my mid-thirties - which is why my heroines tend to be tough survivors and unusually mature. Most romance writers are over thirty. My favorite writers allow their maturity to trickle down over their characters - occasionally you find the brilliant twenty-something putting out a really compelling story - usually paranormal or urban fiction/fantasy - but my favorite writers in all genres (not just Romance) tend to be old enough to have lived a little, gained some perspective and learned some valuable life lessons.
6. Perhaps the reason romance readers enjoy stories involving young heroines is that we want to re-envision that decade for ourselves, romanticize it, so to speak. Make it over into a period of time when we didn’t fuck up quite so much.
In any case, I do plan to write a work for Rebecca and myself involving a thirty-six year old heroine. First I have to finish with three other WIPs - damn it!
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March 31st, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I agree with point 3. I believe the more disillusioned you are in love the less likely you are to be swayed by sweet talk and a handsome face/great body. You tend to want an FBI check and copies of bank statements
not at all romantic.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:34 pm
And perhaps, if you write a romance involving a not-so-twenty-ish heroine, she might need to reflect that cynicism. I’m not 100% certain readers want cynicism so a story would have to be crafted very carefully. There seems to be an innocence about the twenties that we lose as we grow older. That’s not a bad thing, just a real thing.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I love stories about women who are firmly entrenched in their thirties or beyond! There are so many life experiences they have already had, and endless possibilities in exploring where they want their life to go.
March 31st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
And you do a great job writing for 30+ year old women, Tessie. It’s an area where I plan to test the waters.
March 31st, 2010 at 2:40 pm
I am MUCH older than you, dear, so most of my heroines are in their 30’s or so. That’s VERY young to me. LOL!
April 1st, 2010 at 4:41 am
I love to read about kick butt heroines in there 30s even 40s.
April 1st, 2010 at 4:55 am
For me I think I go with number 6. My twenties seemed to be a waste now that I’m 37, looking back through my life. I wish I could redo my twenties, or at least the first half of my twenties. But all the points you made, Julia, are spot-on. Great post!
April 1st, 2010 at 7:15 am
I tend to write 30-33 year old heroines, though I’ve had one as young as 28, and a couple vampires who counted in centuries. There are starting to be some great books with older heroines, though, and I think that’s a great thing.
April 1st, 2010 at 7:26 am
The nice thing about vampires is that they stop aging! I think the thirties - in terms of confidence and sexiness, are the best, just haven’t managed to write for a woman in that decade - which I’m beginning to think is a big mistake!
April 1st, 2010 at 9:23 am
I think we like reminiscing about our youth, and put ourselves in the heroine’s place. Would I have been like that? Could I have reacted that way? Do I wish I’d done that? By writing younger heroines (for the market), we tell the world that we’ve not old…just experienced and love seeing the world through our “younger” heroine’s eyes.
April 1st, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Marianne - I love your comment. What a lovely way to look at younger heroines!