Conference Notes--Day 4

By the final day of the conference, everyone was starting to fray at the edges, but we still managed to pack a lot into the Sunday.

Miriam Kriss spoke about the paranormal market. As in straight fantasy, in paranormal romance, Miriam still looks for the author's ability to build a unique world, where the author neither tells too much nor too little about the unique rules of her particular universe.

Jane Porter spoke on the topic Is Chick-lit Dead? Jane was very outspoken on what a terrible, denigrating term 'chick-lit' is. That aside, she said that books written for women will always be around and I think that's true, but I felt that was side-stepping the issue a little from the writer's perspective. I have heard, from agent blogs like Kristin Nelson's and reports by authors who write chick-lit, that that particular market is very tough in the United States at the moment. There is talk that the Harlequin chick-lit imprint Red Dress Ink is slowing down and from what I've observed, Harlequin always has its finger on the pulse of what's selling. So, of course, the best-selling authors of the genre aren't going anywhere, but it's a market that's not as easy for new writers to break into as it was in the not-so-distant past. A lot of people are saying this will happen to paranormal romance too, which experienced a recent boom.

Anne Gracie's talk on The Care and Feeding of Rakes was fun and informative, as we have come to expect from Ms. Gracie. Anne made the point that romances are often the hero's story, which is something I realised a while ago in my reading of historicals. Heroes are allowed to be 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', as long as they are capable of redemption and the best loved stories seem to deal with the hero's journey.

I feel heroines have a much tougher time with readers than heroes. Laura Kinsale has commented on this. Make a heroine flawed in the smallest way and the reader is likely to throw the book at the wall. Still, Kinsale has not let that stop her from crafting wonderful, three-dimensional heroines. But it begs the question--why are we so hard on heroines? Is it because women tend to be tougher on our own sex? Or is it because we want to identify with the heroine and fall in love with the hero? We don't like to see our own flaws, but we enjoy knowing the heroine (therefore we) can tame that bad boy and bring him to his knees?

Seducing the Media with Cherie Curtis was a real eye-opener. Cherie showed us how to write a media release and spoke about ways we could use our personal experiences to generate newsworthy stories. Apparently, releasing a book is not enough. Darn it! It then becomes a question of how much of your private life you're willing to put in the public domain.

After a fun author chat with Anne Gracie in which we lost track of time, it was the end of the conference for me. We got a little lost on the way home, but luckily for Denise and me, we had the very switched-on Fiona in the back seat navigating, so we got there in the end. Exhausted and enthused!