On Fiction: Does Being a Mass Market Influences Romance Genre's Shift to Fan Fiction Conventions?
If Ali Hazelwood is a Star Wars fan, fine. But if 'The Love Hypothesis' made it its entire personality to be a Star Wars thing, this novel might as well alienate me.
Could it be that these new releases of contemporary romance novels pushed onto the mainstream are marketed so much by the BookTok platform that all the readership left is the tropification of it?
Fine. Alright. If that's how these current trends go, then it might as well be.
But if you examine the shifting landscape throughout the genre's timeline, this phenomenon is not going anywhere, anytime soon. I first encountered the genre on old books. I mean, I've read Anne Rice's 'Sleeping Beauty' just to have my innocent brain adulterated by it.
However, I did not appreciate the genre for smut (I'd be a total liar to say I love clean romance if there's no story). In my case, when I first devoured my entire bibliography with novels of this genre, my favorite is of course the assurance of happily ever after. Because I grew up with Disney princesses, I love fairytales and the ending.
But voracious reading comes with its sophistication and I cultivate my taste in tropes, which I later seek in both its plot and characters. Yes, I'm as guilty as charged to what I initially accused of BookTok. But these things for me should come as a byproduct of the entirety of the story, not the demand of it like BookTok wants.
Now, this comes the fanbase. Those who are willing to buy an entire saga like Stephenie Meyer’s 'Twilight' for them to look over for the adult version in E.L. James’s '50 Shades of Grey'.
And thus said the Salman Rushdie: badly written that ever got published.
THE Salman Rushdie. He, the greatest writer of contemporary fiction next to Zadie Smith, had the time to read that, and this fanfiction novel still feeds shit.
And now, this genre has leaned into the same niche of people whose cultural export reached the shores of romance. So, could the fanfiction readers hold the torchlight of visibility now in the year post-2020s TikTok peak? Or does this speak to a generation that grew up with this niche?
I didn't grow up with them though. I grew through old novels I've found in Wattpad, Project Gutenberg, and pirated websites that uploaded the novels that I wanted. But it gave me one of the most well-written classics hailed from this genre. Maybe my own case of scarcity made me endure reading Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey' for the first time and found out during my late high school that I somehow see Catherine Moreland, whose head is in the skies like my own imagination. That up until now, I'm frustrated to keep shipping the impossibility of Fanny Price and Henry Crawford in 'Mansfield Park', or perhaps will forever appreciate Austen in Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy's brilliant repertoire in the ever popular and mainstream 'Pride and Prejudice'.
Or that Victorian literature with the marriage plot is my self-fulfilling prophecy of them having a happily ever after like the Disney princesses of my childhood.
I grew up because I settled on what is available on the internet for free, it was because of scarcity. Yet somehow, it gave me the richness I could've disposed of now every time I can afford to read those books I'm only mooning in bookstores before.
Wouldn't it be great if I've read Jenny Han's 'To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before' just because I saw it in the bookstore with a cover who is a pretty girl with black hair like me for the first time? And that I would've curled my toes just like when I've watched the Netflix film adaptation of it?
But a high schooler with a meager allowance couldn't afford it. I ended up reading Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' instead, which later made a tremendous impact throughout my early adulthood.
However, just because constraints such as scarcity on my part doesn't mean that liberality on the part of fanfiction enthusiasts should be construed in a dismissive patronization. No. I only wonder if this is such the case.
Since as I was informed, the best-selling genre is sensitive to a single heartbeat that reeks money, the boon of being a mass market.
And thus, to my early adulthood's disillusionment of this mass market genre: where the money is, it's probably where the production goes. So if today is fanfiction, even if yesteryears are stories about alpha-assholes or billionaires who have time enough to date you, a real reader will always find themselves in the most recommended classics.
One should read Cecilia Grant if they ever know this genre. One should read Sherry Thomas if they ever have the true testament to walk through the baptism of fire and call themselves romance readers.
What the hell is with “shadow daddy” anyway?
What on earth is me trying to decipher so much character quirk it gives nothing?
