A Stroll Along My Feminine Side

Recollections of a sensitive new age writer

By

Steve Boiseman

A guy writing Romance for the feminine market is setting himself up for all sorts of difficulties arising, simply and unavoidably, from the testosterone coursing through his veins.

Let me explain.? Growing up my Dad was a fan of, among other genres, the pulp western.? ?Shoot ?em ups,? he?d call them and they were filled with fistfights and showdowns outside the livery stable.? In fact, forty years later, I still buy them from the newsagent down the street.? The Cleveland Western; ?Look for the name, trust the quality? have been a constant in my reading life.? They are ninety odd page pulp with titles like: The Naked Noose by Emerson Dodge, Harry and the Can Can Girls also by Emerson Dodge, Lonely Rides the Gunfighter by Sundown McCabe and The Lady Never Sleeps by Clay Anthony.? The colorful paper covers are adorned with semi naked saloon girls swooning at the side of the ubiquitous gunfighter.

The basic premise of these marvelous novellas is that without something important to fight and risk his life for, the reader simply does not care what happens to the lonesome gunslinger who, let?s face it, often has conflicted values and serious anger management issues.? What could be so important to motivate this haunted and taciturn cowpoke? His horse?? His herd of recalcitrant longhorn steers?? Nah. It has to be a woman, of course.

Romance in the Wild West was among my earliest reading experiences (along side science fiction and horror, of course) and instilled in me a basic principle of fiction.

Love, and its companion sex, is the only motivator that counts.? Without a little sexual tension, without the possibility of enduring love put at risk by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune even the grandest tales of war, revolution, vampires, aliens etc lack something vital.? Sure, they exist, and they are good reads, but for every story without romance on the library?s bookshelves there are a hundred that have.

That was my first lesson.? The stories that I, just like my Dad, enjoyed reading always had a liberal dose of romance.? There were always tender moments when even the most rancorous frontiersman shared intimate murmurings of love with his damsel in distress.

My Mum, on the other hand, read Mills and Boon.? Here too, the men were often driven, decisive and single minded.? The heroines, though, were of a different ilk.? None were helpless damsels in distress.? Instead, they were decisive, single minded career women who by circumstance were thrown into the arms of men they didn?t always take to.? Not in the beginning at least.? The men had to prove themselves to the heroine.? In westerns, the hero?s courage and noble character was a given and the helpless female just falls in line.

This provided me with my second lesson.? Romance means different things to male and female readers.? It?s all about who the reader identifies with.? Testosterone laden males tend towards the like of Jessie James and Wyatt Earp, characters who they?d like to be, who by virtue of their strength and skill at arms attract the love and adoration of every female in town.? Readers of Mills and Boon however, identify with strong woman who only attract the love of men who are strong enough to earn that love.? But strength of arms is not enough.? He has to have a heart.? This is a critical difference and requires the male character to be more in touch with his feelings (and willing to explore and discuss them) than a hapless gunslinger could ever do.

The third lesson that my fellow female authors (Lexxie Couper is a shining light here) taught me was that while sex scenes in stories directed at the male market may be more of the nuts and bolts type; tab A into slot B, writing for women needs to focus more on the emotional impact the act has on the female character within the context of the plot.

This provides me with my greatest challenge.? With testosterone pumping through my system, I can?t help but throw in the mechanical aspects of the act, it?s in my nature.? So I need to temper the physical with the emotional.? I think there is room for both, otherwise how do you know who is doing what to who.? The important thing is to include the emotional impact that the sensual act has on the characters and, of course, how it progresses the plot.

It?s a difficult balance to achieve and I have to be honest, I don?t always achieve it (I blame testosterone of course) but reviewers have been kind to me, so I must be getting close.

I owe a lot to both my Dad?s? ?shoot ?em ups? and my Mum?s Mills and Boons to have introduced me to the fundamental element of storytelling and, despite the battle between hormones, I thoroughly enjoy writing romance, where the emotional and sexual context is the driving force behind the plot, and whether my characters are saving the universe from aliens or surviving the night surrounded by thirsty vampires, just as it is true in real life, it is what?s at stake for my characters that counts; that is simply the love of someone worthy.

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