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I hope this doesn’t come across as arrogant.
My question is about etiquette across genres. I know romance novels get a lot of disrespect, and a good reason why is when unhealthy character relationships get portrayed. I get that it can be a fantasy and one shouldn’t mistake what happens in certain texts with real life wants. And for the record, I’ve read extremely well written romances that are on par with “literature” at least in terms of prose quality.
Often, when individuals who are unfamiliar with genre in a writing group, they tend to say, “I don’t read X” as if everything was written in another language. I get that certain writing rules can be ignored if it’s common in that subgenre, Is there a way to bridge this gap? I mean, I get it when someone says, “I know nothing of 16th century French Politics, you got me” if I was a fact checker, this would be problematic, but for the average writing-feedback, is there a way to have a respectful conversation, admit when giving feedback “Well, I happen to know next to nothing about X, but I liked the drama. I didn’t like character Y, I thought she was a cliche faux action girl and you weren’t going for subversion.”
This applies to the reviews as well, but is there a way to bridge the conversation? Let’s put it this way: I’m a hardass reviewer. I’m extremely sure I’ve pissed people off while I go on a tangent nobody else probably cares about. It’s not about disrespecting the writer, so much as talking about the idea the book tried to portray. Can we make this less about my fragile ego, and more about the theme?
If that one is too hard, any advice for working with editors, especially if you have someone who is dallying in your prose and you’re being a diva, especially if you don’t want to be a diva?
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