התמלול המלא של #082 - Why Do We Love Romance Novels? with Sarah MacLean

they're not like hard and fast rules, but just ways that that romance novels are written for you know to in order to satisfy the the reader. Sarah MacLean: I mean, that's it, right? There is only really one rule. And Ryan: Okay. I see. Sarah MacLean: it is the same rule, you know. If I all genre has rules, right? Like there is, and those rules look different in different ways, right? If you're writing horror, there has to be a kind of terrifying character, either, you know, monster, human, you know, the world, whatever it is, right? There, the rule is it's characters against. Something in in conflict with a terrifying other. in mystery, there has to be a mystery, right? There has to be a solution, a sol we're we're watching something get solved. We a mystery is not rewarding at the end if there isn't a solution to the mystery. you know, a we don't we have to figure it out. and in romance, the rule is happily ever after, the rule is these characters act, you asked your first question was. What do we get from it as romance readers? And I would say we get from it the same things that all genre fiction delivers, which is we get characters acting in their heroic selves, characters acting with nobility. Genre tells the story of of us as heroes, ordinary people, ordinary people as heroes. And and heroes win. So in romance, just like all other genres, there has to be a win. Ryan: Yeah. So let's let's dive even deeper and talk specific psychological benefits that that people might get, right? Because it's it's it's not as simple as enjoyment, right? There there's some nuance to what people get out of romance, like things like they they maybe some people read for comfort, other people read because for you know optimism. could you Talk a little bit about about you know different categories of readers and what they might be looking for by reading these these stories. Sarah MacLean: Sure. I mean, I think that there are a lot of things that come with that are are val there are a lot of values to romance, right? I would push back slightly on it's not as simple as enjoyment. I would say more, I would say enjoyment is more complex than we necessarily give it credit for. and what I mean by that is the joy of a romance novel, the joy of seeing characters like yourself on page, thriving and in power, parody, sexual pleasure, leaving heroicism, like I said, leaving the world better than they found it, kind of acting with nobility, these kinds of characters driven to be their best selves, getting joy from all of those things. Or deriving joy from all those things is really incredibly powerful, especially when you think of a j of the genre as a genre that was devised by and for women and other communities of people who don't get to have storytelling all the time, right? Like when we talk about gen general kind of social storytelling in the United States, in the West, right? In in Western civilization, we're talking about the stories of like, cishet, white, able-bodied

Christian men largely. And romance subverts that as a concept and says, what if instead of sending a hero out on a journey, we make the journey about a heroine in community. And those kinds of things give us a lot of joy and are simultaneously incredibly powerful as texts and as Not to make it didactic. I don't want to make it didactic, right? But I think romance is the genre of joy and hope. And these kinds of things are incredibly powerful by virtue of as a queer person in the world, you might not have ever had the opportunity to experience your identity in joy in text. Ryan: Yeah. so you know, you you kind of mentioned that that there are different targets, I guess, of romance novels, and that maybe, you know, 50 years ago or even earlier, the target might be, you know, kind of this stereotypical wife at home, homemaker, you know, super stereotypical. And this is this is the kind of this fantastical escape. For them. how has the target of romance changed since then? Sarah MacLean: I mean, I think so I think it's worth us having a conversation. just me taking you a step back and talking about the history of the genre. Ryan: Please do. Sarah MacLean: when we talk about romance novels, capital R, Capital N, we are talking about a specific genre of literature that birth was birthed in the nineteen seventies. nineteen seventy-two is a is a year that we all sort of point to. It was the year that Kathleen Woodows wrote a book called The Flame and the Flower. And that is While there were sort of category small, small, what we would refer to as pulp fiction romance novels prior to that. This is really the book that the industry points to as like this is the one, the first. and the story of Kathleen Woodowis is that her, and who knows, right? The lore of Kathleen Woodowis is that she was a housewife in the Midwest, and her husband read Westerns. And she read Westerns because those were the books that were in the house. And one day she said, Well, I don't understand why the women always die in these books. And also, like, why can't we have a story where the woman is at the forefront, where the woman is the hero? And she wrote a book called The Flame and the Flower, which was the story of a young woman, Heather, who meets a sea captain, ends up on a, you know, ship from England to the United States. ends up marrying this man, this very powerful man who runs the, who is like the captain of this ship. He this book has all of the things that we think of stereotypically about old romance novels in it. He sexually assaults her, he rapes her four or five times in the first 100 pages of that book. They do end it it ends happily ever after. it is a book that if you were to pick it up and read it today, is deeply, deeply problematic. Though Heather names says the word rape multiple times, names it as a crime. She punishes him for it, for the behavior. And it is worth speaking to the fact that this book was published in 1972 when in the United States marital rape was not a crime. So as we're thinking about the texts, we're thinking about a genre that, and on top of it, Woody West was writing. started the us on this path where romance novelists write incredibly fast, right? We I write a book a year and that is slow by any metric in romance. And so we are a genre that is constant like other genres, like all genre fiction, we are writing in a constant conversation with society, right? With what's going on in the world. So when you say, you know, these books were a fantastical experience for Readers in the 70s and 80s, in for you know these stereotypical housewives. In some ways, yes, obviously, right? There is like these are stories of these are adventure novels with women at the center. but at the same time, like these were books where people were having con the characters, the heroines on page in these books were having conversations that real women in the real world could not sp have in public, right? So If I'm married, if I was married in 1972 and I was in a situation where my husband was assaulting me regularly, there is no one I can go to to have this conversation, to see this experience on page and to potentially see a way for me to navigate out of it. And romance novels were doing that for women then. Again, I don't want to make it. a discussion of the genre as instructive, because I don't think that's always true, but I do think it is an incredibly subversive experience to be ingesting media where you see yourself in joy and in power when the world isn't delivering you that. Ryan: That's some great historical context. I I really did not know that that that early on that was kind of you know that was the motivation behind, you know, some of the some of the writing. it so it if you know, it strikes me that that on average the style or the plot of more modern romance novels are like they they seem to be a little bit more a little bit lighter. I'm I'm guessing there's probably exceptions, right? 'Cause I mean, you know, y I Yeah. Sarah MacLean: we're a very big pool, yeah. I mean you can find you can find whatever your kink is here in romance. but yes Ryan: Sure. so so let's let's talk about you know what are the I want to get into the story elements because it it is fascinating. Sarah MacLean: Please. Ryan: There are there are clear themes that that go into romance novels, but if you had to just summarize the you know the essential ingredients, you you've already talked about you know, there's a couple and there's going to be a happily ever after. But what are what are some of the the ingredients in a compelling romance novel? And you know, I I'll preface this by saying, you know, it's always hard to objectively say, well, this is this is a good book and this isn't, and here's why. but I like to try. And and maybe, you know, you have strong opinions on on specific aspects, but what what are some of the ingredients that make a compelling romance story? Sarah MacLean: So Heather Birch, who unfortunately

is no longer with us but was a romance novelist, used to say a romance novel requires three things unforgettable characters, an impossible situation, and a relentless threat. And it's interesting because you could also, again, say that well, that doesn't sound like it's a, you know, you know, a classic romance. Like that doesn't sound like Pride and Prejudice, except it kind of does. the relentless threat is a sort of broad a broad cross section of possibility, right? Like it could be as simple as the threat is that that you know our our community won't agree, won't, you know, support our relationship. It could be, you know, I, it could be you and me against the world in Antarctica. It could be you know, a a a st a stalker on page. It could, it could be all sorts of different things. But the reality is is that Every romance novel has t two or more characters, main characters, who must tackle insurmountable odds in order to grow and learn about themselves and then fall in love with each other. Ryan: It's funny because you know, you're talking about the struggle, and I I've been thinking about just how central the yearning piece is and Sarah MacLean: Yeah. Ryan: and the struggle, and how you know it it does in a certain way mirror real life, which is the in many, many cases, whether it's a concert, a birthday party, the anticipation is oftentimes. the emotional payoff and the event is just, you know, all at once, right? It's it's it's it is Sarah MacLean: Exactly. Ryan: not the emotional peak. why why do you think the yearning that that the why do you think the struggle in the romance novel is more compelling than just reading about, you know, success? Sarah MacLean: Yeah, two normal people being normal together, just like on the couch watching television. Well, because I can invite my friends over and experience Ryan: Yeah. who who wouldn't want to watch who wouldn't want to read a novel about that? Yeah. Sarah MacLean: that, right? I experience that I'm married, I I experience that every day, right? but also because that's not that doesn't make good storytelling, right? Like in general, we are, I think one of the big misunderstandings about romance is that is that people who don't read it think like, well, it's just like Two people in love the whole time. And it's like, no, once they're in love, the book's over. and and I mean, and I mean that quite literally. I mean I write a book and it's you know 400 pages long, and they ultimately all think, you know, all the conflict is resolved, and these two dummies have figured it out on page 395. And then you get five pages of like, and now here they are happy. And we're done because there's no more there. There's no more story to tell for me. Obviously, if you want to tell the story of a happily married couple, good luck to you. It's probably not a romance novel, right? It that well, then we're moving into literary fiction, right? so I think the answer to your question is the will they won't they, the why can't they be together right now? The you know, how are they ever going to make this work? That's conflict. And conflict is good storytelling, no Ryan: Yeah. Sarah MacLean: matter what you're writing. Ryan: Absolutely. I wanted to talk about some of the tropes that are common in romance novels. there's so many of them. Enemies to Lovers, Forbidden Romance. could you you know, think of of one of your favorite tropes and just talk a little bit about why you why you think it's so compelling? Sarah MacLean: Sure. I mean, I mean, you brought up Enemies to Lovers, which is a real classic. Almost all of my books are Enemies to Lovers. The story, the conflict is right there in the in the headline, right? I mean, and we've all seen movies or shows where we have spent the entire time shipping characters who really hate each other. And then ultimately, you know, if you're a Buffy the Vampire Slayer out there fan out there. You know, Buffy and Spike were enemies to lovers. And it was compelling because they hated each other. They were literally a vampire and a vampire slayer. And ended up, you know, once they finally got together, it felt it felt like they had really gone on a journey. They had done real work. but in a more simple way, I mentioned Jane Austen earlier in Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie and Darcy are enemies to lovers, right? He You know, she's she can't, she finds him contemptible. He is incredibly unkind about her family. Like these are two characters who cannot stand each other. And or there's sort of a question of whether or not Darcy can really not stand Lizzie, but she certainly can't stand him. And he doesn't treat her very well. And they have to do work, right? Like there's enemies to lovers. But it works on a smaller level too. One of the most like Classic tropes in romance is something called Only One Bed, which, you know, we've all seen in movies or television shows. If you've never read a romance novel, you know, where two characters are on a journey of some kind or something happens and they end up kind of in a snowstorm or a rainstorm, and they have no choice but to like pull off to the side of the road and like take shelter or find a hotel room. a hotel and there is a shocking lack of beds in romance hotels. and we end up in a hotel room and there is only one bed. Now, listen, if I ended up in a hotel room and there was only one bed and I was with my husband, that would not be a good story. But if I end up in an only one bed situation with my arch nemesis or with somebody I work with, or, you know. Whatever the situation is, suddenly there is an immense amount of tension there. So it doesn't just have to be a trope at a high level. These are sort of micro tropes that really deliver again, anything that ramps up the tension that underscores what you refer to as yearning. these are important, there are tools in the toolkit for romance. Ryan: I it reminds me of some some there's actually, you know, work looking at relationships and

how if you have a a neutral interaction with a stranger versus a negative interaction with a stranger, you're more likely to become close with the negative person if yeah, Sarah MacLean: Sure, because feelings matter. Ryan: if you once if you do become friends, that friendship could be longer. Sarah MacLean: Yeah. Ryan: and it it kind of speaks to this idea that when we go from not knowing somebody to you know having a negative opinion of them, negativity digs a a a valley in in Sarah MacLean: Mm. Ryan: terms of how you it it they they get roots in you when you don't Sarah MacLean: Sure. Ryan: like someone. And and you know, there's there's some work in psychology that looks at the math of love and what they what they basically find is that that that when you have that negativity, if if then you start adding new observations, e a couple things that you like about the person, like, they're they're kind to the elderly. they're they open doors for people, right? And that that you don't go back to neutral. You literally flip. And it and it's so Sarah MacLean: You pass neutral. Yeah. Ryan: And and I like that I like that Sarah MacLean: It's beauty and the beast, right? Ryan: because because this this this enemies to lovers trope kinda i is a nice literary representation of that that pattern. Sarah MacLean: Yeah, I mean, I think that may well that I'm I'm interested in hearing that there is a actual, you know, science behind it. I I don't know that you should, you know, end up marrying your dark your, you know, your worst enemy. but it makes for good storytelling. Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. how about the the friends to lovers trope, which I f I I thought r was really interesting too. these prolonged interactions where two people are clearly in love, but they're the only ones that that don't know it. could you talk a little bit about about how that plays out and why that's so interesting? Sarah MacLean: you're probably talking to the wrong person about Friends to Lovers. It Ryan: Ha ha. Sarah MacLean: is my least favorite trope. Nobody will be surprised after they've heard me sort of talk about how I think about romance novels. I actually don't love Friends to Lovers. I think it's incredibly, incredibly difficult to write well. and I think that the reason why is because, again, I'm not I'm not thinking about like two actual living, breathing human beings falling in love, in which case I think Friends to Lovers is probably like. Really great. Enjoy your lives, everyone. people who say like they married their best friend, I'm for it in real life. But in fiction, conflict is essential, right? So when we're talking about friends to lovers, I can really only think of a handful of books that do it and cr do it very well. And usually in those books where it's done very well, the reason why it's done extremely well is because it either begins with some sort of unrequited love on the part of one. of the characters, or it involves a kind of shock. The sh they are shocked into discovering their feelings for each other are more intense, more full of yearning than they originally imagined. Other than that, I think it can be very boring to read. Ryan: See, I I it's interesting that you say that, because I'm not familiar with with your work in particular. I see, I there's something about that this idea of friends not taking the leap that interests me, especially as somebody who you know, for you know, when I was in high school, I would say part of my issue entering in relationships was just fear of risk. You know, asking asking somebody out is terrifying. And I actually can can relate to some of these stories in the sense of, you know, it is very it's very common, I think, for people to be risk averse when it comes to, you know, pushing forward or or taking a step in a relationship, whether that's to be together or whether it's to break up. There is a, you Sarah MacLean: Right. Ryan: know, to me the conflict is is is a lot more. Internal. It seems like it's Sarah MacLean: Sure. Ryan: internal conflict, yeah. Sarah MacLean: I think you're 100% right. I think two things sort of come to mind instantly. One is you said high school, and that's not what romance is, right? Like romance is about grown-ups acting like grown-ups. I totally agree with you. And I think in something like a YA romance, it works much better. because Ryan: Interesting. Sarah MacLean: but YA is about characters learning about themselves. And that's not to say that adult romance isn't about those things, but I think I think YA really is the world of that. and then the second piece that I think is important is that in fiction, especially in genre fiction, when we're talking about like characters, it as heroes and heroines, right? They are characters who act. So in action in a romance novel, it or in in fiction in general, it's not. Compelling storytelling. And so I think, you know, I think one of the one of the interesting things, and one of the reasons why this conversation is so interesting is because you come at it from a perspective of like the science for real humans, right? And I come at it as what makes a good story. And the reality Ryan: Mm. Sarah MacLean: is that. Truth and fiction are two different things. Characters act differently in romance novels than they do in real life. And that is that's fiction, right? Ryan: Yeah, and and there's i sure. Sarah MacLean: Despite the fact, sorry, that the genre is the genre of emotion, right? Like romance owns emotion in all in in fiction. Ryan: so this is a nice segue to talk about some of the symbolism of, you know, you you you said that that that people are are that real life is not n should not be thought of as the same thing as what is happening in a romance novel. That people in romance novels are making decisions that are not necessarily typical for what people would the decisions people would make in real life. but yeah, it's it's it sounds like that that w at least one of the motives

behind or one of the reasons why people are attracted to to romance novels is that specific reason, right? That that that they have this ability to watch characters do different things, to to be bold to be much bolder than they might be Sarah MacLean: To be heroes. Mm-hmm. Ryan: to right. And do you think that, you know, do you think that that As a reader, that this can be inspirational, in a way. Sarah MacLean: Yes. I mean, obviously, we we have all, if you've been in this business long enough, you've heard from you've heard from women who have left their husbands. You have heard from women who have been through, you know, I wrote a book where one of the main characters had a stillborn child. And I still to this day hear from women who have experienced loss like that and feel seen in some way. By that that story. I've written a book where characters were about to get a divorce and they, you know, they they reconciled over the course of 400 pages. And I've heard from women who have experienced that. and I think there are so many ways that readers see the stories play out ahead of them and And are inspired by them, myself included. Like when I started reading romance novels when I was 11 years old. I lived in a tiny little town in Rhode Island. I was reading historical romance novels set in the 1700 and 1800s, like women on pirate ships and you know, careening through you know, 19th century England and every single one of them on a banger of an adventure. And it gave me a sense of there is a big world out there and I can be the heroine of my story. These are powerful, powerful experiences. You know, there are writers like Beverly Jenkins who writes Reconstruction era romance in set in the United States with black characters and her books are about black love and they were she is the first romance novelist to write stories in this way. first black romance novelist to write stories in this way. And so her books inspire like these trail, there are trailblazing authors across the genre that do this. I just fear, I fear sort of tasking romance with teaching people how to be human in the world. because I think that I think in many ways that's not that's not our work. It is amazing when it happens when and I do think like our books are about our work is about emotional maturity. And you know, certainly the heroes that many of us write are are, you know, the opposite of toxic masculinity. They are men who are over the course of a book come into touch with their feelings and learn to express them. and these kinds of things are very like they're it's it's awesome when a when a man tells you I read your books and now I have a better relationship with my wife. I understand how to talk to her. but there are other ways for you to learn and you probably shouldn't be learning from every romance novel. Ryan: What do you what do you see as w what are a couple risks that you do see from over reliance on romance novels as kind of informing informing your views of how

real relationships or relate not real relationships, but relationships in real life Sarah MacLean: Yeah. Ryan: might play out? Sarah MacLean: I fear, I worry about people who take romance novels at as, you know, an instruction guide. you know, my books, for example, right, I my books are all kind of they're all almost all of them are are historical. And in many of them, heroes begin toxic, toxically masculine, right? Behaving with through the lens of patriarchy, right? And then, of course, over the course of the book, they are broken down. I love a hero who's broken. I love a hero who is destroyed and has to suffer. And then in the destruction and the suffering, they come to terms with their emotions and then are worthy of being loved by a wonderful heroine, by a heroine who deserves love. and Who chooses to love them in their new form. that said, I would not recommend in real life that we give toxically masculine men a chance, right? I think I think in real life, heroes are or men are you, we or humans in general, we should believe who people are when they show that when they show us who they are. Ryan: Yeah, that's that's an interesting take. Sarah MacLean: I can fix him is not healthy relationshipping. Ryan: Yeah. No, that that makes sense. And you know, I I it goes back to what you were saying, like this is a fictional story. And it's I mean, it really is nice to see someone making a you know, one eight you know, one eighty changes are very interesting reading. However, Sarah MacLean: Yeah. It's great. Ryan: as you say the average the in real life though, the average person changes like five percent over the course of their lifetime, right? Sarah MacLean: Yeah, you're this podcast indicates probably that it's pretty rare for someone to do the level of work it would require you to do to dismantle patriarchy within yourself and then rebuild yourself as, you know, in my case, you know, my hero's case is like hyper feminists, right? Ryan: Yeah. Sarah MacLean: So it's a big growth journey. Ryan: So on on the same note, speaking of of potential negative impacts of Sarah MacLean: Yeah. Ryan: of the genre, I I I was thinking a lot about the relationship between romance novels and pornography. So go with me on this. So I was thinking, you know, you can, if you look at men, you could make a very strong case that. Consuming pornography has a negative impact on their connections with, let's say, if they're if they're heterosexual, it's going have a negative impact on their ability to form healthy relationships with women. Pornography is hyper-stimulating. it it can give men false expectations of how sexual behavior is supposed to work in an intimate relationship. Sarah MacLean: Mm-hmm. Ryan: Do you think? For women, that there is a potential for reading romance novels, consuming lots of romance can have not obviously not the same impact, right? But can have a similar impact to romantic expectations. Sarah MacLean: I'm so happy that you brought this up because I would argue that it's actually the reverse. I think, you know, we talked about I fear that I don't want the books to be templates, except for I do want the sex in romance novels to be a template. have a 12 year old. I started reading romance novels when I was younger than she was. and I did not have the internet, right? This was how I learned about sex. there is sex on the page in romance novels. it is graphic. it is intense, and it there is, you know, we talked at the beginning about rules, and one of the rules I forgot to tell you about, Ryan. Is that in an in an MF, a heterosexual romance novel, the heroine comes first and usually comes twice for every time the hero does. And the reason why this is interesting to me, there are there are a lot of we could talk, we could do a whole episode on sex and romance novels, but this is interesting to me because, first of all, the sex and romance happens between two people who are destined for happily ever after, right? We know that. it is sex where heroines are where women experience pleasure. often there is if there is kink in these books, like they experience like they are they are open, they are exposed to a kink that they are, you know, interested in, that they they are they're they're having sex with somebody who respects them, who loves them, who cares about them. In books where there is dirty talk, dirty talk in life is just like informed, ongoing consent. Consent is constant in the in the modern romance novel. orgasms happen, pleasure happens, pleasure is expected. and it's done in a way where everybody respects everybody else, right? So when thinking about my 12-year-old and her experience with the internet. I would much rather have her learn about sex from reading a romance novel where people are thoughtful, interested in consent, interested in each other's pleasure, having a good time, and ultimately caring about each other than accessing whatever thread she finds on Reddit, right? These are vastly different experiences. And what romance is doing is setting, I think, an incredibly high expectation for what sex should be like and how physical intimacy should be experienced in the world. Ryan: Yeah. That I mean that makes that makes sense to me. You know, I I I've never really thought of it as as the from the from that empowering kind of perspective of, you know, we're re like these stories are really setting a high bar. so d yeah. Sarah MacLean: Even outside of, you know, one of the biggest things that we hear all the time from romance is like, aren't you worried that they're set that books are setting too high an expectation for men? Right. And it's like, it should not be a high expectation for me to believe that in our relationship, you care about me, you respect me, you listen to me, you stand with me against a foe, right? That when we are walking through the world, we're side by side, that You're going to protect me from enemies, that you're going to let me protect you from

enemies, that we are going to have dialogue and conversation and know about each other and care about each other, that our sex lives are going to be, you know, full of consent and thought and care and pleasure. Like these are not high ex they should not be high expectations. It should not be a high expectation for you to be in a relationship with someone who respects you and cares about you. If anything, that's a the bar is on the floor. Ryan: Yeah. Sarah MacLean: You just have to like. me, right? Ryan: Yeah, I mean I I have to admit, I you know, I I don't I I I don't have any direct experience where, you know, I've I'm married now, but i I've d did online dating for a long time. I've I never really encountered anyone that I would say had unrealistic expectations that were informed by a romance novel. It's it's kind of this artificial artificially created idea. Yeah. Sarah MacLean: No, no. Sure, it's fear, right? It's it's a it's fear of the unknown in a lot of ways. I think there is, you know, it's a genre that because it was, you know, written by originally sort of very much marketed toward a very particular kind of woman, right? It's a romance was for a long time considered down, it still is in the industry considered down market, right? Like these are books that were made to look and cost very little. and so I think the perception of the text is that it is pornographic, right? It's these are these are these are, you know, porny little novels for, you know, soccer moms and, you know, cat ladies. And I think what's inside is a very sort of subversive experience. Ryan: So how do how do authors nowadays differentiate their story from everything else that has already been written? Right. I mean, this is a very broad question about all types of art, right? Sarah MacLean: Yeah. Ryan: Obviously. But I I was I'm curious to hear from you, given the sheer volume of and and and how you know how many romance novels that people have at their disposal, how many they could choose from. W how do authors look to differentiate themselves from what has w what what the other popular stories are? Sarah MacLean: That's a great question. I mean, I think I think there obviously there is, you're absolutely right. It's an enormous pool. Discoverability is incredibly difficult, just like it is with everything these days. Like ever we, you know, we live we walk around with these rectangles in our pocket and they have the entirety of human creation on them, right? And so you can, you have to, you have to you know find your readers and and hook your readers. And in many ways, this is about as simple as like a compelling cover or you know, the trope the tropification of romance is something that we've talked about a lot. Like, you know, a lot of us are choosing to sort of sell our books by like there's only one bed and they hate each other, right? And Ryan: Mm-hmm. Sarah MacLean: people love that. You know, I love an only one bed story. I'm definitely gonna buy that. so there's that, but I think also like it. Like with all fiction, that first those first few pages are everything because we can just wander off. and so I think some of us are very lucky in that, you know, I've been doing this for 15 or 16 years. And so I have a long-standing readership and I have publishers who, you know, are very careful to make sure that I, you know, I'm distributed in all the right places. But this is a very difficult genre right now to break into because there are so many of us. it is also about community in a way that most other fiction is not. Ryan: Mm-hmm. Sarah MacLean: we have a very rich community, the readers are really a part of it. I think that's because of the nature of the text and also because of this idea that we sort of all all romance sticks together. And Ryan: Yeah. Sarah MacLean: so, and we trust each other, you know. If if if another romance reader tells me a book is great. And and I know that they love the genre and they ex they know the expectations of the genre, I'm I'm gonna take that advice. Ryan: a little bit earlier we kind of touched a little bit about how the how the genre has evolved. but I wanted to close by having you talk a little bit about how that that the genre changes. And I was thinking that my first instinct was that you would see More and more, you know, as reality TV, and I put that in quotes, became becomes more popular, it suggests, you know, that that people want more real stories and less, you know, 80s sitcom type of you know, entertainment, that they want more realism, right? Sarah MacLean: Mm-hmm. Ryan: But but you know, you kind of have painted this picture so far that that romance is. Oftentimes this same story. It is the same thing. It's happily ever after. There are tropes that characters change and the and the the the the barriers and the conflict changes, but it is largely similar from book to book. so in Sarah MacLean: Mm-hmm. Ryan: terms of how like how has the genre actually evolved? Sarah MacLean: Right. So I think if if I've given the impression that the books are the same, I've I've misguided you. And because I think the best way I can explain this is the story of a romance novel is people falling in love, right? So I've fallen in love, you've fallen in love, your parents have fallen in love, your brothers and sisters have fallen in love, your friends fall in love, people fall in love all the time, right? They fall in love on television and in real life, your neighbors, your friends, your You know, we see them everywhere. Every journey, if I if I w I'm a romance novelist, right? So I meet when I meet a new person, I say, you know, or I meet a couple, I say, one of my first questions is how'd you meet? Right? Every I've never heard the same question, the same answer. Never, not once, right? Even I met my husband at a wedding. That's a very famous place for you to meet your husband. Our story's completely different than other people's stories. And so the thing is that in a romance novel, That's the story. The journey is the story. So, you know, I think the books evolve, obviously. And I'm so grateful for the fact that they've evolved. Like I told you the story of the flame and the flower. If we were still telling that story now, 50 years later, we have a big problem, right? Soci Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Sarah MacLean: in society. I think that. The books have changed as expectations have changed of, you know, our own identities in the world. you know, I could paint you a picture of the history of the genre literally mapped to the evolution of, say, feminism in the United States or the you know the the advent of queer rights, the the queer rights movement in the United States. you know, heated rivalry is right now the most popular thing in the world. that's a book about gay hockey players. And it's not just one book, it's a series of books about gay hockey players that is wildly popular in the romance genre and now out in the world as well. That is a series that could not have existed it 20 years ago. I mean, it just If it did exist, it would be very small, it would be very niche. It would have been published by a small press. This was published by Harlequin. Like we are living in a world where people's journey into love, you know, the the stories are getting broader. The stories are becoming more and all-encompassing than they ever were. And I think that's the story of romance: is every single story that you and I have ever come into contact with that ends in and then we fell in love, na there is this place for it here in the genre. And so as and then we fell in love becomes more and more diverse and inclusive in the world, the genre is doing that too. Ryan: Well, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. I feel like I've learned more in this episode than any other that I've recorded. Thank yes, thank you. Sarah MacLean: Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having me and for talking about us. Ryan: Absolutely. Absolutely. so thank you very much for joining me today, Sarah McLean.