Cynthia Harrison

Fictional inappropriate attractions interest me. They’re something I want to explore in All About Eve. Why do we sometimes feel these inappropriate attractions? How do we deal with them? What are the consequences? Either way (go with or sublimate) there’s a price to pay.

Inappropriate attraction is not something we ask for or even want. It’s just there and must be dealt with — one way or the other. I’ve always assumed that everyone at some point in their life finds themselves in the grips of a mystifying crush. I’ve had my share, with varying degrees of severity. None of them ruined my life or anything, although they have often forced me to take a closer look at my situation. I’m the type who always tries to analyze why the heck this thing is happening to me.

One of the ways I analyze things is by writing about them.

Anyway, plenty of people in the critique group admitted that Eve’s inappropriate attraction to Mark turned them right off. They didn’t like that about her. Eve doesn’t like it much herself, either, although you really can’t tell that from this scene.

Probably the biggest objection I heard was that having married people feel attracted to anyone but their husbands is not something that happens in romance novels. Second to that, they just didn’t feel sympathy for a character who would have these feelings.

It’s true that the romance genre does not address adultery or even adulterous feelings except as a defect of an unsympathetic character. This strikes me as somewhat puritanical, but then that’s just me. And anyway, although I’m a member of RWA, I don’t exactly write romances. The innappropriate attraction issue is just one of the ways my work goes outside the boundaries of romance.

Which is really a marketing thing and not a writerly thing. In some ways, my work is deeply romantic — I always have a love story — and in other ways it just doesn’t fit the genre. But that’s okay. I write what I find interesting, not what I think will sell. Which is why not having to be published comes in handy.

I fell in love with RWA and the romance community because of their wonderfully supportive environment. They are female friendly and then some. Being a part of that community is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And I don’t have to give it up. Plenty of members write outside the parameters. The chick lit types get to have more than one boyfriend, or no boyfriend at all. The women’s fiction people also have more romantic choices and freedoms, featuring stuff like divorce and so forth.

But when I think about it, nowhere in the romance community is there space for a cheatin’ heart. And apparently, readers don’t even want such stuff hinted at. At least when it comes to heroines. Which both surprised me and didn’t. As someone who comes from the academic/literary school of fiction, adultery to me seems like a perfectly acceptable and even interesting theme. Yes, adultery is not nice and it ruins lives and so forth. But it’s got great conflict potential, both internal and external.

Not that Eve has an affair. She doesn’t even really think about it. She just feels some inappropriate feelings. Which of course is sometimes the precursor to infidelity, but not always. Not most of the time, I bet. I bet it’s perfectly normal for people to have these kinds of feelings. Right? Or is it just me?

Some statistics: 80% of the novels bought in America are purchased and read by women. 50% of all fiction purchased is romance. Surprised? I’m not. But taking those stats to a dubious conclusion, I’m sort of surprised that half of the women in America do not want to read about inappropriate attraction. They don’t even want to acknowledge it exists.

Which is also interesting.