By my husband Dan Hoyt
Lately, I’ve been reading Regency romances. Why? Well, as a writer, it’s always a good thing to keep up with what’s selling to readers. Not that I’m targeting my audience, mind you, but I’d like to thing that someone out there might be interested in reading my work, and it helps to know what readers find interesting. That way, I can better set the tone of my story, and I can still write whatever I find interesting. Duh, winning!
Why romance? Why not science fiction and fantasy, which is the genre I tend to write. Romance is the biggest chunk of genre readership, hands down – by an order of magnitude (that’s a factor of 10 for you non-scientific types). Heck, judging by recent phenomena like Amanda Hocking, it might be the biggest chunk of readership, period. And I wanted to know why.
Why Regency, then? Why not paranormal, which seems to be the hot sub-genre these days? Simply put, staying power. Arguably, Regencies are the one sub-genre of romance you can depend on still being read decades later. I’m not going to drag Jane Austen into this discussion, since she was writing them during the time period in question, but there are a ton (okay, I’m not below a sly Regency reference!) of writers who credit early 20th-centry Georgette Heyer, who spearheaded the modern Regency sub-genre, as a major influence. (Not unlike musicians today crediting Leonard Cohen, even if they were born decades after his heyday.) Look in any used bookstore, and you’ll find a boatload of Regencies cycling in and out. Clearly, they still enjoy a great deal of popularity.
So, to the point. I wasn’t trying to find out what makes women tick. I wasn’t even trying to find out what kind of men women like. I am happily married after all (26 years!), so I’m not trolling “the Marriage Mart.” But if these Regencies can be believed, I found out a few surprising things about women, nonetheless. By way of disclosure, this is based on a half dozen novels, and is purely intended for entertainment, based on those novels, nothing more, and should not be construed (I hope!) as an accurate depiction of modern women.
5. The most attractive thing about a man are his eyes. Forget being a gym rat, if you’re simply self-confident, women will overlook a lot of defects in your physique and see you for the buff, attractive gentleman you strive to be by working out every day. To be fair, this wasn’t as surprising as it should have been. Unlike Regency heroes, who always seem to have green or blue eyes, I have brown eyes, but I always thought they were one of my better assets. Over the years, many girls and women commented on my “piercing gaze that seems to look right through you into your soul.” When I was courting my wife, I sent her a picture with my patented piercing gaze looking over my sunglasses, and she showed it to her girlfriends; the general reaction (according to her) was akin to: “Hey, I have an idea! I’ll come over to America with you and steal your boyfriend!” So I had an idea women looked at men’s eyes. Some advice for you guys looking to impress a woman: pay attention to her when you’re with her! What she says, what she does, where she looks – you know, at least act like you’re enjoying her company. Nothing puts off a woman more than a disinterested guy. Which brings me to…
4. Women fall in love “at first sight” with a man who’s honorable, and they’re looking for the man who falls for them instantly, too. First impressions are key, even if they’re bad, so long as time proves their intentions were honorable. Remember Pride and Prejudice? He can be as unlikeable as sin, but as long he’s honorable, he’ll win the fair maiden’s heart. Oh, it helps if her knees turn to jelly and he sets her loins on fire, too. That seems to be a big thing. Women – and men – who are in love can’t bear to stand, and eventually fall down – usually into a bed – with the sheer exhaustion of being in love. Of course, Regency men – at least the titled Lords – don’t actually seem to do anything at all, short of managing their inheritance and spending money. Which shouldn’t be all that surprising, since…
3. Anything a woman does, she’ll do better without trying than any man, no matter how much he practices. This includes managing an estate, playing the violin, shooting a bullseye with target pistols, fending off an armed attacker, etc. I don’t know about you, but I can play the piano and sing, but after several years of doing them only sporadically, I don’t think I could make it on American Idol, America’s Got Talent or The Voice. A woman with my musical background would be the next YouTube sensation, if she just put up a camera-phone video of her singing Happy Birthday to her one-year-old child. Simply put, women are awesome-sauce! I’m beginning to understand why the Kama Sutra’s list of what a woman needs to be competent doing includes both painting teeth and planning and executing a war campaign. Which made it all the more surprising to me that…
2. In the end, women want to have a LOT of babies. They’ll give up everything for the right man, and then their lives will be perfectly fulfilled by producing children. And I’m not talking just one or two here, but a dozen seems to be the preferred number. Mind you, this is only possible with the right man. And apparently, the right kiss, because…
1. Any woman, no matter how inexperienced with men, will give it up for a really good French kiss. And I’m not talking about just third base, here; I mean a solid home run, with an extra couple of base runs for the fans. If only I’d known this when I was a teenager, I might have dated before the second semester of my senior year in high school! Ah, c’est la vie. Still, I landed – and kept – the hot foreign exchange student from exotic Portugal, so I guess I did something right!
According To Hoyt 