The note that genre fiction (in their case the Gothic) uses 'strong forms' (familiar patterns and tropes) which 'easily lend themselves to codification in terms of conventions or 'rules' of composition. They are constraints authors take upon themselves.'

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I find the concept of 'formulaicity' (articulated by Manuel Aguirre and Beatriz Sanchez-Santos a really useful way to stop thinking about shared elements between books as something to hold in disdain. So let me share the idea and how it changed my way of approaching tropes and 'strong forms'

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I read romance, I teach romance, I value romance. And I am always slightly confounded at the difference between what people think it is and what it actually is. The idea that a whole subset of novels dedicated to intimate human relations are indifferent are going to be simple and worthless? Weird.

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Having seen the Joyce Carol Oates very bad, not good tweet about romance and AI, I can't help thinking about the way that romance has been treated as a punching bag for so long and always by people who are completely unwilling to engage with the genre and know little about it.

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So stressful. Box breathing for the win. And now that everyone's in bed, it's time for some mom self-care.

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