The Velvet Chamber
An Anthology of Revisioned Myth and Fairy Tale

Explore the dark side of the female psyche --A CALL FOR WRITERS




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Friday, September 17, 2010

the plight of the romantic heroine

Francie walked down the aisle, now strewn with rose petals, the small church now ablaze with candles, the priest in his white chasuble with gold trim.  As she walked, she noticed that friends and family looked like well dressed strangers. She peered out through the netting of her veil, and swore she saw clouds drifting high up in the rafters and small angels, the size of hummingbirds, darting in and out of them. But she wasn't afraid.  The music got louder, her groom turned to face her, but then he too was a stranger.  Surely this was too much? Surely this was not right. She stopped, pulled back her veil, and feeling very exposed, asked, who's writing this story?




"...unlike those fantasy patterns that appeal primarily to men, female protagonists [in romance novels] do not usually recur, like James Bond, from book to book.  Once a women's love story has been told, repetition would in fact undermine the entire premise of her story--- and her life, for dramatic purposes, over."

Kay Mussell, Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formula's of Women's Romance Fiction, Greenwood Press, Connecticut and London.

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