- Novelist Jeevani Charika on writing romance fiction and changing people’s perception of the genre
Romance is a genre that tends to be seen as frivolous easy-reads in the world of fiction, with many judging readers and writers of the genre rather unfairly. However, it is a genre with a strong readership, and research data and analytics group WordsRated says romance, selling over 39 million printed units during the 12-month period ending in May, is the highest-earning genre of fiction.
Jeevani Charika is a British Sri Lankan novelist who mainly writes romantic comedies. While creating alternative worlds in which readers can submerge themselves, she is also attempting to change the perception of romance as a genre.
In conversation with The Daily Morning, Jeevani Charika shared that her romance with books began as a kid, visiting the library every week and saving pocket money to spend on books. Having decided at some point to become a writer, Jeevani wrote articles and stories for newspapers as a child, and short stories as a teen. “When I went to university, I stopped writing because I was too busy. My reading habit took a hit too. Sometime during my graduate studies, I had an idea for a novel, but I still didn’t have time to write it. When I finally finished my DPhil, I took a creative writing evening course and started writing the book. It took me three years to write,” she shared.
Jeevani’s first book had two Sri Lankan main characters, which she wrote in the evenings after work, but it was met with a lot of rejection from agents and publishers. “This isn’t unusual, obviously, but I was lucky enough to sometimes get feedback penned in on the side of the rejection slip – this was the early 2000s, you still had to send submissions by post. The notes mostly said, ‘you can write well, but I don’t think I can sell this to any of the publishers.’ I clung to the ‘you can write’ part. I think that was my first lesson in how publishing is a business – if the agents can’t see a market for your book, they won’t take it on.”
Jeevani eventually joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) United Kingdom and sent her manuscript in for a critique through their New Writers Scheme. While the report had some useful pointers, it ended with: “you have a romcom voice, just crying to get out. Have you considered writing something just for fun?”
The novelist took this advice to heart and wrote what would eventually become girl on the run. “The publisher asked me if I was going to use a pen name. I’m a microbiologist by training and I did my DPhil on a bacterium called Rhodobacter, so I chose the name Rhoda Baxter. I’ve written as Rhoda Baxter for over ten years now.”
Jeevani went on to say: “My first book under my own name was Christmas at the Palace – a mainstream romance novel commissioned by a publisher to celebrate the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Do you remember that very first book I wrote that I couldn’t find a publisher for? That was published in 2019 by Hera Books as A Convenient Marriage and went on to be shortlisted for an RNA award.”
Following are excerpts from the interview:
You write romance and women’s fiction. What interests you about these genres?
I discovered romantic fiction late. I spent most of my childhood reading Enid Blyton and then moved on to reading just about anything I was able to get my hands on. Given that I was a teenager growing up in Sri Lanka in the 80s, I wasn’t allowed to read romance. I read adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, historical epics – anything, really, but not romance.
I did, after a lot of negotiation with my mum, get permission to read one Sweet Dreams book. After consulting some people, I was told to read P.S. I Love you by Barbara Conklin, which was romantic, but also heartbreakingly tragic. This left me with the impression that romance novels would just make me sad.
When I got my first job, I had a long commute into London. I started borrowing books from the “just returned” shelf in the library because I was too exhausted to go and browse. This was how I discovered romance novels. I read one and really enjoyed it. It was funny and escapist and who doesn’t like a story about love? So I read another. And another. Then I drifted, as most romance readers do, across to the women’s fiction section.
I’ve always been more interested in how people feel than about action – whenever I watch a film, I’ll often look at a side character and think “I wonder how they feel about what’s happening in the main story”. Women’s fiction fed directly into the side of me that is interested in character.
The difference between women’s fiction and romance is largely one of marketing. My books, for example, tend to be filed under “romance” in the UK and “women’s fiction” in the US. I see women’s fiction as the broader category and romance as a subcategory of it. A romance story involves falling in love specifically, while a women’s fiction story can involve all kinds of other things. The problems the characters face in women’s fiction stories are things that we are likely to encounter in real life – losing your job or your home; difficulties with families; illness; bereavement, that sort of thing. The characters face their trials and they come out stronger.
One of the best things about women’s fiction – and definitely about romance – is that you can go into the book knowing that there will be an uplifting ending. Romances always end with either “happy ever after” or, more commonly nowadays, “happy for now”. That’s a huge part of their attraction. I like to know that no matter how dark the book gets in the middle (and a lot of women’s fiction can get very dark indeed), when I come to the end of the book, I will be left with a feeling of hope. Real life has enough sadness in it. I don’t need to read books that leave me feeling sad at the end as well.
Before I started reading them, I used to think that modern romance novels were big alpha-male heroes swooping in to rescue damsels in distress. That wasn’t really something that appealed to me. When I actually read them, I discovered wonderful books about ambitious, capable women who met kind and funny men who supported them. There are loads of modern romance novels like that. You just need to find the authors who write them. Like me!
There is some stigma attached to romance fiction. How does this affect your work or standing in the literary world and why is it important to address and fight this stigma?
Romance seems to be the only genre that is always judged by the worst examples of it. For a while, everyone would say “oh, is it like Fifty Shades?” every time I mentioned any romance book. It was infuriating. This isn’t a comment on Fifty Shades of Grey – a lot of people loved it. The point is that there are all kinds of different romances. You can’t judge the entire genre after reading just one, or worse, not reading any at all.
Most people who deride romance novels have never read one and still judge them on the basis of the old-fashioned Mills and Boon covers from the 80s. They assume that stories written (mostly) by women for women to enjoy must be foolish things written by foolish people. But, through the Romantic Novelists’ Association, I know a lot of women who write these books. A lot of them are thoughtful, serious, and highly educated. I know several university lecturers who write women’s fiction (usually under a pen name).
As I mentioned before, I was dissuaded from reading romance as a teenager. I understand the urge to keep teenagers from reading about love and relationships, but honestly, they’re going to find out about it anyway. TV and advertising is full of it. Besides, nearly everyone wants to find their one true love.
If you spend any time on TikTok, you’d be forgiven for thinking that all romance novels are “spicy”. But a lot aren’t. I prefer not to read explicit scenes, so I read and write “closed door” romance. There’s also “clean and wholesome” romance, where the most excitement you’ll get is a chaste kiss.
Some people think that romance novels give girls “unrealistic expectations of love”. In most of the romance books I’ve read, the woman finds someone who loves her, respects her, and supports her in her ambitions. Why should that be an unrealistic expectation of love?
How do your novels change the perception people have of the genre?
Sometimes a friend who doesn’t read romantic books will pick up one of my books and read it out of curiosity to see what it might be like. The most frequent comment I get from someone who has done that is “I really enjoyed that. It wasn’t what I was expecting”. Often they go on to read the other books too.
Because I don’t particularly like the ultra-macho alpha heroes, I write novels about women who strive to be strong and about nice guy heroes who fall in love with them. I quite often write about geeky scientist types (both men and women) because most of my friends are like that. It turns out there are a lot of readers who like those sorts of characters too.
I like to think I write funny books. However, I firmly believe that funny is not the opposite of serious. So I write funny books which touch on heavier themes – bereavement and grief feature a lot, illness, racism, sexism in the workplace – I’ve written about all these things. My next book, Knowing Me Knowing You is mostly an office romance, but in it I get to talk about the worry of looking after an elderly person, grief and the “valley of death” in scientific innovation where excellent (and sometimes life-saving) ideas never make it to market because of a lack of funding. Picture Perfect is a fake relationship romance, but it touches on issues of racism and class difference. Romance novels are always about love, but sometimes they’re about other things too.
Writing romance fiction cannot be easy. What are some challenges associated with it?
I think writing any book is hard. The idea stage is lovely and everything feels possible, but then you have to write 70,000 words of the thing and that is a slog.
I don’t write every day, but when I’m in the middle of a draft, I write most days. There are times when I am not inspired at all and the words are like dragging blood from a stone, but I sit at the keyboard and write anyway. If it’s rubbish, I’ll edit it in the next draft.
Popular fiction novels (as opposed to literary ones) are meant to be easy to read. I quickly found out that “easy to read” is really difficult to write. The idea is that the reader has to get so into the story that they forget that they’re reading a book. The words have to drop images into the reader’s mind, without calling attention to themselves. That’s harder to do than it sounds, especially if you want to still retain the colour and texture of the word you’re creating.
Writing something that’s funny is, of course, extra hard. If people can tell you’re trying to be funny, then it’s automatically not funny. So you have to try to write something that is amusing, whilst simultaneously appearing to not make any effort to be amusing at all.
What comes next for you as an author? Are you working on a novel at the moment?
I’m always working on a novel. Someone gave me the advice “always be writing” and I’ve found that useful. I write at least one book a year, although I took a year off when each of the kids was born.
Nowadays, being a writer isn’t just about writing. You also have to be involved in the marketing process. Since I’m in the middle of a two-book contract with my publisher, I’m currently promoting Knowing Me Knowing You which is coming out in January 2024, editing The Winner Bakes It All, which will be coming out around October, and writing a new book, which doesn’t have a name yet.
It’s always a good idea to get on with writing the next book because otherwise you spend your time obsessing over the books you’ve finished and checking Amazon rankings all the time, which isn’t very healthy. If I had to give a new writer advice, that would be it. Always be writing a book.