Brad Stanhope: Like I Was Sayin'

Her pulse quickened as she heard the voice. The door opened and there he stood, shirt ripped open, showing his muscular chest as his long hair flowed, a gleam in his dark eyes.

“It’s true,” he said, breathlessly. “Romance novels are doing great in the marketplace.”

How long had she waited to hear this? As she lay on the bearskin rug, fully aware of his presence in the room, she thought deeply about what he said. Romance novels. Most popular. Maybe she should tell her friend Brad, the silly columnist, about this.

Yeah. Maybe she should, because it’s true. Demand for romance novels continues to rise, in contrast to the rest of the book market. In 2022, demand for romance novels was 50% higher than in 2021, despite book sales dropping around 7% overall in the year – which largely indicated a return to normal sales after two pandemic-fueled years of extra sales. Other fiction genres are down, but romance novels – long a punchline for pop culture critics – now make up about one-fourth of the entire fiction market.

He looked at the paragraph he had just written. How could he have been so blind? How could he have missed it? What he had desired deeply – the chance to write things that reached a broad audience – was there all along! He put his hands to his face and sighed. Was it over? Had he missed his only chance? As a lonely tear slid down his cheek, he heard a noise in the distance. Was it possible? No, it couldn’t be. He’d blown his chance. Then he heard it again, closer. Could it be? Could she be coming? Could he get another opportunity?

Why not? In an era of hybrids – cars that are both electric and gas powered; fruits that are a combination of plums and apricots; jobs that combine tasks; NFL quarterbacks who run the ball and pass it – is it possible that a newspaper columnist could find success by merging a weekly collection of goofball thoughts with the genre that is dominating the book world?

It might be worth a try.

“Try?” he asked himself. “Try? I’m not going to try, I’m going to do it. “

He stood up quickly and ripped open his bodice. Then he searched Google for “bodice” and realized it was an item of clothing traditionally for women and girls, so he decided that it wasn’t a bodice he’d ripped open, it was a tunic. Then he realized that no one rips open their own shirt in a romance novel, so he got a sewing kit and began to stitch it back together, which brought some more doubts. Was this too big a leap to make? Could he transition from nonsense columns to a unique hybrid? He thought of her. He hoped she was still coming or that at least that noise he’d heard four paragraphs ago was not just someone mowing their lawn a few houses down.

Could a new genre be here? The romance novel/newspaper column? It’s a possibility, but there’s one major problem. The columnist in this case is writing in the first person.

He realized he hadn’t really thought of what he meant by “her.” Was it Mrs. Brad? It had to be. He is a happily married man. What was he doing? What would she think if she walked in on him stitching up a tunic? Would she ask how he got a tunic? His pulse quickened again.

He sat down and considered the possibilities. Perhaps he should actually read a romance novel before he tried to write like one. And perhaps he should get a paper bag and breathe into it after all these times that his pulse and breathing quickened. Maybe he was hyperventilating.

Yeah. Hyperventilating because he had just discovered a trick to get more readers!

Reach Brad Stanhope at [email protected] .

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