Gay Soap Opera: barrier of language or...

[reviews_and_ramblings]

... how my twisted humor can be sometime misinsterpreted?

Today I stumbled upon a post by Carol Lynne: http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2009/05/pros-of-series-writing.html. It was a nice post on how to build a series to "captivate" the reader book after book. I believe Carol Lynne is quite a master in this tecnique, since I'm an eager reader of her two continuous series, Cattle Valley and Campus Cravings. I tagged the series "Gay Soap Operas" and for me it was a big compliment, since every single book is a little story in a biggest overview, and while reading a book you are giving details on the life of the other inhabitants of the community (to work better these series have to be set in a small community, like a village or a small town, where everyone knows everyone). A book could be better than another, but in the end you buy and read all of them since you don't know if something is happened in a specific book to one of your favorite character (that usually makes a small cameo appereance here and there) and above all you don't know if an important detail for the story of a future character is given.

What surprised me is that Carol Lynne at first was hurt from my tagging her books Gay Soap Operas, and I didn't know it, and it wasn't absolutely my aim to offend her... for me it was a compliment! I have tags as "Breeches Rippers" (that actually was not my invention, but it was born from a chat with Erastes); years ago if you said to a romance author that her books were Bodice Rippers, it was a big offense; now historical gay romance authors are happy when I tag their books Breeches Rippers... see how the perception changes?

But what happened with Carol made me think... when you read that I tag a book Gay Soap Opera, you give a negative connotation to my words?

Anyway I wrote this post for two main reason: 1) to reaffirm that I don't post about book I don't like. I have 622 books in my reading list, some of them I haven't had the time to read and some of them I don't like at first impression, and they slid down the reading list. If I post on a book is since I liked it or at least I found something interesting in it. 2) to reassure readers and authors that it's not easy to offend me (even if I had my rants and all of you know how badly I can react to them); but if you don't like something I wrote, please tell me, I'm more than ready to a) explain you my reason b) listen to yours.

Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I realized that most of the faults usually linked to a soap opera plot stick to the term in the way I used it. In this case probably a comment by a reader would have made me realize my error, and instead there was none and I continued to use it... But sincerely I can't find anything better. Cattle Valley is a Soap Opera, not since the plot is bad, but since it isn't a series you can read here and there, to appreciate the whole you have to read it all. Reading only a book I believe it will be confusing and the final judgment will be negative. Elisa