Collar Theory

I'm fascinated by a story I only recently heard about... An extremely popular romantasy book (Crave by Tracy Wolff) is facing accusations of plagiarism, and the connections between the unpublished manuscript and the published book raise a lot of questions. Not just about sharing tropes and genre language, but about osmosis, and how much we absorb from other people's work and unconsciously project into our art.

Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer's Story? (at archive.is)

Romantasy’s reliance on tropes poses a challenge for questions of copyright. Traditionally, the law protects the original expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. A doctrine named for the French phrase scènes à faire, or “scenes that must be done,” holds that the standard elements of a genre (such as a showdown between the hero and the villain) are not legally protectable, although their selection and arrangement might be. The wild proliferation of intensely derivative romantasies has complicated this picture. The worlds of romance and fantasy have been so thoroughly balkanized, the production of content so accelerated, that what one might assume to be tropes—falling in love with a werewolf or vampire, say—are actually subgenres. Tropes operate at an even more granular level (bounty-hunter werewolves, space vampires). And the more specific the trope, the harder it is to argue that such a thing as an original detail exists.

The article also delves into the role of book packagers in several high-profile Romantasy bestsellers. All traditionally published books are collaborative on some level, but when book packaging companies get involved the lines between author, editor, publisher, and marketing can get extremely blurred. Crave's final draft was created by multiple collaborators during several whirlwind weeks right before the book went to press, and the rough was written in 2 months. In deposition, the author wasn't entirely sure if she wrote all the passages in question.

I don't read or write romantasy, but from what I gather, the readership craves "more of that" to such an exacting standard an outsider might not understand why This Romantasy book went gangbusters, and That One did not. Writers who can read and understand the market (which is a specific skillset not every writer has, in Clifton it's referred to as the Drafter archetype) have been able to leverage that understanding to make lot of money in this genre, but eventually Romantasy will hit a saturation point and it will be harder to sell books.

I casually know a couple of full-time indie romantasy authors (middle and top earners) who LOVE the genre. They genuinely love reading and writing it, they are incredibly intelligent and hard-working writers who have absolutely earned every bit of their success, and there is clearly a lot of heart in their books and process. But this genre seems ideal for "chefs in the kitchen" tinkering to find that winning recipe, and the book packaging company's ability to leverage this genre multiple times shows it can be done. Reading about the marketing savvy of the book packager Entangled Publishing (which also published Fourth Wing) gave me flashbacks to another story of a made-for-market book going gangbusters: 50 Shades of Gray. E. L. James is a little different, in that part of her strategy was filing off the serial numbers (a strategy many other fanfiction writers would later employ to launch their own romances as part of the more recent fanfic-to-tradpub pipeline), but at it's core 50 Shades incredible success is a marketing success story.

Packaging companies are not new to plagiarism claims. This story reminded me of an older one... In 2006, Kaavya Viswanathan was accused of plagiarizing several authors when she wrote How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. The book packager Alloy Entertainment was involved in that process. Viswanathan was introduced to an agent who felt her current manuscript was too dark, and suggested she write something lighter that would sell better, and the agency referred her to the book packaging service.

I won't get into how some agents take kickbacks to steer writers towards dubious companies and programs, and I'm not making the assertion that Alloy Entertainment is or was dubious, but if an agent referred me to a book packager I would consider that a creative disconnect and politely cut my losses. In Viswanathan's case, Alloy Entertainment inked a 2-book deal with Little, Brown stipulating Viswanathan would produce the books, with the author and Alloy Entertainment splitting the advance and copyright. The scandal blew up, and the book crashed and burned big time and was pulled. As with Crave, the work of the author and the packaging company blended in such a way there was some question as to who actually plagiarized what.

There's been a lot of talk about why, if you'll forgive me for phrasing it this way, Romantasy readers are the way they are (It's the pandemic! It's being obsessed with Twilight/Harry Potter/Etc during one's formative years! It's the economy! It's the crushing state of the world!). Reading the GR reviews for the more popular romantasy books is always mind-boggling to me, because there's always a standard ratio of incoherent squeeing to "this was a boring retread" or "this is exactly like x, y, and z," or "omg this book literally copied such-and-such" and as an outsider I'm never really sure what tipped the scale one way or another.

Wanting More of That is not new. Mystery series have always leaned heavily on providing same protagonist, slightly different flavor of murder, for example. Romance and Fantasy are two readerships that I think historically have been very forgiving of retreading and rehashing favorite scenarios, particularly in stories with wish-fulfillment protagonists. At least right now, it seems a lot of what's selling in fiction across the board is escapism that's fast to process. People just want to kick back and read a fun story about a snarky woman who butts-heads-with-but-ultimately-marries a slightly-bad-but-mostly-just-hot vampire/werewolf/dragon while making an impact on the world around her. It's not for me, but I get it.

When will romantasy fans collectively decide they've had their fill? And when that happens... where will they go next? It will be interesting to see.