THE CRITIC (11 page)

He looked up into smiling eyes.  At least they were friendly and the woman wasn’t glaring at him.  He should have been paying attention but knew it wouldn’t matter.  The women would forgive him.  They always did,

“And where might group two be?” he asked her, smiling at her in a way that he knew she would take to mean something else.  He was thinking of using his considerable charm on all the women.  Why be shy?  He knew the women found him appealing.

“Group two’s over here at this table with me.”

Jared glanced around the room to find the table Toreas was now sitting at.  He would have to work this with finesse and all his charm.

He smiled up into the pleasant blue eyes and lowered his voice seductively.  He pointed toward Toreas’s table.  “Do you mind if I sit over there?  If I stay here, you beautiful ladies will prove too much of a distraction.”

The woman giggled and asked someone else from Toreas’s table to switch with Jared.  There, that was easy.  He took the vacated seat, dismissing the idea of asking the woman seated next to Toreas to move.  He was already pushing it.

He watched Toreas’s frantic gestures to the other women.  It appeared she had given them something and now wanted it back. 
It’s her work
, he thought with lightning speed. 
She’s being critiqued and she doesn’t want me to read it.

But the women were refusing.  In fact, the one to his right handed him a copy and Jared smiled while reading her name badge. “Thanks, Dianne.”  He read Toreas’s chapter in between watching her reactions.

She was trying to appear nonchalant but not pulling it off.  She was staring off into space. Then he noticed her pretending to read.  He could tell she was pretending because every time he looked up she was staring at him.

He listened to the different comments the women gave on her chapter.  He was going to be a good boy, not say a word. Some of the things they said made no sense to him.  They were little things, he thought, picky things, and he wondered why they even mentioned them.

He was given another chapter from one of the writers and again he sat and listened to the comments.  He watched the woman’s eyes as she bravely tried to mask her feelings as her friends ripped into her work.

He wondered why they, not they, but Toreas, had gotten so upset with his critiques.  It seemed to him they did the same thing to each other that he’d done.  At least he’d never pretended to be helping.  Some of the comments were downright mean.

Jared was given a third chapter to read from someone else.  He was beginning to notice a pattern here.  All the women wrote the same.

“Your stories are the same,” he blurted out.

“You’re not supposed to give your opinion.”  Toreas glared at him, then down at the chapter in front of her. “Besides, they’re all very different.”

“Page two, boy meets girl.”  He returned her look. “Your words might be different but the premise is the same. No variation. I know exactly what’s going to happen in each story.”

“You can’t know that. We don’t even know what’s going to happen yet and we’re the writers.”

“Maybe that’s why you can’t see it.  You’re too involved.  Why can’t they meet on page three, or in the middle of the book?”

“That’s not the way it’s done.”

“Why not?” Jared turned from Toreas to the woman who’d answered him.

“The reader wants to know immediately who the hero is or she’ll stop reading.  They expect a certain thing.”

Jared turned back toward Toreas.  “Do you really believe this diverse group of intelligent women you told me about would not be able to read a book if it’s not plotted out like every other book they’ve ever read?”

“You’re twisting our words, Jared.  There is a certain order to things.  A certain way the editors want them.  They tell us the readers want this, and that’s what we do.”

He looked around the room. “So you’re all a bunch of automated robots and you don’t give your readers credit for having an attention span longer than that of a two-year-old?”  He smiled at her then.

“And you ladies think I’m the one who was condescending to you and your readership.  Aren’t any of you brave enough to venture out, try something new, something that’s not the norm?”

Toreas was glaring at him.  “Jared, you’re not a writer and you’re not a romance reader, so you know absolutely nothing about what we do.”

“Well, To…re…as.”  He purposefully caressed her name.  “I know all of your stories are boring and they lack any realism.”

“That’s why they’re called fiction, Jared.  They’re not supposed to be real.”  She lowered her voice after being shushed by several women from other tables.

Oh, he was enjoying this.  “I don’t see a woman falling for a man the moment she looks at him.  But maybe you can help me out on this.  Has it ever happened to you?”

He watched as Toreas stared down at the paper, determined not to look at him.  “Have any of you ever had a one night stand simply for the sake of research?”

Jared looked slowly around the table at the open mouths and shocked expressions on the women’s faces. Toreas was blushing prettily as he had known she would be.

“I’m sorry, ladies.  That was perhaps a little crass of me.  Let me put this a different way.  Let’s say you have your character, your heroine, right?  Let’s say you have her sleep with a man for research.  How would she go about it?”

“That depends. Is your heroine a virgin?”

“Ah, at last, a woman brave enough to speak up.”  Jared smiled at the woman. No, she’s not a virgin.”

“Then why would she need to do that?”

“She feels she needs to, because, though she’s not a virgin, she’s also not very experienced.”

“That’s pretty weak. For one thing she should need better motivation than that. Is there any other motivation? Like could she secretly be in love with the man?”

For a moment Jared smiled, resisting the temptation to turn in Toreas’s direction. “Let’s say she’s not in love with the guy. In fact she can’t stand him.” This time he did glance briefly at Toreas before continuing. “Her motivation is simply that she wants to know what it’s like to sleep with a jerk.”

This time he was gentleman enough not to look at Toreas.  He didn’t have to.  But she deserved this.  He knew she didn’t dare leave. That would be giving away her secret.

Dianne answered him this time. “That’s dumb. We would never write about such a weak or stupid woman.”

“That’s my point exactly.  Why can’t the woman be weak or stupid?”

“That’s not romance, Jared.  It doesn’t sell.”

“Why?  Don’t stupid people fall in love and marry and have stupid kids?”

“I don’t necessarily see the heroine as stupid if she decided to see what she’s…”

“What she’s been missing,” Jared finished for Toreas.  “Would you ever proposition a man for sex, Ms. Rose?”  This time he didn’t look away but then again neither did she.

“Mr. Stone, this is a critique session.  It’
s not a time for confessions.” Toreas looked down her nose at him. “By the way, you don’t happen to look like a member of any clergy that I’m familiar with.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you, Ms. Rose.  Of course I’m sure your friends know you would never do anything like that. Look at the way you’re dressed. You’re much too proper for that.”

He watched as Toreas’s blush became deeper. “Besides, I think you would be much too considerate a person to ever judge another human being on what you think their morals are. And you’d have to be making a judgment to assume a man would go along with such a proposal.”

He listened to the women laughing. He turned from one to the other, glancing briefly back at Toreas. “Why are you ladies laughing?”

“A man turn down sex?  You’ve got to be kidding.” This time it was the woman across from him, but he could tell they were all of the same opinion.

“Is that what all of you think about men?”  A big resounding “yes,” brought more shushing from the other tables.

Jared’s mouth was now the one open in surprise. “Let me get this straight. You women think your readers have absolutely no attention span, that they have to have a formula to read by, and that men are big stupid bodies waiting around for sex.”

This time the laughter was so loud that the other women didn’t shush them but asked what they were talking about.

“Well,” Toreas began, “our newest member thinks we don’t have much regard for our readers, or for men, neither of which is true.  Just some men.”  She looked toward Jared and their eyes connected for a long moment before he answered.

“I know I’m not supposed to voice an opinion at this meeting, but I had a legitimate question that led to a discussion,” Jared said as sweetly as he knew how. He looked back at Toreas.

“If the rest of you ladies would like in on this maybe you can be of some help to me.”  Jared smiled as the women readjusted their seats in order to face him.

“I can answer that question you had before about why I hate romance novels.  They’re all the same.”

There was a loud roaring, all the women clamoring at once.  If he weren’t now a member they undoubtedly would have kicked him out again.

“Ladies, I’m really not trying to be insulting.  I’m trying to be helpful.  Don’t any of you ever break out, take chances, switch point of view because you want to, or not have exactly twenty five lines to a page or ten pages to a chapter?”

He stood then. “I bet you have to have a precise number of sentences to every paragraph.  You women are so rigid.  I’ve been sitting here listening to all of the comments and they all revolve around these issues. I think the issues are stupid.”

“Jared, the publisher and the editors set the guidelines for what they want.  We don’t have any control over it.  We can’t just write anything we please. There are only a few romance authors who can get away with that. And they’re the really big names.”

Jared was watching Becca and the other women. He really had no intention of offending them, but their work was the same.  He wondered how they could stand being boxed in.

“Are you women happy writing like this?  I mean, to use one of your favorite words, what’s your motivation?”

“We write because we enjoy it.”  Becca’s voice was loud and the other women cheered her on.

“That’s bull.” Jared began pacing around the room. “You write because you want to be published.  You want your books in a library, in the bookstores, you want to be told that you’re a great storyteller.”

He was beginning to feel as if he were again in enemy camp.  “Ladies, lighten up. I know someone somewhere gave you that spiel about being happy just writing, but that probably came from someone with a ton of books sitting in book stores.

“Think about it. The haves are always telling the have nots how much better not having it is. They’re always saying what
a burden having money brings. Do you see them giving away their money? Ladies, I was in advertising. I can sell anything to anyone even if they don’t want it.  You can do the same.”

“Jared, it’s different for writers, especially romance writers.  We’re h
emmed in because of the rules. If we wrote mainstream we could get away with a little more.”

“Then why don’t you do that?”
He was surprised that Toreas had spoken up and without a hint of anger.

“Because we like romance,” she answered. “We like the idea of a strong woman knowing what she wants and going after it, and we like that in the end she finds love and happiness.”

He looked at her, this time really looked at her. God, she was beautiful. Whatever had made him think she was mousy? She was anything but.

“Real life’s not like that,” he answered her. “There are bumps along the road. Sometimes the people don’t end up together, they maybe just find a way to annoy each other until one gives up and leaves.”

This time it was Becca who answered him.  “That’s the point. Real life sucks at times. Our novels give women a chance to escape from the crying children, the dirty dishes and the demanding husband. Do you really think women want to read about that after dealing with it all day?”

He thought for a moment. “That’s a good answer. I like it.”  He smiled at Becca, then the other women in turn, his eyes coming to rest on Toreas.

“Maybe you’ll be willing to help me understand the need for such rigid structure.”  He saw the hesitation and the ‘no’ in her eyes. “That is what the group is about, isn’t it, helping each other?”

“She’ll help you,” Becca answered for her. “I’m sure that’ll go a long way in getting headquarters off our backs.”

“Excuse me?” Jared turned toward Becca again, having never heard them mention headquarters.

“I’m sorry,” she answered him. “We sometimes refer to
ARW by HD or headquarters.  They’ve been concerned because of what’s been happening with you and Toreas. Actually I think your joining our group might help us,” Becca finished with a wistful note in her voice.

“Are you serious about being a part of our group, Jared?”

He remembered Liz.  “Sure, I’m serious. Anyone can write a romance.  It shouldn’t take me longer than two or three weeks.”

The room burst into laughter, laughter Jared knew was directed at him.  He dared a glance at Toreas and saw she was smiling.  He’d never seen her smile.  The action lit up her entire face.  He wondered if she knew it.