What’s the difference? I can tell you what I think. And I would surely love to hear what you think! Please make this gay boy happy and tell me.  And in the meantime, I’ll give you my thoughts….

 

Romance fiction, for all intents and purposes, is a formula. A really nice formula! It’s Boy meets Boy, Boy loses Boy, Boy gets Boy back. I’ve been told the first sex scene is right around page 68. The first encounter is very important and should happen by chapter three at the latest! Most important is the first time our heroes see each other, there can be NO sex with anyone else. Most readers consider it cheating, even if they hate each other (at the beginning). And we must know—and I mean KNOW—that the two people will live together forever when we close that book. We must KNOW on some level that they will never argue over finances, never differ on their pick for the color of the paint for their bedroom, and that neither will glance at a hot guy who runs by in tiny jogging shorts. That twenty or thirty or forty of fifty years will pass and they will be faithful unto each other and never even try a three-way. Because other men simply do not exist in Romanlandia. Gay men don’t do that in this wonderful fantasy world.

 

And there is NOTHING wrong with this kind of fiction!

 

Most of those who love it have their reasons and I’d be a fool to tell them they shouldn’t. In fact, I have no reason or desire to do so. We all have our escapist places to go, whether it be romances or high fantasy with fairies or wizards. Or football or baseball or other sports. Movies. Binging television shows. Or things that we involve ourselves with in our lives. Like work. Or PTA or Red Hat Societies or religion. Life is hard. And we need those things that give us comfort.

 

One reader (more than one) shared with me that her perfect boyfriend and husband eventually became complacent toward her and eventually cheated. It devastated her. She had been conditioned by society and culture to believe in Happily Ever After. She didn’t get it. And when she read a good romance book, she could fall in love again, and perhaps believe in forevers.

 

Me? My fantasies went in a different direction.

 

See, I had the man that was PERFECT. He was romantic. Treated me like a prince (a queen?). Knowing I am was a huge Anne Rice fan, when we got married (it wasn’t legal but that was what made our big wedding even more romantic) he took me to New Orleans, we stayed at the hotel where vampires Lestat and Louis lived for years, and took me to Anne Rice’s home (the setting for her witch novels) where we met her personal assistant who sat and talked with us for quite a while. That was only the beginning! He brought me roses on birthdays and anniversaries. Organized a surprise birthday party. And so much more.

 

And then he grew bored. Complacent. He began to cheat. In fact, he tried to win the Gold Medal for Man Who Had Cheated the Most Times. He cheated hundreds of times. Not once. HUNDREDS! It wasn’t a single stamp on my heart. He did it so much I had a heart attack! The doctors said I had the best cholesterol of a 38-year-old man they’d ever met! And even with all that, I stayed with him. “He’s a good man,” I cried. “If I keep holding on, he’ll change!”

 

He didn’t.

 

And then he became HIV+. And I stayed. Then he tried to talk me into letting him infect me and when I said no, he tried anyway!

 

I finally left him. And kicked his butt out!

 

The romantic in me DIED. Until a friend introduced me to romance novels.

 

They were hetero romance novels. The MM companies hadn’t started yet. But they helped. I still wanted to believe in love.

 

The Harlequins and such did nothing for me. I’d grown too facetious, too jaded for them. The only ones the captured my heart were the books that were more romantic than romance. Books where I could believe the people were real. I was especially fond of books where a character had been devastated by a lover…and found love again.

 

Then I found love again! Amazing love! And I also found MM romances. And the books I loved the best?

 

Those with men who seemed like real gay men to me. Men who thrived in adversity—just as those did all around me, surviving so very much. I loved second chance at love books, if for no other reason than I had seen partners die due to AIDS and saw their lovers somehow heal and find love again. I loved stories where they overcame challenges. Men that felt real. Books that felt real.

 

And then I started writing it!

 

Only to find that a lot of people didn’t want to read what I was writing. I wasn’t writing Romance. I wasn’t writing the formula. I couldn’t. I didn’t believe in that kind of love. But I DID believe in love thriving over all kinds of evil and hurt and adversity. So that’s what I wrote about.

 

My publisher told me last year that I am one of the most romantic people she’d ever met. She said I was a natural romantic. And the thing is…I do believe in Happily Every After. It’s the romantic in me, the man who believes in love, that controls my pen. Or my keyboard anyway.

 

I took almost a year off from writing. And now I am writing again. My first new story comes out in December. The name of my story is “Setting for Eight, Dinner for Two.” My main hero had a lover leave him and leave him hurt and aching. But just like me, he found love again. A much better love. His life wasn’t over! It has just begun!

 

I hope when it’s released, you’ll give it a try. I don’t promise you formula. But I promise you a happily ever after that should knock your socks off!

 

So, there you go. Romance vs romantic fiction. What’s the difference? I just told you what I think. And I would surely love to hear what you think! Please make this gay boy happy and tell me.

 

In the meantime,

Namasté!

B.G. “Ben” Thomas

 

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About B.G. Thomas

B.G. Thomas lives in Kansas City with his two husbands—which yes, is different, but amazingly rewarding and wonderfully romantic. They have two sweet rescue dogs named Oliver (who the breed name Dorkie applies perfectly) and Frodo (who is just learning to be a dog). He is missing his soul dog Sarah Jane very much, but she will live on forever in several of his books and in his heart. He is also blessed to have a lovely daughter and they love to hang out.

B.G. loves to read romance, comedy, fantasy, thrillers, mystery, science fiction, and even horror—as far as he is concerned, as long as the stories are character driven and entertaining, it doesn’t matter the genre. He has gone to literature conventions his entire adult life where he’s been lucky enough to meet many of his favorite writers. He has made up stories since he was a child; it’s where he finds his joy.

In the nineties, he wrote for gay adult magazines but stopped because the editors wanted all sex without plot, and edited his set ups right out. “The sex is never as important as the characters,” he says. “Who cares what they are doing if we don’t care about them?” Excited about the growing male/male romance market—where set up and cute meets is where it’s at—he began writing again. He submitted a novella and was thrilled when it was accepted in four days. Since then the romantic tales have poured out of him. “It’s like I’m somehow making up for a lifetime’s worth of story-telling!”

In 2015 he made and entry every day in his blog “365 Days of Silver,” where he found something every day to be grateful for. You can find it right here:

https://365daysofsilver.wordpress.com/

“Leap, and the net will appear” is his personal philosophy and his message. “It is never too late,” he testifies. “Pursue your dreams. They will come true!”

You can read about whatever he’s working on right now or whatever he’s rambling on about at his website/blog at: https://bthomaswriter.wordpress.com/about-2/

You can also find his Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/bgthomaswriter

And his Twitter page at: https://twitter.com/BGThomasBooks

He is always happy to hear from his readers!

You can find BG Thomas’s books at Dreamspinner Press by CLICKING HERE, or on Amazon by CLICKING HERE and all your favorite book sites!