Trying to go Commercial

26 December 2012

I have finished reading from the most popular local publisher of romance books in the Philippines. I have read from the insert by the copyright page that they are accepting manuscripts, to be sent online, containing about 23,000 to 24,000 words with at least 10 chapters. That was enough to get me thinking, why not try? I overhear in my mind Mark, my nephew, during our Christmas party when he was coaxed to dance Gangnam Style: Ito ay dala lang ng matinding pangangailangan.

Yes, I could write. The character limit wouldn’t be much to worry about, professionalism demands adherence to the requirements. I remember again my qualms regarding romance novels. As I read that last one, contemplating about how I would approach the romance novel I was to write, I was not paying much attention to the story; I was gleaning gems of truth.

Why would it have to be in romance novels particularly, that the protagonists are perfect creatures and that all their minute gestures be very much accentuated and filled with meaning on their own? Assigning too much meaning in gestures or words left unspoken is part of the poetry of novels. I will no longer argue regarding that. Is reading leisurely really focused into feeding people with fantasies and illusions? I cannot help compare it with my recent favorite OPM song, Gayuma. Reading romance novels as a form of escapism makes us more dissociated and discontented with reality simply because we cannot script all areas of our lives unlike those circumscribed lives written for us to fawn over. Reminiscent of the presentation in Gayuma’s video of Abra seeing the girl friend as a very gorgeous lady but was an illusion as that lady is really a gay person (or was she a transgender at that?), our gratification of fantasies tailored to conform to expectations also fed on by society, materialism and inevitably commercialism, makes us settle for the ugly duckling, perceiving it as the beautiful swan it would never become.

Would I want to write that way - to blind people to fantasies that might make them drugged for a while with all pleasurable emotions only to subconsciously imbed in their minds how stark the difference is between make-believe and reality? Should I imprint in the young minds that would happen to read of the book I write under that genre, adhering to their grasp on sensuality that the demands of receiving true love lie on being a perfect being which surely no person could attain? I am setting them up for frustration. Humans do not need to become overwhelmingly physically attractive to be eligible for giving and receiving love. I wouldn’t want to feed on that concept of having a billboard model physique as the only way at true and lasting love. But as I remember the number of views I received from my wattpad entries, it is very very tempting to do so because it sells.

My sister, my lab rat. Hehe! That is the basest way I could describe Sam’s function when it comes to my writing. As my audience from the general stream of mass popular culture, her tastes are more into aesthetics and her yes would most likely be the flavor of the generation. From her I know if my writing would click popular to the masses. I know from the way she responded to my entries for wattpad that they wouldn’t. The first protest I received was that she barely understood it. My raw writing of a dream really does not give room to the audience. I did not write to please. I simply wrote for the story itself; I am a mere medium by which it was given life. The next was that the endings are sad. She said she didn’t like tragedies.

For one I like to write tragedies especially when it refers to romantic love. Why? I have the belief that fiction should be like that. In fantasy stories, people were supposed to read not of reality but of something opposite. Deep down I hold on as truth that everything receives a happy ending. To pay tribute to that belief as universal and relevant, I took prerogative to not give my stories happy endings. Because I believe that all people intrinsically were set for happy endings, it follows that stories should end tragically.

If these novels were aimed at portraying perfection as is conceived in the human mind, wouldn’t they also curtail that boxed image of perfection for the readers? Why should the lover be a living Greek statue, gentleman and rich but passionate to fight for the love of a damsel of surpassing beauty but of low birth? Why couldn’t it show that even a drunkard pot-bellied and hotheaded father be a faithful lover to his wife? Why shouldn’t it be that males would put up with their ladies because they were virtuous not because they were beautiful or hot? The general impact and reputation of local romance novels were that they gratify sensory fantasies and these types of stories are in the general circulation and are accessible – with majority of shop-keepers occupying their time with this type of literature.

 

That alarmed me. Do the literate masses of Filipino people really prefer to read of romance novels because it contained stories of lives they do not live and could only dream of? Does this imply that Pinoys want to read mainly to be entertained - that if entertainment value was compromised for the sake of poetic license to express they would rather not have any of it? (The same question applies for our popular choice of films, television shows and music.) Are our lives that dreary to shun having to put up with material that would cause us to question, learn and act? Would we as a people rather fall over and over for the same fairy tale formula whether it be in print or visual or auditory media just so it complies with our requisites of being entertained? Is this the thinking of masses?

To earn popularity, those that clamor for the support of masses should please them. (By sending an entry to this local publisher, I should also keep the general viewer in mind. They would choose a story with the main criteria of the story being able to sell.) What are the standards for mass acceptance? I do not want to generalize that it has gotten this sensory, as if we are mere children awed by simple booms, smoky poofs and cinematically set explosions. I believe that though our people are not high into literacy, those who write for their fellows do not simply write to gratify their readers with sensuous content. Local writers, those who are gifted with opportunity to be read and be part of the consciousness of the public even if through leisure reading, wouldn’t exist to be peddlers of sensual fulfillment. I would want to regard them someday as those who write to uphold the integrity of being a person in one’s own right and of influencing anyone into being a representative of a nation that is not amoral but is well-informed to make their choices under their privilege of personal democracy.

I hope that as I immerse myself in this branch of public consciousness that I will not be lost in it for the sake of money; that I will not yield to what is popular but that I would be there on the summit, waving out the flag of expectation I have set for local novel writers who garner popular readership. I will try for this cause. I will try because I call for change. I will not admit that I am among peoples who are dumb, facile and are of no substance if they be judged by what they read. I refuse to hypothesize that for myself even if limited but consistent observation says so. I want my hurtful hypothesis of renunciation on the intellect and principles of our peoples to be proven wrong and that my vision of people-building and not of blind commercialization reinforcement to be realized.