Hello my lovelies!
While I've been busy editing and revising "Unwilling" and "Moonrise", I spent a few evenings reading books from genres people mentioned to me. A good author knows what people are talking about, right? One comment in specific confused me: One reader gave "Unwilling" 1 star, saying that he (or she?) felt betrayed because I hadn't used the term "Alpha" correctly and he/she felt tricked. I had no idea what he/she meant by that, so I went out and bought some books mentioning Alphas or Omegas.
For those of you unfamiliar with words like Omegaverse or Alpha-romance,
please visit this link to get a more detailed description!
When I started reading m/m (or boyslove) novels, the m/m genre offered
me an escape. With two men in a relationship, authors were able to shake
off the standard dynamics between the genders and be free to do
whatever the heck they wanted their characters to do. Two "alpha males"
(brrrrrgh) could end up in a relationship, as could two nerds, two Joe
Blokes could get kinky, a power couple was just as interesting as a
houseman/working father couple adopting African orphans. There were no
set roles and therefor every opportunity to do something new. And to
women readers, it was easy to imagine themselves in this new dynamic and
rejoice.
Then along came the Omegaverse genre.
Now, I'm not adverse to kink. I've had enough forays into dub-con and shifter sex myself and I understand the allure of something like predisposed gender roles. It's titillating to watch someone struggle against his genetic programming, even though the reader already knows he will fail and find his place no matter how much he fights it.
After the sixth or seventh Omegaverse novel, something stood out to me though: switch the Omega with a girl and you have het romance.
To me, this is just sad. I switched to m/m because I was bored to death with het romance and the depiction of women in those stories. Fainting, helpless little flowers who bitch and moan and angst away and get dragged around as they scream for help, or break out in tears and run because some dude did something even slightly inconsiderate. Then drama, making up, kissy kissy, the end.
It's sad because there is so much you could do with genetic predisposition. So many opportunities are being overlooked!
Back in 2011 when I started writing "
Unwilling", the word "Omegaverse" didn't exist yet. I just wanted to write something a little different from "the usual werewolf flick", to try my hand at the same theme and put a different spin on it. I was excited that so many people liked it, but now that I'm thinking about publishing the story as an e-book, I'm having a hard time deciding on a genre. "Shifters" is almost as prone to prejudice as "Alpha romance", and since you, dear readers, seem to have either learned to skip any and all story that carries even a hint of maybe containing shifters or beings declared as "Alpha", or expect the story to be about archetypical power exchanges, this whole "Omegaverse" hype is making me rather grumpy.
No matter how well an "Omegaverse" themed novel is written, I don't like it. And I, oh, so hate how popular that genre has become, because it pushes aside the kind of werewolf-stories I actually enjoy. In my opinion, the distinction between "Shifters" and "Omegaverse" should be more explicit. One should be about what the name implies, meaning shifters in each and every constellation the human mind can come up with (and with no rebukes for using words like "Alpha" or "Omega"), whereas the other should be only about het-with-an-m/m-spin plots.
Unfortunately, to get there, authors would have to abstain from using each and every category even remotely connected to their theme. Readers draw connections between the chosen genre/category a book they like has been placed in and its contents. They understandably get angry when after ten books from the "Shifters"-category, the eleventh suddenly doesn't have the constellations they liked most. Problem is, that eleventh book gets a one-star-review, no matter how well written and interesting it may be, and it's all because of this habit of mixing categories.
I personally would rejoice in a clearer distinction of what category a book is placed in. What do you think? Do you enjoy Omegaverse? Do you hate it? What about Shifters stories? For both: Why?
Maybe you can help me come up with a solution for my situation :)
Love,
Hannah
