What Romance Novel Formats Afford Us
How does the romance novel afford leisure (and more) in particular contexts and life stages?
When my daughter was an infant and I was a nursing mother, I spent many hours in the middle of the night reading romance novel ebooks.
She liked to snack and then take a sleep break. If I tried to put her down after she completed her first 2 am grazing session, she’d wake me up again within the hour — so I resigned myself to her extended mid-night feeding that spanned hours.
What does one do to stay awake and entertained in the middle of the night, with just one hand available in a dark, quiet room?
I chose to read romance novels on my phone’s Kindle app, and in retrospect, I’m not sure what other activity + format could have met my needs quite so tidily.
Affordances of ebooks for me as a new mom
Reading a physical book was not an option — holding a paperback open with one hand would be painful, turning pages would jostle the baby, and the light necessary to illuminate paper pages would also disturb the sleepy atmosphere I was cultivating for my daughter.
A long list of other leisure activities could each be discarded based on their noise, need for light, mobility requirements, inaccessibility in the middle of the night, etc.
Romance novels were a tool of survival during my daughter’s first year — while it was never fun to be woken up to a crying baby at 2 am knowing I wouldn’t be back in bed for a while, pairing the feeding session with something I enjoyed kept me from resenting it too much.
It wasn’t just the content, the words written by the authors of these romance novels I read — my nocturnal leisure was possible only via romance novels in ebook format, available on an app on my mobile device, which I could hold and navigate one handed.
The ebook and the technology and applications that enabled them afforded me entertainment in my context as a nursing mother in the middle of the night.
This week, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the affordances of romance novels (in their various formats) and how those formats have afforded me leisure at different points in my life.
Affordances
What is an affordance? Let’s start with the emergence of the idea of affordances:
Psychologist James Gibson coined “affordance” in 1977, referring to all action possibilities with an object based on users’ physical capabilities. For instance, a chair affords sitting on, standing on, throwing, etc.
Affordances don’t just exist in a vacuum — they are about relationships:
An affordance is, in essence, an action possibility in the relation between user and an object.
A door affords opening if you can reach the handle. For a toddler, the door does not afford opening if she cannot reach the handle.
For example, as a nursing mother reading in the middle of the night in a dark room, paperback romance novels did not afford reading.
Affording leisure
This week I’ve been doing a deep dive into various areas of scholarship around leisure, “escapism,” and stereotypes and stigma as I prepare some of my own research on romance for publication.
I’ve found myself thinking a lot about early studies on romance readers from the 1980s, specifically those that centered on self-defined housewives who read romance novels as an escape from domestic labor, in order to capture a small slice of leisure time just for themselves.
A paperback romance novel has many affordances for a suburban housewife and stay-at-home parent in the 1980s who has sporadic “passive” leisure time (i.e. time for leisure that doesn’t require leaving the house):
A paperback romance novel affords leisure for any duration of time that is available between domestic responsibilities. Consuming it can happen at any time and can be started and stopped after five minutes or five hours: all it takes is opening the book to where you left off.
The formulaic, light plots are a feature of the content, not a bug, for this reason…if you don’t always have a long stretch of time to read, you need to be able to easily pop in and out of the text. But this is an observation about content, not form.
A paperback romance novel affords leisure within the home, without requiring childcare. It can be read at home, and reading is an independent activity. It doesn’t require additional equipment, leaving the home for a specialized facility, or coordinating schedules with a partner.
A paperback romance novel affords leisure in multiple settings while attending to errands. It can be transported easily in a purse, which comes in handy while waiting in a doctor’s office, taking a bus, or sitting in the car outside the school waiting for soccer practice to be over.
None of these observations are original or mind-blowing, but when you consider the list of alternative leisure activities this theoretical housewife and stay-at-home-parent had available to her, you realize how important those affordances are for this user.
Beyond leisure: reflections on formats
Romance novel formats and their unique affordances have served me in different contexts and life stages, in ways that go beyond just leisure.
Paperback romance novels from the library that I snuck into my house as a teen afforded me a rebellious assertion of my own desires and will, in addition to accessing the stories that I escaped into.
Audiobooks played on 2x speed afforded me the ability to listen to books I needed to finish for a fast-approaching podcast recording when I had a long car commute and no free time once I got home.
Print books on my bookshelf afford me the ability to remember the books I want to read, because as someone with ADHD I struggle with object permanence and visible reminders are a necessary accommodation.
One time I had an eye infection that made my entire head hurt so badly that I couldn’t even rest, and I certainly couldn’t open my eyes: using my phone’s text to speech function, I was afforded the ability to listen to an ebook that distracted me from the pain.
Ebooks that I can access and read immediately afford me leisure on a flight when I didn’t plan ahead and don’t have room in my luggage for a print book from the airport bookstore. Knowing I don’t have to think about it until the ride to the airport affords me calm and reduced anxiety.
Reading a paperback book instead of an ebook on my phone affords me greater concentration because I’m not distracted by notifications. Reading a paperback on a train affords me solitude from chatty seat-mates who would interpret reading on my phone as an activity that can be interrupted.
I’ve started collecting vintage paperback romance novels, which afford me the ability to read books that are long out-of-print, and see the physical evolution of a category line, and of the genre, over time.
An embarrassment of riches
I recently started reading Andrew Piper’s Book Was There, which is about “reading in electronic times” and how the format of the book — physical or digital — impacts how we read.
In the introduction, he writes about how the advent of digital reading set off a predictable torrent of hand wringing that echoes centuries of moral panics throughout the evolution of the book, and reminds us that new formats are not about replacing, but about addition.
Now is the time to understand the rich history of what we have thought books have done for us and what we think digital texts might do differently…
The question is not one of “versus,” of two single antagonists squaring off in a ring; rather, the question is far more ecological in nature. How will these two very different species and their many varieties coexist within the greater ecosystem known as reading?
Today’s reading ecosystem is one of an embarrassment of riches — we have so many options that afford reading in a variety of contexts.
Just as paperback romance novels afforded leisure for readers in the 1980s, and ebooks afforded midnight reading for me as a nursing mother in the 2010s, each format opens new doors for new readers.
There are some obvious advantages when it comes to accessibility for people with disabilities — for example, people with visual disabilities may have found paperback romance novels impractical given braille versions were not likely available for every book. Ebooks with screen reader software or audiobooks open the door to more readers.
But it’s not just about persistent requirements — as I’ve discussed in this post, our needs as individuals vary based on momentary contexts or life stages that are prolonged but not permanent.
The more formats available with their unique features and functionality, the greater possibility that reading and leisure can be afforded for different users at different times.
Andrew Piper visited the podcast to talk about his machine learning studies of prize-winning and best-selling books, including romance. I think it’s a fun episode and you can listen, or read the transcript here. (I hope there is a format available that affords you the ability to consume it!)
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Recent episodes of Shelf Love podcast:
A Lady of the West: The Rules for Good Women
I humbly asked Morgan and Isabeau to help me understand why A Lady of the West by Linda Howard had a chokehold on my young romance-reading imagination, and they delivered. We discuss how this book has rules for good (white) women, and explores Manifest Destiny, settler colonialism, sexuality, violence, violent sexuality, and being a desirable (white) woman.
Button up your white high-necked blouse and gallop on a virile stallion into the wild west with Whoa!mance, in this crossover episode.
Shame
Is shame productive? This question guides part 2 of a Whoa!mance/Shelf Love convo about A Lady of the West by Linda Howard as we discuss the paradox of enjoying highly problematic books. We interrogate our feelings of shame, enjoyment, and the importance of critically dissecting the pleasures derived from reading, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. Look at your society, look at your life! Along with me and Whoa!mance, in this crossover episode.
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Today is my birthday! I like getting older — I am accumulating wisdom.
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Romance novel cover artist John Ennis is exhibiting his romance novel art in Yardley, PA Feb. 9-18. Learn more here. I am hoping to attend!
The concept of affordance is new to me, but so perfectly applicable to iPhone reading apps and digital books. As somebody who loves to read and loves to travel, I remember the agony of trying to figure out which physical books (and how many) to bring on a trip when I wasn’t checking a bag. Of tearing off chapters of For Whom The Bell Tolls while backpacking because the weight was killing me. Or when I was 11 and my parents only let me bring 2 books on vacation & I’d read both of them by the time the plane landed. And more recently, when I’m working a night shift and need a little treat, I can buy myself a romance novel and start enjoying it right away, often for less than the cost of a used paperback.
I love your exploration of affordances! Libby affords me options when I’m traveling and a way to read during my down time at work. My teenage self, who was sneaking Harlequin intrigue novels off the free shelf at the library (it was 2012 and we didn’t have self-check out yet and I had a reputation with the librarians as a “smart girl”) would be thrilled to hear that we are very public and loud about reading romance now, even when the librarians from our childhood express disappointment. She would be less excited to hear that we bought an ipad to use as an e-reader, staunchly believing ebooks were the downfall of society and would cause the ruination of libraries (good thing Libby is a library provided service!).