Frequently Asked Questions

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"Ask JAK" is currently in hiatus. If you have a question for Jayne, please browse the archives or the FAQ. Most likely it is answered there. If you can't find your question addressed in one of those places, feel free to post it on Jayne's Bulletin Board at http://www.krentz-quick.com/krentzboard. Jayne visits the board regularly, and either she or one of the regulars there will be glad to answer your question.

Questions of the week January 1, 1999

Q: Who is Cissy? I know I speak for many of your fans when I say, I love your web site and all of its interactive information. I just found your home page a few months ago although I've been avidly reading your books for years. I am also new to this (internet) technology. How did you find Cissy? What does she do for a living? Just who is she? (Martha)

A: Dear Martha: Since "Ask JAK" is going on vacation for awhile (we have to give Jayne time to write!), Jayne asked that I tackle this question. Beyond being a huge JAK fan--no surprise there--I'm a graduate student in English finishing up my PhD in Rhetoric and Composition. In "real life" I teach first- and second-year composition and Early American literature to college undergrads while doing all other academic stuff that's required to finish my degree. Currently, that means studying for comps amid working on articles and attending conferences. Yea.

Well, that's the boring half of me. I'm sure you're more interested in how this website came to be. About a year ago I grew really frustrated with the lack of information on Jayne online and decided I'd just set up my own site. I went to one of the places that offer web space for free and put up a list of all of Jayne's books. Over the first month or two, I started adding to the site--a bulletin board, book cover images, links to news about Jayne, etc. About the time the site was beginning to get rolling, Jayne's husband Frank found it and sent me an email with a note from Jayne saying "thanks." After I picked myself up off the floor, I discovered that Jayne and Frank were both wonderful, friendly people. We began corresponding and Jayne began to offer her own ideas for the site, and before you knew it, krentz-quick.com was born!

Since then, I've gone on to set up a web design/hosting site of my own, and started hosting author websites and bulletin boards. With the help of some great recommendations from Jayne I'm now running Elizabeth Lowell's website, a bulletin board for Stella Cameron, and am hard at work on a site for Jill Barnett.

Life tosses you fun curves sometimes.

-- Cissy

Questions of the week November 20, 1998

Q: Dear Ms. Krentz, Thank you for contributing your work to the world (and your publisher, too). I would be interested to know if you have ever done psychological studies for "building" characters and matching them up? Have your ever reviewed different methods of personality typing? I've noticed that in both your Amanda Quick and JAK contemporary novels, the characters share certain similar personalities. Your heroes are usually introverted, sensing, judging. Your heroines typically more extroverted than the man, and highly intuitive. (They remind me of my sister.) Or do the character's personalities just come naturally? Perhaps I am over-analyzing. Again, thank you for your work. (Wiliam R McClintick)

A: Dear Mr. McClintick: The problem with using realistic psychological studies and profiles to create characters is that such an approach works against the greatest strength of popular fiction -- its reliance on the power of the ancient heroic archetypes.

The psychological profile approach to character building is far more suited to the literary genre. The conventions and standards of that genre have been heavily shaped by modern psychological theory. The characters in literary fiction are often portrayed as victims of their dysfunctional childhoods, etc., etc. The psych profile is, therefore, useful in that genre. But the popular fiction genres draw their strength from a celebration of the classic heroic virtues: courage, honor, determination -- not modern psych theory.

You're absolutely right -- my characters often share similar characteristics (their world views, their sense of honor, etc.). I have played around with others types of characters but I find that I quickly lose interest in them. As a writer, I return again and again to the motifs and themes and types of characters that hold power for me. My writing is strongest when I am working with those ideas and characters.

Q: Ms. Krentz, First I want to say that I have been a fan of your books ever since I first read your Harlequin's and Temptations in the 80s. I am a voracious reader and you are truly my favorite author. I started collecting your titles when I was in college. This web site is great. Imagine - I didn't even know about a few of your pen names. Now I can go underground at the book sales and search for more.

My question relates to the questionable literary reputation that the Romance Genre has in the intellectual world. As a sociologist I think this is very interesting - especially in light of the fact that Romance is primarily a genre of books written for women by women and like may of the so called women's arts, relegated to a secondary position by high brow critics.

My question then is, given your incredible talent, have you ever considered writing and marketing a literary novel? I believe you could do a better job than most of the modern fiction writers out there.

Not that I consider Romance to be less important (I have long given up on sneaking my romance novels and have come out of the closet as a romance reader!) but I'd like to see you kick some literary butt. (Marianne Case)

A: Dear Marianne: A literary novel? Moi? Surely you jest! Actually, while I deeply appreciate your comments on my writing, I gotta say that penning a literary novel just doesn't sound like much fun -- for reasons outlined briefly in the answer above. As a side note of interest, however, I did set down most of my thoughts about the importance of the romance novel in the one non-fiction book I edited. The title is Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance Novel. Edited by Jayne Ann Krentz. Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. You might find it interesting, especially in light of your sociology background. A lot of the most interesting academic work in the study of popular culture (including genre fiction) is being done by sociologists these days.

Question of the week November 13, 1998

Q: My question is what do you think of how romance novels and readers of romance novels are portrayed in the media? I am doing a paper on the subject. I am a faithful romance reader and am sick of people always saying "Oh, you read those kinds of books," and I wanted your opinion on to what extent the media played a part in the stereotype. (Jenny Knotts)

A: Dear Jenny: Funny you should ask. Fact is, I used to be a paranoid romance writer. I am proud to say that I have evolved. I am now a paranoid writer of popular fiction. What's the difference? Not much. Just a slightly broader view of the publishing universe.

During the more than fifteen years that I have been writing romance and romantic-suspense, I have watched the romance genre take its rightful place alongside the other genres of popular fiction such as mystery and suspense, horror, thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, etc. The answer to the question, "Are we there yet" for romance is, yes. It has, as they say in the marketing business, been mainstreamed.

How do I know this? By the same evidence which tells me that the other genres have been mainstreamed: 1) Romance novels at the bestselling end of the market have moved from paperback into hardcover. 2) The cover art at the bestselling end has become sophisticated and stylish. 3) The books are now regularly reviewed in many newspapers and in such forums as Library Journal, Kirkus, Publishers' Weekly and even People Magazine. 4) Public libraries buy and catalog romance novels for their popular fiction collections. 5) Romance fiction has become the object of serious study in the academy. 6)The bestselling romance novels routinely appear on all the influential bestseller lists such as the New York Times, USA Today, Library Journal, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller lists.

Frankly, it doesn't get any better than this for any genre!

No, not everyone approves of romance novels. But the prejudice against them, while strong and virulent for generations and seriously exacerbated by the fact that most romance writers and readers are female -- is actually nothing more than a particularly sharp extension of our culture's overall prejudice against the whole of popular fiction. This bias begins in so-called creative writing classes taught in high school and college. Classes in which the instructors go to great lengths to insist that the only good fiction, the only kind worth writing, is the type that fits into the conventions and standards of modern twentieth century literary fiction -- conventions and standards that have been largely molded by modern psychological theory and existential philosophy -- not by the ancient, heroic traditions of storytelling which shape and define the genres of popular fiction.

Popular fiction has been around forever but rarely has society viewed it as important in and of itself. Rarely have we acknowledged that it has a crucial place in culture. Rarely have we come to terms with the fact that popular fiction is not simply a degraded form of literary fiction. Popular fiction has its own tasks and those tasks are separate from and different than the tasks of the modern literary fiction genre. Furthermore, it is wrong to use the standards of one to judge the other. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

Much of what is not acceptable in the literary genre -- the heroic, the mythic, the romantic, the larger-than-life elements, the character who uses the classic heroic virtues to overcome his or her own flaws in order to do the right thing -- these are precisely the elements that lie at the very heart of the popular fiction genres. The literary genre, on the other hand, tends to focus on an intimate examination of characters who are victims, either of their personal flaws or their dysfunctional childhoods. It dissects and explores in often painful detail neuroses, psychoses, obsessions, depression, dysfunctional attitudes, etc. Popular fiction gets involved in this stuff, too, of course, but the difference is that literary fiction does not usually seek positive resolutions to these problems. It does not usually take that as its task. The job of modern literary fiction is to illuminate and examine these things -- not to resolve them or to affirm the possibility of triumph over them. That task is left to the genres of popular fiction.

Popular fiction (romance included) has kept its position on the bestseller lists because it is the medium society uses to affirm its most basic values - its core values, its survival values. These are values which transcend contemporary trends and politics and psychological theory. Popular fiction keeps alive the ancient heroic virtues -- honor, courage and determination. All of these qualities are crucial to the romance novel, just as they are in the other popular fiction genres. In addition, however, the romance novel celebrates many of what have long been considered "feminine" values: those values associated with nurturing, optimism, family ties and monogamous relationships that are strong enough to form the cornerstone of a family.

I could go on endlessly on this subject but I'll end this answer here. If you want more information on the importance of the romance novel, look for a book titled Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance Novel. Edited by Jayne Ann Krentz. Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Good luck with your paper!

Question of the week November 6, 1998

Q: Hopefully third times the charm for getting this question typed in. My question is, You have mentioned several times that once you finish a book that you are through with that story and world forever, that you normally have no desire to return to that idea. Yet as several people have pointed out, you have in almost every single one of your futuristics left a mystery unsolved at the end of your book. For example In Shield's Lady you left us wondering will there be more female sheilds? Is the planet some how changing humanity? In Crystal Flame you left the question of who were the Dawn Lord's? Where are the Stones of Contrast? In the flower series will the Curtain ever reopen? Who left the ancient relics? Is this intentional? Is this a way of having us expand our imaginations? Or are you subconciously leaving the door open for further adventures? Do you know how frustrating it is for we readers? Thank you for reading this and I hope you will consider it worthy of a reply. (Teri Anne)

A: Dear Teri Anne: Yes and no. Actually there are a variety of excuses for leaving a few threads unanswered in the futuristics but the most fundamental one is that the very nature of that particular sub-genre demands more of an element of the "unknown." After all, we are talking futuristics here. It seems to me that if all the questions were answered, some of the aura of mystery and the special excitement of the stories would be lost, not only for me, the writer, but for the readers as well.

I think of my futuristics as archeological adventure tales of the future. As is the case with archeologcal explorations of the past, they produce new questions even as they provide answers to others. I do intend to eventually spin off more series of "lost colony" stories under my Jayne Castle name. Paranormal elements will remain a strong focus in the stories and the energy "Curtain" which provided the short-lived gate between old Earth and the new worlds will continue as a theme.

Thanks for your interest in my futuristics. They are special to me. The very first story I ever tried to write was a novel of futuristic romantic-suspense. It never got published but, as you can see, the concept has remained an essential part of my writing. I grew up reading science fiction. Looking back, I realize that my only complaint was that it never had enough romance in it.

Question of the week October 30, 1998

Q: I am truly amazed at all the work one person can produce. Just keeping up with these questions takes a lot of time, much less all the wonderful stories you thrill us with, time after time. So my question is this: how many secretaries or aides do you keep on your staff? Some one must help you with research, proofing, keeping cross references of your characters, etc. It is just unbelievable that one person could do it all! Whenever ANY of your books come out I am one of the first in line to buy it! (Marie)

A: Dear Marie: I think what you're asking is how do I plan my work day. The real secret of writers who actually make a living at their craft is that they don't wait for inspiration to strike. If they did, they'd never get much written. Writing is hard work and it requires daily discipline as well as creativity.

I start at seven in the morning, take a break for lunch and phone calls, and then work for a couple more hours in the afternoon. After I'm finished for the day I do the rest of my life -- shopping, cooking, reading, correspondence, having lunch with Stella or Ann, etc. At night I go over notes for the next day's writing. I do all of my own research and all of my own writing, of course. But my husband assists me with some of the business aspects of my career and he also serves as my personal engineer and consultant on technical stuff. And then there's Cissy (the webmaster). This site wouldn't exist without her brilliant expertise and creative ideas. Hope that answers your question. Thanks for your interest in my books.

Here's your opportunity to ask Jayne Ann Krentz anything you want about her books, romance novels or the romance industry. Just submit your question on the form below. Each week Jayne will will choose one of the more intriguiging questions she receives to answer in depth. (Shorter questions--general information, book titles, new releases, etc.--may be directed to the Bulletin Board).

If for some reason you have trouble getting the form to go through, just click "Cancel" and send your question to me directly at webmaster@krentz.quick.com. Thanks.

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