“What was it about the words 'alone' and 'with me' that set her heart rocketing into her chest wall?”

Let us argue, purely hypothetically, that your debut Mills & Boon attempt is nearing completion. You have created a compelling heroine, who, in all likelihood, has unresolved issues with her father, money troubles and frizzy hair on especially hot days, and you have matched her with an emotionally-distant, arrogant billionaire whose resolute independence has finally been challenged by the attractive twenty-something marine biologist he has hired to be his live-in housekeeper and blackmailed mistress. Naturally, he never intended to fall in love, but he has been intrigued by how her feistiness and outward loathing could be overcome with weekly cheques and why she insists on wearing hats whenever it is sunny. With a lifetime of wedded bliss and endless baby-making one conversation away your hero manages to overturn the metaphorical apple cart with a display of masculine ego, stupidity, or an unlucky misquote, sure to infuriate both your heroine and your readers.

There remains the toughest scene to render, the showdown and apology, where the man confesses to having been a moron, bastard, pimp, or unfortunately loud when speaking privately, and must come to his sweetheart's window, car, private jet, nightclub bathroom and win her back with a heartfelt plea. The course of true love never runs smoothly, as fans of romance fiction know from reading romance fiction. However, as story-telling requires a dramatic impetus against the pastoral idealisation of pure, overwhelming happiness Secrets Uncovered saw fit to visit RIVA novelist Lucy King for a Grovelling Section in their Conflict Chapter. You, lucky reader, shall now learn of every ingredient needed for this must-have sequence, including the most important one of how to engineer an intelligent, arrogant billionaire into doing something so utterly appalling his only option is to apologise. ‘Ah, who doesn’t love a good grovel? The moment the hero realizes he’s been a fool, tracks the heroine down and begs for forgiveness. An alpha male brought to his knees by love?'

Right on, Lucy King. No one doesn't love a good grovel and no story would be romantic without one. Tell us, how on earth do we create such a scene in the first place? 'Screw up really badly. The worse the screw up, the better the grovel. Let his emotional baggage blind him.' Before aspiring authors become too excited at the myriad of dastardly possibilities open to their hero they should bear in mind that he can do nothing so drastic it cannot be solved with a smouldering sorry and some eye contact. Most often in the assorted Mills & Boon's we have studied this momentary breakdown in relations between hero and heroine is generated by a misunderstanding causing old tensions to flare up. Jealousy, pride or being treated as a prostitute are exacerbated by confusion or seeing her walking with another man, moving her belongings into his mansion without asking, or him continuing to treat her as a prostitute even after they have agreed to fall in love.

What's next? 'Leave. Or make the heroine leave.' Let them save themselves from love. After all, there are plenty more marine biologists in the sea. 'But hang on a moment. Reluctantly force him to re-assess the values he has held all his life, analyse some of the irritatingly valid points the heroine may have made during their last encounter and make him examine his feelings (shudder).' This is called character growth. Every character, besides the protagonist, needs to learn and become more-rounded and decent in order to earn the happy ending they are going to receive no matter what. While our hero continues to tremble violently in brackets, let us ponder how we should go about putting this reinvention of philosophy and long-term objectives into the sentences necessary to achieve the desired finished word count. Lucy King explains the significance of this life-changing epiphany, 'In a burst of clarity he realises that he has behaved like a complete idiot and acknowledges that his life is pointless without the heroine in it.' How this monumental thought process comes so swiftly to save the day, and the novel, may seem too important to merely gloss over on the way towards the Grand Romantic Gesture, but this lack of perception is consistent in all other areas of Secrets Uncovered and so we head onto the next statement.

'Waste no time in rectifying the situation. Make a Grand Emotional Gesture. Explain behaviour. At a push, confess that she might have been right after all. About some things. Possibly. Phew. Sorted.' Without details, explanation of importance, or advice of how to make this work convincingly King's guide sounds improbably easy. While the dramatic grovel offers a fine opportunity for sweeping romantic actions, the hero's sudden change of heart, and personality, simply works against everything else we have learned about writing romance fiction. There are merely two shades to the hero, as an epiphany turns him from an arrogant, misogynistic tycoon to a sensitive philanthropist who cannot make a decision without first consulting his wife. The fifty-five thousand words are split, unequally, with fifty-thousand of him being an irresistible jerk and a climatic chapter showing him in the midst of renaissance. This structure ruins the insights of a nuanced journey towards healthy new man of domesticity and fatherhood, and suggests a writer requires fifty thousand words to establish this man as a pillock.

'Wait a second.' What now, Lucy King? 'Something isn’t right.' You're gosh darn right something isn't right. 'Why isn’t she falling into his arms in gratitude?' Is it possible the heroine is smarter than she looks and has been written? Will her handsome owner have to go a step further and explain the plot even more heavy-handedly than the author had been doing throughout the book? Must he, 'Release all those emotions he didn’t even know he had, and take a deep breath and tell her that he loves her and can’t live without her?' Well, it couldn't hurt. Women love hearing that sort of thing. Now we have completed our heartfelt abasement and satisfied all the swooning female readers the world over, there is only the small matter of the heroine accepting this speech as genuine and their lover's arc as accomplished. 'Wait on tenterhooks for the heroine’s reaction.' Still, we know she will forgive, with a womanly smile of victory, and fall into his arms. 'Thank goodness for that. Live happily ever after,' instructs King, lastly.

Thank goodness and live happily ever after, indeed. For a moment it seemed as if those two would never work things out, so stubborn and made for each other as they were that not even their love could overcome an author rigorously committed to a pre-approved structure. In many cases the initial plot contrivance, or screw-up to use King's expert jargon, that prompted this narrative twist would either be too horrific for an apology to suffice, in which case the writer should begin their novel over, or be accidental, incidental or insignificant enough to be appropriate for Mills & Boon publication. Hearty congratulations to you, prospective authors, either way.

“Sadie was acutely aware that beneath the robe he was naked – and male”

When we ran screaming from the pages of Taken by the Sheikh to the warm embrace of Secrets Uncovered, Prince al Drac'ar al Karim believed he had found the perfect temporary wife for his elder brother, Vere. Together they co-rule the desert paradise of Dhurahn, but are being forced into arranged marriages to strengthen ties between their neighbouring states. Their only option is to find dim-witted Western virgins to marry quickly and then divorce once the fathers of their arranged brides have found somebody else. For Drax the plan sounds flawless and all seems ideal when he meets young English businesswoman Sadie Murray. The only spanner in the works is his own spanner, which tightens his bolts whenever he sees or thinks about Sadie. However, Drax has betrothed her to Vere, and the sacred bond of twin brothers is not to be meddled with, especially not by some woman, no matter how adorable, smart and sexy she is. For Sadie her attraction to Drax is instant and startling, so she is willing to undertake the many ridiculous plot machinations it requires to bring her to Dhurahn in expensive clothes, mostly because she is a dim-witted Western virgin.

While Vere is conducting business deals abroad Drax has the small matter of entertaining Sadie and convincing her the real reason she has a room at the luxurious palace is because the rulers wish to build a financial centre in town and seek those with knowledge of such things to join their growing team. Without employment, money or her passport, because Drax stole it, Sadie sees little option but to accept the job offer. Slowly their sexual chemistry is explored over a plentiful array of sequences involving fleetingly-glimpsed male nudity, light frottaging and displays of arrogance and emotion.

With all going as predictably as possible, Sadie and Drax run into Jack Logan during a tour of an office building. Jack is in Dhurahn for commercial reasons, yet his wandering eye and insistence all women agree to either consensual sex or rape cause severe problems for Sadie, who rejected him years ago when they used to work together. Jack maintains a grudge and having complimented her vilely he begins to grope and kiss her in the atrium. Drax intervenes in timely fashion, but his faith in Sadie's innocence has been compromised. If she were a demure virgin suitable for Vere, how come she kisses Jack Logan with his hand on her breast and terrified look on her face?

Instead, Drax resolves, he will marry Sadie himself, because sluts are more his speed. Suddenly, without warning for reader or Sadie, the first sex scene begins, but alas, with a hand gripping Drax's penis Sadie's inexperience betrays her, forcing him to wonder if the Jack Logan-incident was as damning as it had initially appeared. He abandons the sexual enterprise and instead has a brief, yet enlightening, chat with Jack, where the conceited Brit conceitedly admits he likes to scare women who have spurned his advances by threatening them with violation, but always jokingly and only when they have it coming. How could Drax have mistaken Sadie for every other girl on the planet? He rushes back to the mansion for the second sex scene, this time working himself into a frenzy only to abandon things to propose marriage. Sadie breathlessly accepts, and consummation is put off until their wedding night.

Unbeknownst to Drax, Sadie and Vere have already met in one of the opulent gardens of the palace, where Vere witnessed her charms for himself. Unfortunately for him and soap opera fans, despite their striking similarities, Sadie did not feel her heart beat inside its chest wall, her nipples pebble, or her sex moisten, so she was all too aware this Drax-lookalike was not her Drax. Therefore he could either be Vere or one of those doubles all Middle Eastern leaders seem to have. As it turns out the man is Drax's amiable, but emotionally-reticent, twin brother. Suddenly the younger Prince's best laid plans are torn asunder, so he retreats to aloof disdain, to allow Sadie to forget him and marry Vere instead, as promised in the prologue.

Shortly thereafter comes that time of the year to celebrate the anniversary of the Oasis of Two Doves, where Dhurahn's independence was first declared, at an oasis with a pair of doves. Typical of everything concerning this fictional Arab state the festivities are expansive and sand-swept, but sadly for Sadie and the servants of the party the entertainment must be cut short, due to a violent, incoming storm. Thinking this is as good an opportunity to confront Drax as she is likely to get, Sadie heads for his tent, only to be beaten to the punch by Vere, who has also decided an important conversation comes before fleeing certain death. Sadie has entered through a side tent-door, but is immediately trapped by a parked four-by-four. With no choice but to stay and overhear the twin brothers' discussion she misconstrues Drax's sarcastic comment, not made in his native tongue for reasons that are not entirely clear, about he and Vere sharing Sadie for their sexual pleasure, swapping her back and forth, turning her over only once one side gets stained.

Sadie scarpers, out through the side-door she was unable to get out through moments before, just in time to miss the next sentence, where the brothers clarify that sharing Sadie was not at all what they intend. Instead it is decided that Drax marry her, because while Vere thinks she the perfect wife he simply means perfect for Drax. You see, Sadie? They said innocent, complimentary things about you. Where are you going? Surely you're not about to steal a range rover and head straight into the sand-storm, desiring either to escape or die in the process. Wait, you are going to steal a range rover and head straight into the sand-storm, no doubt to crash into a bank of sand and hurt yourself. Oh, what a big, tragic confusion, and so close to the final chapter.

Drax heads off into the howling wind and sand, finding Sadie groggily semi-conscious and bleeding from the head. They return to the tent Vere considerately left for them to face the consequences of abandoning a threesome, while ignoring the head injury Sadie has suffered. Sensing the need to apologise and rectify the dire situation with a few words of explanation, Drax and Sadie strip naked and take to his bed, concluding that if they are about to die engulfed in sand, then waiting for their wedding night is an empty symbolic gesture. Soon the storm has ceased, Sadie has been filled with exquisite, tingly pleasure and Drax has left a baby in her belly. Penny Jordan marries them as something of an afterthought and then leaves them alone in their palatial bedroom quarters confessing undying love and hopefully finding out one or two personal things about each other, if they have character traits, that is, because the narrative failed to mention any.

So ends Taken by the Sheikh, a classic Mills & Boon Modern Romance, devoid of theme, romance, modernism or editing. With a tedious, contrived plot, a listless heroine, two-dimensional hero and atrocious prose style there were no redeeming features and no insights into why sheikhs are popular when they are nothing more than a synonym for billionaire in a slightly altered outfit. Previously, in a post concerning The Blagger's Guide, we referenced Penny Jordan's five tips for writing. Lamentably for her readers, Jordan was unable to follow her own straightforward advice, failing to introduce both hero and heroine by the end of the first page, and having a bland opening line, 'So the negotiations went well, then?' What kind of credible author begins a sentence with, 'So'?

Furthermore, her dialogue never convinces, the sex scenes gloss over sensuality and emotional intensity, instead insisting on lazy clichés and awkward euphemisms, while the protagonists are simplistic stereotypes of the genre. He the sheikh, arrogant, intelligent, but a deeply sensitive fool when it comes to matters of the heart. She the timid virgin with no personality, in the throes of servitude to male potency. Finally Jordan skimped on the conflict, her mismatched pair entirely made for each other, and both looking for love and a long-term commitment, although neither would have admitted it when the story began. Instead the author uses devices she swears against, the secondary character and two hokey misunderstandings. Where were the differences each had to overcome, where was the emotional development and what happened to the arcs? Finally, how has Penny Jordan been allowed to get away with this for so long?

“She didn't do lovers”

In our first discussion on conflict in romance novels we learned several valuable lessons, such as internal conflict is different from external conflict, developing emotional journeys takes precedence over developing plot and themes, writing for Mills & Boon doesn't have to be easy, and unexpected pregnancy can sometimes become a situation where feelings arise. Secrets Uncovered didn't stop there, however, and Chapter Two of the e-book continues, dealing with black moments, the pitfalls of plotting, the necessity of grovelling, creating intensity while avoiding threatening the reader and the dangers a romance author faces when tempted to write properly. Before all that, though, we should assume you, gentle reader, remain hopelessly incompetent, and so here are a few of the most obvious mistakes you have probably already made.

The best place to start would be with your opening, the setting of the scene, the introduction of your heroine and hero. There are so many archetypal beginnings to avoid Romance HQ lists them, before explaining that sometimes an obvious first sequence can be rescued with subversion and the correct amount of emotional honesty. Therefore, if your heroine has recently been dumped, found her boyfriend with another woman, or been caught in an embarrassing position in front of her family, or entire office, do not fret, because even though this is lazy writing and too familiar to catch the reader's attention it might be strong enough if your carefully-tailored characters add depth to the potentially superficial incident. 'Acting out of character for the sake of the plot is a no-no. If your characters start bending every which way just to reach your desired conclusion then you are writing puppets, not people.' A romantic heroine is rarely imbued with a credible sense of dignity, but if they are true to themselves the reader will understand why they are single and unhappy, and what kind of belief system they must destroy within themselves in order to enjoy their happily-ever-after.

Every writer receives and then immediately ignores an oft-repeated phrase of advice, show don't tell. Heavy exposition kills the pacing of the narrative and hurts the mood of the prose. The characters and plot should be revealed through actions and responses. This is a common mistake in many Mills & Boon novels, so Secrets Uncovered sees fit to point out the problems caused by bombastic explanation. 'Events that should be front stage are anything that moves on the romance or creates conflict and has its basis in emotion. Anything else is window dressing.' Yet hang on, what about back-story? In Chapter One we were told to write extensive biographies and justify every decision, flaw and misgiving with previous failed relationships and father abandonment issues. Why do that if we can't use it in a lengthy speech to eat up a few hundred words? 'Ah hah! I hear you say – what about back story? The thing is, the most powerful back story is the one the reader sees through your characters’ reactions.' Despite this, your heroine will eventually have the opportunity to reveal all about their father, or that time they were left at the altar by a handsome con-artist, in case their tendencies implied through reactions make them appear insanely paranoid.

Moving on, how do we avoid the usual trappings most published Mills & Boon writers fall into on their way to success and riches?

• 'Choose your set-up carefully'

Do not simply jump in with any old idea, write the first fifty-five thousand words that come to mind and then mail off your manuscript and hope for the best. This tactic is only suitable for authors who have a built-in fanbase and scores of books already on their shelves. For your debut novel it is worth spending time planning the details of your story, and working from a theme, with powerful, unique, grounded and believable characters in a tale familiar enough to attract an audience yet unfamiliar enough to strike for originality. Once you have these fixtures in place any fifty-five thousand words will suffice.

• 'Make sure your characters are driving the plot'

Often romance novels throw their hero and heroine together through unlikely contrivance and push the inevitability of the story to the forefront, leaving the characters powerless to affect change on their lives, locked in as they are to accepting their fates are intertwined and they were born to be together. Fighting their desires, doubts and better natures would be senseless and only delaying what is written in the stars in permanent beams of light. Even though this style is consistent with the genre as a whole, apparently it is wrong.

• 'The reader is interested in reaction not action'

And you certainly wouldn't want to second-guess your reader. After all, the author has spent hours honing their characters and shaping a structure to challenge them, resulting in epiphanies that strengthen and enrich their lives, and sometimes related to that, helping them to find love. Once you have proven to the reader your heroine is a strong-willed, stubborn, feisty, shy, sexually-naïve tourist who coos at babies in supermarkets, and had her meet a conceited Brazilian billionaire who had just happened to have made a bet with his friend that he could buy any woman to have sex with him, what will really interest the reader is why this girl would completely go against all her personality traits and say, 'Sure.'

• 'Know what your plot needs to be on the page'

Your plot just doesn't belong anywhere else. The majority of authors know what their book must look like because Mills & Boon have told them. Deviating from plot points such as heroine meeting hero by the end of the first page and declaring their undying love on the last page would be suicidally ambitious. Once you have a solid beginning and a happy ending your job is largely complete, and as long as what happens inbetween these two moments doesn't inexplicably flash-back to Civil War-era Spain you should be successful. In writing that, though, Bewildered Heart cannot be sure what, 'Know what your plot needs to be on the page' actually means.

• 'Your reader will go with any plot if they believe in your characters'

For more on this turn back to the chapter on character we have yet to write about. As long as your principals are consistent in their decision-making yet consistently surprising in their decision-making the reader will read on, hoping these two love-birds get their respective acts together and realise that while he maybe a ruthless tycoon who hates all women she is unlike every other women because of a troubled relationship with her dad, and while she maybe gutsy, proud and desperately fighting to protect her animal sanctuary from closure the tycoon wanting to replace the animals with a shopping mall is caring, rich and strikingly dishy. Throw in an unexpected pregnancy and the reader will have to know how they deal with the news, much more curious about that than why the grizzly bear is suddenly acting so suspiciously.

• 'The characters are going on a journey – think of the plot as a road, not the destination'

Much like driving the destination is often where the journey ends, once the driving has concluded and the driver and their travelling companions have reached where they intended to go. In romance writing terms the analogy is apt. After all, we know where the journey is headed and will end once we get there, as hero kisses heroine, having apologised for the speeding, never indicating when changing lanes and refusing to wear a seatbelt in order to be closer to her. The drama is kept to the trip, how and why they are going, rather than where, and will they stop to eat lunch at a burger van parked in a lay-by? Imagine the greatest road trip you have ever under-taken, the one where you took several wrong turns and discovered an abandoned theme park when you had originally set off to buy a lampshade from a furniture shop. Now reinvent yourself as an emotionally-insecure, yet beautiful twenty-something, and your Sat Nav as a sophisticated, gorgeous, yet heartlessly arrogant billionaire, exchange petrol for sex and the car for life itself and you have yourselves one hell of a novel.

"Arise being the operative word, he admitted grimly"

In time to cash in on the New Voices competition the gals over at Romance Headquarters compiled a handy, free, download-only e-book entitled Secrets Uncovered – Blogs, Hints and the Inside Scoop from Mills & Boon Editors and Authors. There are fifty-five pages of suggestions for improving your story and fulfilling your life-long dream of writing for Harlequin. Those wishing to experience the advice and general frivolity for themselves need only download Secrets Uncovered onto their Adobe software, Kindles, digital devices or e-readers. However, for those neither technologically-aware nor Scientologists allow Bewildered Heart to walk you right through this computerized book from whatever passes for a front-cover online to whatever passes for a back-cover.

As the opening chapter deals with the well-traversed subject of character, we will begin with the equally important area of conflict and the first question a potential author would ask before they begin writing, What is an emotional conflict? According to the official Mills & Boon definition (Mills & Boon have their own official definitions of things) emotional conflict is, ‘The internal battle a character has to overcome something intrinsic to their personality that prevents their happy ending.’ There, when it is that straight-forward how come so many writers have troubled defining it? ‘This could be specific personality traits (lack of trust, a guarded heart) or motivations and aspirations.’

Mills & Boon strongly believe in the importance of internal emotional conflicts, and argue a book simply wouldn't be worth reading without any. Often authors are encouraged to come up with two, one for both heroine and hero. Typically the writer imbues their protagonists with standard neuroses such as vulnerability-refusal, sexual frigidity, arrogance, misogyny or work commitments. Yet occasionally a hopeful novelist will go beyond the archetypal afflictions and create a hindrance of depth and originality, and thus see their manuscript immediately rejected by the publishers.

Once you have explained to the reader that your heroine has been previously betrayed  and your hero is a man you have the necessary arcs to build your plot around, but if you believe your work with emotional conflict is complete your knowledge of writing and life is severely lacking. ‘Emotional conflict can also occur within a relationship, when a specific emotional situation – unexpected pregnancy, an arranged marriage, a curse or a dangerous situation – provides a further barrier to happiness.’ There are no emotional conflicts quite like an unexpected pregnancy, or a gypsy curse enforcing one hundred years of lycanthropy on your billionaire tycoon. However, these suggestions should be seen merely as physical machinations to further strengthen the already embedded dilemmas of the characters. If, for example, your heroine has difficulties with trust, loyalty and losing control imagine the dramatic journey she faces now a witch has turned her potential boyfriend into a werewolf.

This is reliable story-telling formula. Invent a character with a problem to solve, based upon a theme of your inclination, and assemble the narrative around the concept that most strongly challenges this intrinsic flaw, allowing the plot twists to offer genuine conflicts to resolve in order to achieve the most satisfying resolution. For romance fiction the contractual plot points, girl meets boy, a happy ending, are worked into a well-chosen subject matter. Once you're convinced your internal conflicts are powerfully dramatic enough for Mills & Boon what about your external conflicts, such as unexpected pregnancy or a voodoo hex? 'External conflicts – misunderstandings, circumstances or a secondary character's influence – should only be brought in as additional support to develop romance and plot. Allowing the focus to fall on to theme and plot is a common and easy trap to fall into.' Precisely, leave the exploration of theme to the professionals. However, before one begins typing there are a handful of questions you must work out the answers to.

'1. What draws them together?' For a moment ignore the external conflicts that cause your star-crossed lovers to meet, and concentrate on the emotional issues. It is all well and good drawing them together through hackneyed clichés such as one being a nurse caring for a plucky orphan and the other a chauvinistic sheik surgeon single-handedly building a log cabin for the family he no longer has, but what are the personal and physical qualities that cause the initial and ongoing attraction? What do they receive from the contact, and how are the beginnings of a relationship specifically both appealing and foreboding? The reader will be intrigued, unable to see how hero and heroine will ever reconcile their disputes, leave the past behind, find love and save a child's life.

'2. What keeps them apart?' Yes, what are the nagging psychological disturbances they suffer from that prevent them from finding the happiness, stability and mental health only marriage and offspring can bring? She maybe a sensitive, good-natured nurse, but her trusting nature has seen her hurt before, not least by her cruel, distant father and the way in which he treated her mother. How could she possibly fall for such an arrogant sheik surgeon with an icy bedside manner and ridiculously thick eyelashes? Despite her intense physical longing for his touch she must resist him to protect the fragility of her heart and the well-being of a brave, little orphan who desperately needs her attention now more than ever.

'3. What emotional obstacles do they encounter on the way?' Now you have your characters, scenario and location how do you develop the emotional journeys toward a gratifying culmination, rather than letting them meander like a Mills & Boon novel, padded tiresomely with sex scenes and the slow realisation of the sheik surgeon not being mean, conceited or dishonest, but rather misunderstood and a generous lover? How could she have had him so wrong, to think he refused to operate on a courageous orphan because he enjoys watching children slowly die, when in fact through secret, endless bouts of boardgames he had ascertained the kid was not strong enough to survive surgery and first would have to witness the power of love between medical colleagues.

'4. What are the turning points of the story going to be – positive and negative?' How do they overcome their differences, and what epiphanies and external conflicts occur to further the emotional arcs and bring them closer to the inevitable conclusion that they must surpass their doubts, and banish their destructive memories of busted romances and patriarchal abandonment not only for the sake of a gutsy orphan, but also for themselves. Now she has found the man of her dreams and seen him for who he really is, as no one else can see him, shouldn't she let down her defences, forgive her father and finally accept the all-consuming joy of matrimony?

'5. Why will the reader truly care about their happy ending?' Have you won over your audience with characters both credible and worthy of support? Does your hero leap from the page, shouting that despite building the log cabin using nothing but wood, nails and masculinity the empathy of a good woman and the pluckiness of an sickly orphan have proven to him he no longer wants to be a sheik surgeon hermit living alone in a log cabin in the woods, but rather a decent, caring sheik surgeon husband and father who has to sell a log cabin to pay for a three bedroom house, preferably in walking distance of a hospital?

If so far this combination of Mills & Boon insight and Bewildered Heart inspiration has failed to light a fire within you, gentle reader, how about a writing exercise sure to get those creative juices flowing? 'What story would you tell if your characters were trapped in one room for the entire book? Think of the emotional journey your hero and heroine would go on without any outside influences. How would you sustain the tension between the couple, build up to the highs and lows, when all they can do is talk to each other?’

That sounds as if it could be worth a try, but if you can only contemplate the fall-out of two people trapped in a room trying to find a way out of the room and wondering how they are trapped inside a room and whether anyone is coming to rescue them you are under-taking the assignment incorrectly. ‘We’re not going to lie, it’s a tough challenge – but no one said this was supposed to be easy,’ Secrets Uncovered reassures us. Yet that is not true, Romance HQ, everyone tells us that writing a Mills & Boon novel would be incredibly easy and haven't we been talking about writing one for nearly a year and a half already, so where is it, Bewildered Heart, where is this mythical novel you seem to always be on the verge of beginning? It is as if these helpful guides we keep reading, reviewing and learning from aren't helping at all.

"Drax frowned his dark, arrogantly slanted eyebrows over an equally arrogant aquiline nose"

Last month when searching for helpful pieces of advice for the upcoming New Voices competition we took the advice of Penny Jordan, legendary Mills & Boon novelist and author of some two hundred romance books (including Passionate Protection and Passionate Possession) in a prolific career spanning five decades. As part of her Arabian Nights series Jordan offered up excitement in various forms, such as first love with a sheikh in The Sheikh's Virgin Bride, pleasure with a sheikh in One Night with the Sheikh, passion with a sheikh in Possessed by the Sheikh, sexual harassment with a sheikh in The Sheikh's Blackmailed Mistress and sand everywhere in Prince of the Desert. Bewildered Heart preferred the feel of the more mysterious sheikh, rattle and roll of Taken by the Sheikh, a modern romance with a very modern twist on what exactly Penny Jordan believes a sheikh to be, and where exactly Penny Jordan believes a sheikh comes from.

Welcome to the sultry, exotic lands of Dhurahn, an oil rich Middle Eastern state governed by Prince al Drac'ar al Karim and his brother Vere. Drac'ar al Karim, Drax to his friends (Hi, Drax!), has returned from a business trip to London when he learns some frightful news from the leaders of Dhurahn's neighbouring states. The Ruler of Zuran wants Vere to wed his youngest sister, while the Emir of Khulua wishes Drax marry his eldest daughter. While the twin brothers are both thirty-four they are not yet ready to settle down in matrimony, even if it will strengthen the ties between the three countries. There is only one way to resolve this problem and save them from a marriage of convenience. How about, Drax proposes, a marriage of convenience? They will find two innocent, virginal ladies glad to wed and foolishly compliant enough into accepting a quickie divorce without any sort of financial compensation. The sooner they find their prospective brides the sooner they can decline the Ruler and Emir's proposals without causing offence and accidentally creating an international incident. Do women such as this still exist, asks Vere. Did they ever exist, asks the reader. Furthermore, where will you find such a creature, lost, confused, penniless, local, a virgin, and willing to sacrifice all of the virtuous personality traits that made her that way for a misogynistic sheikh with arrogant eyebrows and a suspicious job offer?

Meanwhile, in nearby Zuran City, capital of Zuran, Sadie Murray has been fired from her vague job description by the cantankerous Madame al Sawar. It seems Sadie was unwilling to trade sex for business agreements and her employer's company was solely successful because clients were rewarded with sex for agreeing to business deals. Sadie is thrown out without pay or the means to return to her home in the United Kingdom. Things look bleak for intelligent, morally responsible, virginal and selfless Miss Murray when who should walk through the gate but the Madame's noble and kind husband and his friend, the devastatingly gorgeous and overwhelmingly masculine Prince Drac'ar al Karim. Sadie has never felt physical attraction before, but suddenly her womanly senses are tingling and her throat is dry for a reason besides the humidity. She does not recognise Drax, of course, because the reader can only assume she is as politically ignorant as the writer has made her well-educated and politically knowledgeable. She hurries away, bound for the city airport or British Embassy, defeated by Madame al Sawar's cruelty and reluctant to accept Professor al Sawar's help. None of this goes unnoticed by Drax, however. His manly desires are stirred by Sadie's silky hair, reminiscent of his horses, her honourable pride, reminiscent of his falcons and her other features, probably all comparable to an animal Drax owns.

With only the merest few touches of contrivance all the pieces needed for the plot implied in the prologue have been laid within the opening two chapters. Drax quickly gallops after Sadie in his luxurious, yet unassuming, town car and finds her walking on the dust that passes for pavement in the State of Zuran. In her rush to escape Madame al Sawar Sadie dropped her passport and forgot her hat, rendering her with a nasty case of heatstroke and the embarrassment of reaching her destination with identification. Fortunately for her, the hunky piece of royal goodness has found her passport and has an unopened bottle of cool water in the car. If only Sadie would climb aboard with Drax she could reclaim her valuable documents and not die as a result of dehydration and over-exposure. Drax has an entirely different kind of exposure in mind for this pale beauty and he will stop at nothing to convince her to stay, including refusing to return her passport and locking all the doors once she is in the car. With her attention now finely tuned to his passionate sexiness and in-no-way-revealing dishdasha Drax lays out the whole truth over hurried mouthfuls of thirst-quenching water.

While Dhurahn enjoys a fair amount of wealth from its oil reserves the country's main resource has been the river that runs through it and its verdant, fertile land. Dhurahn's strongest industry is its produce, but the ambitious twin brothers have greater plans than this and yearn to create a financial centre within the country to rival those of New York, London and Hong Kong. Both Drax and Vere have been travelling regularly to England for the meetings necessary to create a financial centre worthy of competing in the money market, and Drax has learned that such a venture will require people with an understanding of financial services to work in the buildings he will eventually get around to constructing. Therefore Dhurahn has begun searching for suitable candidates for such a prestigious role, perhaps those with a degree and an MBA, who happen to be nearby and looking for a job. A likely story, thinks Sadie, who wisely deduces that when a man offers a woman employment it always turns out to be an elaborate scheme to trick her into an arranged marriage with his brother. She turns down the opportunity, finding Drax's claims to the Dhurahni throne incredulous, but Drax smartly reacts as any Prince would, with the offer of a ride on his private jet. There the third chapter ends, Drax convinced he has found Vere's bride despite his own inexplicable physical attraction to her, and Sadie unsure if heatstroke has reduced her to a gullible idiot with a degree and MBA.

With relations between Western opinions of Arab businessmen and Arab businessmen at an all-time high, as they were even back in 2007 when the world made sense, Penny Jordan struck and Taken by the Sheikh is classic Mills & Boon escapist fantasy, spoilt only by hackneyed plotting, ludicrous characters, inept sentence structuring and a worryingly blasé attitude towards Middle Eastern geography. Jordan rehashes the story of every previous Modern Romance with lazy similarities to the likes of The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress and the wager prologue of The Millionaire's Indecent Proposal. Not that Penny Jordan can be blamed, as those novels were written after this one, but the similarities to the former are glaring. The timid virgin fired by her mean-spirited bully of a boss only to be rescued by a suave billionaire who only offers a job as a means to seducing her. One of the many obvious faults with The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress is that Australian billionaires are less popular than Arab Princes and housekeeping will never be as appealing as business management. How have sheikhs proven so popular in romance fiction when they are nothing more than a means to produce a new series of books by swapping out billionaire, or cowboy, for sheikh and leaving the majority of the other words alone?

Nevertheless, the predictability of the narrative and the generic formula are no match for Jordan's amateurish writing style. Whereas the  unchallenging simplicity of many a Mills & Boon can infuriate for its lack of nuance and skill the authors are at least aware that they must maintain character perspective over lengthy passages, and not tally back and forth sentence to sentence. This may keep the reader on their toes, as Penny Jordan might believe, though angry at the assertion from an unknown weblog that she is mistaken, but while Bewildered Heart knows Jordan has written many books before we would counter that the effect is comical and slows the pace to so glacier not even the sizzling chemistry of the characters can melt the ice and drown the reader in a flood of emotion and competent writing.

Vere would have his own story told a year later in the series, so we can rule out his participation from Taken by the Sheikh. This leaves us with Drax and Sadie. One needs a wife and has been celibate for too long, while the other is a virgin who desperately requires a job and her passport back. For Drax the prognosis is obvious, he should sleep with Sadie and convince her to marry him to avoid the arranged marriage to the Emir of Khulua's eldest daughter, only to then fall in love with Sadie before she discovers there is no work in the financial sector and she is being used and lied to. Then Drax is merely one impassioned speech away from eternal happiness. For Sadie she is a handful of unlikely sequences away from hearing an impassioned speech and having a husband and a well-paid job in the financial sector of what is clearly a deeply-troubled and openly corrupt nation where the indulgent elite of two princes rule. We can only forlornly hope Jordan sees fit to develop a backdrop of topical and blood-thirsty revolution. With the chances of that seeming as incredulous as anything else that has happened thus far only one question remains, who will the titular sheikh turn out to be?

"On more than one occasion a practical joke crosses the line into sexual harassment"

After The Independent on Sunday offered advice on how to break into the Mills & Boon market they followed their Blagger's Guide with a headline wondering, 'Have We Fallen Out of Love with Chick-Lit?' It appears a worrying trend has developed in the book-buying business that has little to do with the general decline in book sales, the move to electronic-reading devices or the current worldwide recession that has adversely affected the sales of most items. In fact, this new phenomenon seems to have a whole lot to do with women no longer handing over cash in exchange for a pink novel jacket with drawings of cocktails, stilettos and cupcakes on it. Has the boom gone from the romance market and what horrors does this spell for female purveyors of shallow consumerism, the romantic minority terrified of reality, handsome, arrogant billionaires searching for a bride, or even a Bewildered Heart? Will no one think of us Bewildered Hearts?

According to Bookseller, the people responsible for how and why we sell books, 'Sales of the most recent novels by commercial women's authors are all down by more than 20 per cent on their previous mass-market publications over comparative sales periods. Victims include Marian Keyes, whose latest novel The Brightest Star in the Sky has sold 260,000 copies since February, down 42 per cent on her previous book. Jodi Picoult's Harvesting the Heart is down almost 50 per cent on her previous novel, and Veronica Henry's The Birthday Party recorded a 71 per cent slump to 16,479 copies.' Those books look terrible, but in an enduringly popular way, so what is to blame for this disconcerting plunge, besides the obvious reasons already stated? If the economy was solely responsible then a similar downturn would be noticeable across other genres, yet, 'Women's commercial fiction was under-performing compared to the rest of the book market with the top 20 commercial women's fiction authors down 10 per cent in like-for-like sales for their most recent mass-market title against the previous novel. Overall, the fiction market has fallen by 8 per cent.'

That's a margin of a staggering two per-cent, which we can only assume is enough to warrant an alarmist newspaper report forcing women to give up their literary careers and focus on growing industries, such as debt management. What's the cause of all this? Can we somehow place blame on retail conglomerates who are ultimately to blame for everything? 'The decline has been blamed on a squeeze on supermarket spending, with retailers drastically reducing the number of titles they order and a shift to digital books sales.' While it is easy to credit technology as an explanation, literary experts have an entirely different response, which is immensely uplifting, as analysis from literature scholars always is. 'Literary experts believe that readers are rejecting the identically-jacketed "sex, shoes and shopping" tales pushed by publishers in favour of more complex, psychologically-ambitious novels by women writers.' There you are, the future of romance is complexity and psychological-ambition. You heard it here eventually.

The reaction from authors of sex, shoes and shopping stories was immediate and predictable. While they do tend to write about sex, shoes and shopping, they do so in a complex and psychologically-ambitious way, so they shouldn't be considered chick-lit writers and therefore their sales cannot have slumped. The article quotes Eithne Farry, the literary editor of Marie Claire magazine (Search fruitlessly for Marie Claire's literary section here), who blames patronising marketing campaigns. 'Chick lit has become a derogatory term. I'm surprised when I see that a lot of books are sold in covers with shoes and cupcakes because often the subject matter of the book inside isn't frothy and frivolous.' Furthermore, says The Independent on Sunday, 'The backlash against "chick lit" resulted in the author Polly Courtney publicly dropping her publisher, HarperCollins, in protest at the "condescending and fluffy" sleeves they had chosen for her books.' But why ruin such a good thing, Polly Courtney? 'The implication with chick-lit is that it's about a girl wanting to meet the man of her dreams.' This narrow-minded implication was not enough for Courtney's aspirations as she saw herself belonging to an alternative market where the covers have a multitude of colour options and a vast library of potential photographs. Her new book is entitled It's a Man's World and deals with social issues such as sexism in the workplace, thus alleviating it above books about love to the real concerns of society.

Of course, chick-lit is a genre of fiction written by and for women, the term itself was coined in the 1980s as the literary equivalent of the chick-flick, a motion picture genre typically about women meeting their ideal man, or occasionally about women on cross-country crime sprees that end in empowering suicide to a rock anthem. The books are best-served by the occasional generous review, which claim novels such as Something Borrowed, or Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding, 'explore the conflict between the independence enjoyed by young, professional singletons and the emotional security offered by a partner.' Any book can be written up to sound socially-conscious, but romance fiction has often declared itself content to satisfy a reader yearning for light entertainment and a happy ending, such as Robertson Davies in one of his moods.

Here is a genre defined by the lazy way it is marketed rather than the lazy way much of it is written. During its heyday the publishing companies saw a blossoming market and followed a carefully-constructed advertising campaign that has proven successful ever since. Was this success born out of the time, the neurotic, but financially-prosperous nineties and naughts? Now the public have retained their neuroses, but their money has disappeared and the world suddenly seems psychologically-complex. Should publishers find a way to cash-in on this current sense of doom and insolvency? As we have learnt from our years of Mills & Boon research the author is often as powerless over cover, picture and publicity as the likes of Polly Courtney, so for the writers themselves what will be the next step, and may we discover this failure brings about a blessing disguised as a cupcake hidden inside a stiletto?

As Kathy Lette points out, 'Men who write first person, social satire, like Nick Hornby and David Nicholls and co, are compared to Chekhov. While women authors get pink covers and condescension.' While this is likely the first time Hornby and Nicholls have ever been favourably mentioned in the same sentence as Chekhov, there remains a double standard in the manner with which authors of modern fiction are sold to the public. Those writing 'first person, funny, feminist fiction' have been relegated to a sneered-at niche of women writing about women for women, often using alliteration. Seeking a remedy Lette senses an opportunity within this decline in sales. 'Many 'chick lit' books are just Mills & Boon with Wonderbras, with the heroines waiting to be rescued by a knight in shining Armani. So, perhaps, in this economic downturn, a creative cull may ensure that only literary lionesses prevail.'

How a Mills & Boon novel would differentiate depending on the quality of its breast-supporting undergarment might remain a mystery until Kathy Lette writes a frothy comedy on the subject, but perhaps this crisis might lead to a revaluation of the wider genre, allowing writers to escape the trappings of their publicists, and the end of second-rate story-telling that has caused the tarnishing of chick-lit since its critical and commercial pinnacle? Beyond that, Lette has asked for the genre to be renamed clit-lit, although what this refers to Bewildered Heart has no idea. Instead, we would call for the end of superficial labelling altogether and merely a new construction of literature separated arbitrarily by the novel's bra-size. Therefore most Mills & Boon's would not be Wonder-Bras, but instead high-street lingerie; frivolous, good-looking, but likely to fall apart under close scrutiny.

"How could a woman with thighs that still ached be so totally entranced by a glance?"

By the time Bewildered Heart had struggled through the initial one hundred pages of Under the Millionaire's Influence we finally found the good stuff, where the hero and heroine, despite constantly vowing not to sleep with each other for the good of themselves and their relationship, could no longer resist the temptation of a quickie in the passenger seat of a rental car. What the scene lacked in eroticism it more than made up for with phallicism, overwrought emotional epiphanies and a succinct conclusion. With The Millionaire's Indecent Proposal the reader need only wait seventy pages before Franco is reaching for the condoms and nonchalantly accusing his latest conquest of carrying a sexually-transmitted disease, the charmer. In the many Harlequin Mills & Boons we have endured only a small minority, The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall and The Dad Next Door, featured no sex scenes, while many, including Wild Child and The Millionaire's Indecent Proposal, seemed to contain nothing but.

Which leads us to ask the necessary question, what makes for an enjoyable, enticing literary sex scene and can Mills & Boon themselves offer up a list of helpful ideas to guide us through it, as we nervously fumble for the right words and how they are supposed to fit together? Why yes, and who better than Flo Nicoll to let the gals at Romance HQ in on all the dirty secrets. 'Mills & Boon books promise readers the ultimate in female fantasies – from marrying your childhood sweetheart to a night of multiple simultaneous orgasms with a gorgeous stranger.' It is either or, romance readers, so choose wisely. 'A great love scene is unputdownable – emotional, sexy, and exciting. But a bad sex scene can be the kiss of death for your story, and your characters – how can we fall in love with your hero if his between-the-sheets behaviour fails to satisfy?' Perhaps he was exhausted from making billions of pounds, being kind to children and respecting and adoring the only woman for him. There sure is a lot of pressure on the modern heroic man, the last thing he needs is a heroine constantly wondering if prostitution is somehow sullying her principles and refusing him the opportunity to work his magic, and then once he forces himself upon her using magnetic eye contact and height she finds the nerve to criticise his performance...

So, when it comes to throwing together a firework display in a bedroom, what are the proverbial rockets and Catherine wheels? To continue this already strained analogy a sparkler would be emotionality. 'Good love scenes happen within the emotional development of the relationship, and can be a key turning point for the couple. Use sensual encounters as an opportunity to delve into the emotional reactions of your characters, particularly the heroine.' As with any other element of your novel therefore make sure what you write has meaning and value. Sex for the sake of sex is unnecessary, according to Nicoll and the general consensus of women in the real world. Lust has no depth and mental connection must be developed through an appropriate amount of intimate conversations and meals. Thus, fornication should only be used to advance the story, as a couple moves from a man and a woman who were not having sex to a couple who now are, or a former couple who used to have sex and stopped transition back to the couple they were once again. The latter structure sounds more complex than it actually is.

Thus we learn to use love scenes for their narrative necessity, while being careful to avoid pornographic gratuity that derails the pacing of the drama. What other suggestions does Nicoll offer for penning sex scenes that actually apply to all elements of writing? 'Don’t be afraid to leave details to the imagination: in some of the hottest books, the actual consummation scene is only a paragraph.' See, good sex does not always have to last thirty pages. There is nothing embarrassing about only lasting a paragraph and then ending the chapter by writing, 'Goodnight.' A pithy footnote will suffice, as no one wants to read a meticulous description of every thrust. Just as satisfying is the simple use of phrases such as repeatedly, or until he was finished. 'Remember, nothing you write on the page will be nearly as erotic as what your readers can dream up… particularly if they read a lot of romance!' You know what your audience wants and why they want it, but bear in mind they are only after skilful touches, sultry insinuations, not full-blown explicitness, because they can take care of themselves once you have set the mood. They're not perverts.

'A beautiful sex scene can easily be ruined by the less sexy aspects of sex – disposal of condom, wiping down the heroine, even (I can’t quite believe I’m typing these words) the dreaded wet spot. It may be realistic, but it’s also a massive mood killer.' Yes, as with in reality realism destroys the beauty of everything. Still, an author is better off simply ending the scene at a civilized point, rather than pretending that these things just do not happen to gorgeous Greek tycoons and their spellbound virginal mistresses. Of course, do not allow Nicoll's shallow logic to stop you from attempting to make the disposal of a condom, the wiping down of the heroine or the wet spot romantic, sexy or a combination of the two. Just because everyone else has failed it does not mean you couldn't be the first to make post-coitus the must-read part of the Mills & Boon experience. Soon enough Harlequin fans will be demanding every Modern Romance contains an erotic wiping down of the heroine sequence.

Typically of a female journalist Flo Nicoll waits until after we have dealt with condom disposal before explaining the significance of foreplay. 'Don't forget the importance of kissing and touching! Lips, neck and ears, lower back, inner thighs and forearms etc. Because, not to get too personal, but isn’t it the men who move in straight for the grope – boobs and below – that are the biggest turn-off?' Anticipation is key for getting both heroine and reader in the right mind for literary loving. Keep your characters exchanging provocative, innuendo-based dialogue before they get down to the nitty-gritty of forearm-touching, and below-boob-groping. Readers prefer to experience the passion of the encounter, believing hero and heroine have taken a giant step towards their eventual happy ending and have furthered their eternal devotion through a paragraph's worth of physical unity.

While it is all well and good being told what makes for marvellous sex, and Bewildered Heart has learnt an awful lot admittedly, there is little in the way of technical advice in Nicoll's column. For example, when word-painting a romantic boob-grope, or a tender, moonlit condom-disposal should we, the author, censor the more colourful words and search the internet for suitable synonyms? 'The less flowery the descriptions, the better. Sometimes you just need to be able to call an erection an erection – not always a throbbing member/hard shaft etc! We’re not talking graphic descriptions of the porno variety but don’t shy away from being direct – after all, what’s the point in writing about something you’re not comfortable describing?' There you have it, gentle reader, no more euphemisms such as 'boobs and below' when the writer is referring to a lady's heavenly warmth. From now on, use depictions you are relaxed about using, and never again will a reader giggle, blushing because she knows when you wrote throbbing and hard you really meant erect.

'Let’s spare a thought for the hero who can’t control near-constant hard-ons… Everyone loves a virile hero, but this lack of control over his body risks making him seem juvenile, not jaw-droppingly hot! A little manly restraint can go a long way, ladies.' Writers should know well enough already not to base their heroes on fourteen year old boys, internet bloggers, or men in general, instead drawing the fine line between sexual prepotency and erectile dysfunction. A doting smile, or a fleeting, electrically-charged touch of the hands, a brief bout of gentle neck-nuzzling, the heroine's parade across the Olympic-sized swimming pool in a risqué bikini, or hearing a tragic sob-story concerning unresolved father issues should not result in a twitch in the trousers or a guttural feeling of arousal. No, the hero should react to these events with disdain and indifference, thus garnering the favour of women even further.

Finally, let us pretend there was an award for most annoying cliché found in a literary sex scene, what would that be, Flo Nicoll? 'The booby prize goes to the heroine’s instant nipple hardening/ tightening/ peaking/ pebbling on seeing the hero! (After two years at Romance HQ, I am well on my way to developing a complex because this doesn’t happen to me on a regular basis).' Now, either Nicoll has a severe lack of sensitivity in her nipples, her brain emotionally connects to elsewhere on her body, or the pebbling of nipples is something that does not happen to the world's women. If so, what other options are open to an author when wishing to demonstrate her heroine's stimulation, besides eyelid-fluttering or accepting money in exchange for sexual compliance? Nicoll has no ideas, but perhaps aspiring female writers could use this opening to invent a new language for sensuality, creating compelling euphemisms, more imaginative acts for their couples, discovering more realistic ways to portray desire and no longer viewing sex as a contractual requirement for Harlequin novels, instead properly lacing intimacy into their narratives. For those wanting less sex try Cherish, more sex there is Spice and for the same amount, but with the added benefit of Nicoll's unhelpful demonstration of how it has always been there remains Mills & Boon.

"He couldn't imagine a simple coat of paint could chase away his father's gloomy taint"

Some readers may find it difficult to believe but there remains a dismissive attitude towards romance fiction, despite the best work of Mills & Boon, publishing those thousands upon thousands of books, and Bewildered Heart, for we also try in our own captious way. Much like this beloved weblog there are others taking the fight to the critics who argue that the romance genre is formulaic, sexist, tawdry, clichéd, stereotypical, worthless, dumb, and written by bored housewives for pathetic idiots with unrealistic expectations of men, love and life. Without any evidence to back those statements up they still sound legitimate, so thank goodness for Australian author Anne Gracie, who wishes to stop this completely reasonable scorn with a dignified, finely-considered retort.

First of all, a popular misconception is that there exists a Mills & Boon Formula setting forth, in detail, exactly what an author must do and when to do it, yet says Gracie, 'There is not and never has been "a formula". Nor are there computer generated plots or any nonsense like that.' Mills & Boon do have guidelines which explain the differences between their many subgenres, but the guidelines merely state the preferred length of the novel, the tone, and the sexual content. 'Apply a little logic to The Formula: HM&B publishes more than 50 new titles each month. They've been doing that for more than 50 years. If there was a kiss on page 28 or a sex scene in chapter 5 of every book, do you think readers would keep buying, month after month, year after year?' Gracie may be over-estimating her overly-derided readership, but she is in no mood to contemplate the accusation that romances are blandly predictable and all the same, but their lack of drama and comforting trustworthiness are fundamental to their appeal.

For the sake of doing so, however, let us challenge that second myth anyway. Not all romantic fiction is the same. 'They are the same in that each story has a relationship between a man and a woman at its heart, and a satisfying ending, but it's like chocolate -- we all know what chocolate tastes like, but there are also many different kinds of chocolate and many ways to present and eat it. And people return time and time again to their favourite.' So, if it is good enough for chocolate then it is good enough for art. Romance novels can change the names of their characters and set each tale in a different location, and even go as far as to use different words to describe the same acts and emotions, but deep down they are stories printed on paper and they are successful and people keep buying them, so why should we bother analysing anything as if it's broken?

Next. 'Myth #3— they're soft porn for women. I don't know how many times I've heard critics of romance read out salacious passages from a sexy M&B. I dare say I could pick out passages from almost any novel and mock it out of context. Cheap laughs.' Yes, what kind of bastard uses out of context sentences from a Mills & Boon for an easy joke? 'The focus of a romance is not the sex but the relationship. In any case, how many of us would say that sex played no part in our relationships? If sex belongs anywhere, it's in a romance.' Exactly, Anne Gracie, and what would soft porn be without sex?

Against a standard criticism of paper-thin characters and simplistic writing style, Gracie argues, 'In every genre, there are novels that are clichéd and poorly written, and some books that are wonderfully written with unforgettable characters and prose that sings. Romance is no different. It's a huge genre, with an enormous range and variety. Don't judge a whole genre by a few books.' There is no conclusive proof that there is an inherent flaw in romantic fiction that causes every example to be typically base, shallow and amateurish. Gracie admits that romance is entertainment and should not be confused with literary fiction, which no one finds entertaining. People are stupid, she implies, somewhat caustically, and it is the public, not the authors, who are responsible for the shortcomings in every genre. We cannot help it if you are fools who have no idea what is good for you. Gracie goes on to include a quote from Robertson Davies, 'It is dangerous to condemn stories as junk which satisfy the deep hunger of millions of people. These books are not literary art, but a great deal of what is acclaimed as literary art in our time offers no comfort or fulfillment to anybody.' Therefore, cheer up, undiscerning masses, you are not entirely at fault. Talented authors writing great works of art should share the blame.

'Romance is for dumb or pathetic women. Yeah, and crime novels are for repressed murderers and violent types with a taste for necrophilia. And science fiction is for sad geeks who dress badly and have no grip on reality. And thrillers are for people who live dull, restricted lives. And people who read Literature are pretentious snobs.' You go, girl! Call those crime novel enthusiasts out for their secret fantasies. What kinds of sexual deviancies do you imagine Point Horror fans are into? 'There's nothing pathetic about wanting to read books that celebrate love. There's nothing dumb about reading books that makes you feel good at the end.' Indeed. Gracie has successfully countered Gracie's claims that Gracie is desperate and ignorant. Still, she has become so angry at these hurtful remarks she should probably stop making them up in the first place. Be that as it may, her statement does require a little further exploration because crime novels can be enjoyed by murderers with healthy attitudes, and even well-dressed nerds may find science-fiction is for them.

Therefore, is romance only suitable for dumb, pathetic people, or solely targeted at women of varying degrees of stability and intelligence? Does the genre render their fans pathetic and dumb, or do pathetic and dumb readers seek the genre out? Romance is seen as a woman's market, presumably because men are too cerebral for such simple pleasures. However, no one could possibly turn unsubstantiated fury into feminist tirade. 'In past centuries it was claimed that women should not be taught to read because they had small brains and the poor dears couldn't cope with all the extra learning. In the Victorian era men were warned not to let their womenfolk read because novels brought about a spiritual and moral decline in the feeble female constitution. And caused them to neglect their housework.' Still, men let it happen and look where we are today. Some women do no housework at all, instead endlessly reading romance novels, unable and unwilling to discern real from fantasy and causing fanatical medical health professionals to blame romance fiction for many of our modern psychological problems. Now, at least, we know where all this tragedy began, if only Gracie would give up the sources of her historical anecdotes.

As for filling women's heads with unrealistic expectations of life, 'Do science fiction novels make people believe the aliens are coming? Do crime novels cause people to murder? Do fantasy novels make us believe we can fly or perform magic?' Well, those examples may be as illogical as they are irrelevant, but causing females to believe love exists wreaks destruction our therapists just cannot keep up with, and is far more serious than watching the skies or wearing spectacles and waving a wand in restaurants. 'Some of the grittier, more "real life" romances often portray people coping with difficulties many women cope with — illness, divorce, death, career crises, elderly parents, problems with children , and so on. No easy solutions are presented.' As we have discovered through our reading and critiquing of the genre, no real life difficulty is a match for a wedding and the patter of tiny feet, as problems quickly disappear once the happy couple declare their love at the end, and this all-defeating power of love is the key selling point of the romance genre. Therefore, authors do themselves a disservice to argue both sides, as once you had Robertson Davies backing you up, and now you are suggesting romance occasionally offers depth beyond shallow fantasy. Clearly someone has been listening to the critics they claim to be ignoring.

There remain two myths that require dispelling, now that we have so easily dispelled the initial eight. Most importantly of all, writing romance fiction is not as straight-forward as one may think from reading romance fiction and concluding that anyone could do that. 'Even Harlequin Mills and Boon, that urban myth claims is so easy to 'crack', receive 20,000 unsolicited manuscripts each year from all over the world. They contract perhaps 30 new writers.' If by some miracle your work is selected do not expect money for jam. In fact, contrary to popular belief while there are financial rewards for succeeding in the most widely-lucrative genre of fiction the world has ever known there is no guarantee you will see any of that cash. Advances are small, and royalties are made up of a tiny percentage of the book's cover price. While Gracie ends her article with a glowing reference of romance fiction for both writers and readers, there are easier ways to make money, for example any job besides author. Passion fuels this career rather than the financial proceeds, so those thinking Mills & Boon is the way to make a quick, easy fortune are well-advised to try elsewhere. We fans can sense the cynicism within the opening sentences, and if there was ever an antithesis of romance it would be cynicism, as Bewildered Heart continues to discover to its benefit.