So, you’ve completed your standard list of neurotic compulsions you always go through before you begin writing, you’ve sat down in front of your computer/A4 Pad/iPad, you have your cocktail/painkilling-narcotic/rum/coffee and an hour or so before the children come home to demand their standard post-school cocktail of painkilling-narcotics, rum and coffee… You’ve opened a Word file, and typed Chapter One, then what? Were you, perhaps, a little presumptuous to believe you could make up a Mills & Boon novel as you went along without any prior planning or thought? Sure, most Mills & Boon novels give the impression that this is how they are written, but how does an aspiring author actually go about writing one?
For help we desperately and somewhat foolishly turn to Trish Wylie. You remember our previous dealings with Trish, surely, from her One Night with the Rebel Billionaire to the ongoing joy of her blogging and stubborn defence of romance fiction against mistakenly perceived threats. Beyond that, there is also a series of helpful writing guides on her website with the lessons everyone will need to learn before they can write as successfully as Trish Wylie. Say what you will about the quality of her work, her books have been published, which means she has that special something Mills & Boon look for, but refuse to describe for the rest of us. Perhaps she has a feverish work ethic and the willingness to receive insignificant amounts of money, or a starry-eyed and occasionally offensive attitude towards relationships and women?
Whatever the reason, let us hope the answer can be gleamed from the many articles she has helpfully offered up, including The Blank Page and a Blinking Cursor, for decades the visual trope Hollywood has depended upon when wanting to illustrate a writer struggling. Now, as we have previously established on too many occasions to recall, a romance novel’s plot is set in stone from the beginning. After all, you’d be imprudent to stray even a little from the girl-and-boy-meet-fall-in-love-and-live-happily-ever-after formula, which works so consistently today, to varying degrees of worthiness. Therefore, Trish informs us, her starting point for any new venture is the characters. ‘And I don’t just mean their age, height, hair/eye colour, what they do for a living or even the plot and conflicts that you have in place in your notes.’
You have notes? The article is subtitled ‘Starting a Story from Scratch’ and here you have notes of the plot and conflict seeds? We’re off to a terrible start, but never mind, as the creation of the characters is a foremost concern, and hopefully all that story wadding will work itself out as we go along. How do we create characters, Trish, besides writing ourselves more attractive and have us coo at babies in supermarkets? ‘I name them.’ Huh. Any attempt to explain this bizarre and unnecessary behaviour? ‘Some find that it's better to plot out their story first, some will change the names to match the characters’ personalities as their story progresses, but I find just by choosing their names I discover a little about their personalities.’
Already you get the impression that Trish Wylie was the wrong person to ask, but let us labour on for the sake of updating the blog. Here at Bewildered Heart an aspiring author will find themselves best advised starting with the plot structure and working from there, only giving their characters hilariously inappropriate names as something of an afterthought. However, once you have written twenty or so romance novels, each with an identical storyline, you may find yourself running down a creative dead-end each time a new project needs beginning. Thus, read Trish Wylie out. After all, fans must fall in love with the hero and want to be friends with the heroine. They are the emotional centre and main selling point of your novel and you can’t just endlessly reproduce the same tall, black-haired, dark-eyed, square-jawed, arrogant, powerful billionaire with only a name change to separate him from the million others.
In terms of developing these characters then, Wylie’s next job is to find a photograph to use as a visual reference point, and has handily uploaded pictures of famous actors onto her website for the aspiring author to browse at their leisure. Scroll through and find your favourites! Bewildered Heart sees no sense in disowning Hugh Jackman now, so if we pair him with whoever this Pippa Black is, rename them Jack Hewman and Philippa White, before you can say, ‘This won’t work’ we have our two protagonists.
Ahead of typing and dreaming of Torstar pay-cheques there remains the conundrum of story, the reason for two beautiful people to come together and mate, besides their obvious physical and emotional attraction. Wylie calls this sequence of contrivances the outside conflict, which serves to, ‘sustain the story, draw (Jack and Phillipa) together when they'd rather be apart, maybe even throw them together under one roof to heighten the tension.’ Yes, true love needs time and misunderstandings to bloom, but how do we create such a set-up? Perhaps the answer can be found in the next section of handy advice, the aforementioned importance of setting. For example, as Trish Wylie did with One Night with the Rebel Billionaire, she took a photograph of Allison Mack, one of Jensen Ackles, named them Roane and Adam, made the girl a timid virgin, the guy a ruthless, powerful billionaire, put them in a mansion on a beach and then sat back and let nature take its course.
For we discerning authors, hoping to revolutionise the Mills & Boon genre, however, more studious thought is required. We are above such writing techniques as throwing a bunch of archetypes into a bucket and stirring. Yet at this point Trish abandons us to stare at black and white photographs of Keanu Reeves, and calling it ‘research’. Therefore, Bewildered Heart turns to Lynette Rees, author of the e-book Crafting the Romance Story, and assorted proof that she holds a position of authority on the matter. Rees sets out a simple guide to cultivating a plot, even throwing in such essay clichés as dictionary definitions, a Do’s and Don’ts list and the Asking of the Following Questions:
1. What do I want my novel to say?
2. Which character is best able to say what needs to be said?
3. How can this message be conveyed to the reader?
4. Where is the action going to take place?
Best to start with the easy one and the answer is we want our novel to say words, and to be more specific between 50,000 and 55,000 words. Rees, however, has an even loftier response, involving the crucial element of theme. What is our romance novel about? What is the message, the over-arching philosophy we, the author, wish to suggest to you, who in this case is also the reader? Any devotion to the romance novel should be foremost in the creator’s mind. After all, there is no money to be made in this industry, and no acceptable acclaim or appetising fanbase to enjoy. There is a soulless abyss of artistic bankruptcy, but that would be preferably pursued in the far more lucrative fields of crime thrillers or television.
Perhaps what Rees is not quite asking is why we would want to write a romance novel in the first place, besides the misguided delusion that it might be a lark or that through this oft-maligned genre we may reinvent love and save humankind. Reading the article, however, it becomes clear such philosophical ponderings have no place in writing guides, as Rees suggests a suitable theme is loss, whereas Bewildered Heart would suggest romance. So ignore all those pressing issues over whether you are wasting your life and start to think about an ideal location for your book concerning love, and maybe loss, with a pilot and an air stewardess soaring to new emotional heights at ten thousand feet.
‘Who? Why? What? Where? When? How?’ asks Rees. Good questions, but not necessarily in the correct order. Still, if you can answer all of those you are ready to write your book. Suddenly, ‘When all seems lost [the black moment], there needs to be a sacrifice made by the person who has the most to lose. Finally, they are triumphant, a victory is won.’ Bear in mind, then, at one point, at the end of the second act, there shall be an instance so terrible and dark that it can only be spoken of within the safe confines of brackets. Yet don’t worry, gentle reader, for usually the hero is the one to make a sacrifice, such as discarding his entire identity, to live ever after with the heroine who sacrifices nothing, thus giving your romance the contractually obligated happy ending, because, frankly, a victory being lost just wouldn’t feel like a victory.
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