“What was madness but a delicious form of intense reality?”

Having read Neurosurgeon... and Mum! while simultaneously cutting and pasting from Secrets Uncovered about best friends, falling in love with a handsome billionaire named Google and single-handedly raising this weblog in a cruel and uncaring world, there seemed no more appropriate a time for a follow-up essay, this time on the use of children as secondary characters in romance fiction. In our dalliance with the Cherish imprint and the recent regrettable interlude with Medical™ we have met two supposedly adorable children. In The Dad Next Door the daughter was a shy, vulnerable eight-year-old desperately mourning the death of her twin sister and seeking a replacement mother having not been adorable enough for her real one. In the aforementioned Kate Hardy novel, little Perdy was a shy, vulnerable eight-year-old cautiously mourning the death of her birth mother, and seeking a surrogate in the woman her father just happened to be sleeping with. Therefore, without even having to read the helpful e-book, are all children eight-year-old girls with severe separation anxiety brought about by a family death causing a deep, endearing look of emptiness in their eyes?

For unnecessary additional insight we turn to Harlequin editor Anna Boatman, who opens with a charming, illustrative story. 'After spending a recent train journey listening to the hysterical screams of a vocally powerful and worryingly eloquent toddler, I stumbled off the train with my ear-drums still shuddering, vowing fervently to remain child-free for the rest of my life.' She already sounds like Bewildered Heart's kind of editor, but please, continue. 'Yet only the next day, I came across an adorable child who totally changed my mind. The catch? This one was fictional!' Imaginary kids are vastly superior to crying babies on trains, as the saying goes, but perhaps Anna Boatman will resolve her opening paragraph with a conclusion to avoid the obvious inference that she is the one no one wants to sit next to on a train. 'It got me thinking about the children who populate our books - they can change the whole feeling of a story, for better or worse, and something that can present a challenge to a wannabe writer is dealing with a child in their romance story – as we all know, children don’t always do what they’re told!' Judging by the output of her publishing house this is a problem not merely plaguing aspiring authors, but all novelists powerless to stop the fancies of the characters they have created.

First and foremost, there is the natural issue of why a writer would even bother to involve redundant secondary characters in their romance. After all, they are telling the story of a couple meeting, falling in love and then sabotaging their own happiness through the inability to behave as normal adults. This is the scenario romance fans consistently pay for, despite all rational reason, so a child not only confuses matters, but also requires enough back-story to kill the forward momentum of a narrative. 'Babies are a classic theme to help bring couples together and they are a reader favourite – there’s something about a tall, powerful hero protecting a tiny baby that tends to resonate for almost everyone.' As long as your hero is taller than the baby you cannot fail, and at Bewildered Heart we have witnessed this subject matter previously. The machinations of the thriller aspect in MacKenzie's Promise utilised and then practically forgot a baby, while Hired by the Cowboy pushed a foetus to the forefront of the drama, in order to explore actual themes such as family, home and belonging in a superficial, tedious manner. The desires of romance readership have been scientifically-proven to hold procreation as humanity's ultimate objective, therefore most books end in pregnancy, the final pages closing the curtain on a shared life before it becomes icky and hormonal.

Anna Boatman, writing under the far more believable-sounding name of Elise Windmill, has some tips to guide you towards the goal of an idealised child, rather than a realistic child, because those are not as commercial. 'The romance should still be driving the story, not the children – no matter how demanding they are. Having too much page time spent dealing with babies or children around can distract from the intensity of the relationship.' Boatman goes onto suggest that the welfare of the little ones should not be the only conflict facing your hero and heroine. Say your single father has no time for romance or euphemisms for body parts, he needs to concentrate on his shy, vulnerable daughter, while also managing his pharmaceutical empire and retaining his muscular physique without ever doing any exercise. When he blackmails a small business owner into becoming his part-time mistress to pay for her younger brother's plastic surgery  there must be more stopping this couple's eternal love than the ephemeral needs of cute, little Emily Rodriguez. For example, her brother's injuries could have resulted from using one of Buck's company's products. That is powerful conflict. Now there is nothing to stop that novel from being written, besides some legal fact-checking.

Next, 'Warning: sickly-sweet children may cause nausea… Sadly, outside the world of fantasy, children aren’t perfect – and we love them for it! A child without a spark of naughtiness is, let’s be honest, a dull child. In the same way as heroes and heroines need flaws to feel real, a perfectly good child is too good to be true.' However, having an eight-year-old's hair go frizzy when it is sunny outside will not suffice. An author would be expected to embed the child's neuroses and bad behaviour into the narrative, drawing from a presumably tragic history. Somewhere along the line they lost their mother or father and now have to spend every waking moment with their emotionally-stunted single parent. The suggestion of humanising characters may sound like writing hints for idiots, but this piece of wisdom requires clarification. Anna has already taught us to focus attention on the central romantic concept, so the author is best served bearing that in mind when giving their invented child a well-rounded personality that fails to serve anything other than as proof they were paying attention during writing school.

Before we have learned anything Anna Boatman has moved onto her final point. 'Put your children to work! How can these little secondary characters help to move the romance forward? Shared responsibility for a child can be a great way to bring couples together, while they’re also a way for the reader to see another side to a character.' Exactly, there is no sense in having a child character unless they are the focal point of the drama because the child will always be the focal point of their parent’s life. As evidence we turn to Romantics Anonymous, the Clinton-era tale of denial, middle class solvency and parenting ineptitude. Lauryn Chandler puts the teenage daughter to such compelling dramatic use she skimps entirely on plausibility. Firstly, Beth runs away from home to bring the divorced hero and heroine together and then blackmails them to spend a Christmas as a reconciled family by threatening to indulge in drugs, alcohol and drug and alcohol-fuelled under-age pregnancy. Once Cynthia arrives dishevelled on Lane's doorstep, frantic and fearing kidnap the motions for rekindled love have been oiled and Chandler is able to carefully write Beth from the plot, bringing her back occasionally for maudlin displays of affection. While Romantics Anonymous has glimpses of story-telling competence, the handling of offspring as a secondary character matters less because Beth is older, independent and supposedly well-adjusted. Equally a baby is representative of its causes and the uncertainties of the future. A shy, vulnerable eight-year-old demolished by grief becomes a novel in itself, not a conceit for love and euphemisms for body parts. To even suggest such a thing is perverse and deeply offensive.