With the deadline for Fast Track steadily approaching there has never been a more suitable time to explore the demands of beginnings, and so we turn back to the warm bosom of Secrets Uncovered and shout, 'I want to write for Mills & Boon – but where (and how!) do I start?' Like any good instruction manual Mills & Boon's waits until Chapter Three before discussing how to get started. They argue, somewhat perceptively, that a good place to begin is with an opening chapter, but what is an opening chapter and how does an aspiring author with only a computer and a barely discernible grasp of language go about writing one? 'Your potential readers are busy women juggling studies, careers, families and time is precious – so you have to grab their attention with a gripping first chapter.' Nothing grips like grabbing, but how do we impress these ladies somehow combining school, work and baby-making? With such hectic lives should they really be whiling away idle minutes on romance fiction, inbetween changing nappies while commuting from university to the office?
'Start at a truly interesting point, e.g. when your hero and heroine meet. Don’t waste valuable time telling the reader about mundane, everyday details – make sure you open with a point of change in their lives, an exciting moment.' Mills & Boon can throw about phrases such as exempli gratia all they like, but, as Penny Jordan previously advised, all couples must meet on the first page. Occasionally an author will circumvent this obligation with a mysterious prologue, where the hero makes a wager about buying a woman or a working class waitress learns she is princess of a Central European nation from an overly-optimistic Ouija board. Harlequin novels and their readers know what they want and expect to receive it. Therefore early characterisation and scenic descriptions are an unnecessary distraction from throwing lovers together and having them deny their feelings for two hundred infuriating pages.
'Establish the emotional conflict so the reader is dying to know how it will be resolved. Think of the scene in Casablanca when Ingrid Bergman asks Sam to play As Time Goes By…' While the editors of Secrets Uncovered may have missed the point of Casablanca, or not completely understood the meaning of the term emotional conflict, they are right to recommend the film as a masterpiece, although were that film to have been a manuscript it is comforting to know that Mills & Boon would have rejected it. While the thousands of novels published every month fail to adhere to even these most basic of tenets, a competition such as Fast Track will look for a comprehension of narrative form. However, as history proves, skill and inspiration will not suffice and so we continue onto the next important element all winning romances must contain, clichés. 'If you type cliché and romance into Google, you get thousands of sites dedicated to the world of romance clichés.' Yes, but if you type onion and hat into Google you get thousands of pictures of hats made from onions, because Google works as a search engine. Hi, Google! In fact, a search for cliché and romance will likely yield the Mills & Boon website, so what's your point?
'There are ways for a successful writer to use a conventional theme and twist it, and by that we mean taking the tried and tested plot and turning it on its head to deliver something with real wow factor that will help you knock readers’ socks off.' While Secrets Uncovered is more than happy to supply the clichés and stereotypes they insist on leaving the twists to you, the gentle authors. No one enjoys subversion quite like Bewildered Heart, of course, and so the struggle to reinvent the gorgeous billionaire Lothario as new and sock-knocking begins here. Still, tragic gorgeous billionaires have been done as many times as arrogant gorgeous billionaires, and even revolutionary spins such as the sensitive, handsome millionaire have been attempted, to obvious less effect. The novelist faces the daunting task of involving a favoured archetype in an unusual situation, allowing an aspect of the character to emerge through the life-altering event he is confronted with, perhaps by a nurturing, beautiful heroine, who may or may not be a single mother and virgin.
For all their talk of invigorating variations on classic themes, Mills & Boon have been unsurprisingly reluctant to divulge a definition of any of those words, until now. 'Romance conventions are a must, they only become clichés when they don’t bring their own personality along for the ride. The trick is to understand the convention before you twist it. How many stories/films/TV series/cartoons etc. feature the Cinderella storyline and how many then go on to twist it? A few examples which work are Pretty Woman, Twilight, The Holiday, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Maid in Manhattan, Working Girl, 27 Dresses, The Wedding Date. All of these featured a less than lucky heroine, a make-over and a Prince Charming – but all with their own spin!' First and foremost none of those examples worked, and several cannot be compared to Cinderella any more appropriately than Cinderella can be compared to Pygmalion. Furthermore, once you have removed allusions to Solicititilation, Katherine Heigl and ethnicity you are left with Twilight, which was only mentioned to draw in the Twilight audience, a useful trick, admittedly. Twilight. Edward Cullen. Look at his perfect crooked smile. Monetize your blog.
The conclusion drawn from this contemporary examining of Cinderella is both eye-opening and disheartening. Firstly, whoever wrote it has a woeful taste in film, but secondly they are right to call for the reader to understand the appeal of Cinderella before making her Mexican and liberally stealing ideas from Roman Holiday. Mills & Boon seem increasingly intent on pushing the aspirational attraction of their books. Cinderella is a fairy-tale of fate, a rags-to-riches story of over-coming adversity with the trendy moral that beautiful people are better than ugly people. Readers empathise with characters who have made good and realised their dreams despite coming from nothing, often relying on nothing more than stunning good looks, a magical deux ex machina and a man with an unlimited fortune and plenty of time on his hands. Therein lies the secret to Cinderella's ever-lasting success, and the reason a handful of superficial changes can lead to publication, Hollywood adaptation and a red-headed actress reinterpreting the legendary character as something deeply offensive to women everywhere.
Somewhere awhile ago Secrets Uncovered gave up on trying to offer advice for writing a first chapter and simply slipped back into the standard sentences all of their articles slip back into, 'Make the reader believe that true love exists. Make characters unique and believable. Dialogue needs to fit with your characters and not be forced.' Those statements may well prove worthy of implementing, but a wannabe writer can look to the nonsensical contradictions of Secrets Uncovered for the reality behind the Mills & Boon spiel. The lack of depth of the characters and non-enterprising scale of the plot forces the author to fall back upon recognisable tropes. What other choice do they have when told to introduce both characters to one another and reader within the opening pages and hurry the story onwards with the minimal use of external conflicts? More worrying, however, is the implication that the target audience will not accept large-scale changes to the formula. 'Mills & Boon is about creating fantasy out of reality. Surprise us with your characters, stories and ideas!' The article ends on an uplifting note of innovation, but this is possibly the fantasy they were mentioning moments earlier. When working within a much tighter structural framework than the publishers seem willing to admit to, competition entrants may struggle to create characters and plotlines enterprising enough to shake the editors from their comfortable chairs while remaining suitable material for the Fast Track brief. If they do, mind, it is likely they have rewritten Casablanca with a happy ending and less memorable dialogue.
'Start at a truly interesting point, e.g. when your hero and heroine meet. Don’t waste valuable time telling the reader about mundane, everyday details – make sure you open with a point of change in their lives, an exciting moment.' Mills & Boon can throw about phrases such as exempli gratia all they like, but, as Penny Jordan previously advised, all couples must meet on the first page. Occasionally an author will circumvent this obligation with a mysterious prologue, where the hero makes a wager about buying a woman or a working class waitress learns she is princess of a Central European nation from an overly-optimistic Ouija board. Harlequin novels and their readers know what they want and expect to receive it. Therefore early characterisation and scenic descriptions are an unnecessary distraction from throwing lovers together and having them deny their feelings for two hundred infuriating pages.
'Establish the emotional conflict so the reader is dying to know how it will be resolved. Think of the scene in Casablanca when Ingrid Bergman asks Sam to play As Time Goes By…' While the editors of Secrets Uncovered may have missed the point of Casablanca, or not completely understood the meaning of the term emotional conflict, they are right to recommend the film as a masterpiece, although were that film to have been a manuscript it is comforting to know that Mills & Boon would have rejected it. While the thousands of novels published every month fail to adhere to even these most basic of tenets, a competition such as Fast Track will look for a comprehension of narrative form. However, as history proves, skill and inspiration will not suffice and so we continue onto the next important element all winning romances must contain, clichés. 'If you type cliché and romance into Google, you get thousands of sites dedicated to the world of romance clichés.' Yes, but if you type onion and hat into Google you get thousands of pictures of hats made from onions, because Google works as a search engine. Hi, Google! In fact, a search for cliché and romance will likely yield the Mills & Boon website, so what's your point?
'There are ways for a successful writer to use a conventional theme and twist it, and by that we mean taking the tried and tested plot and turning it on its head to deliver something with real wow factor that will help you knock readers’ socks off.' While Secrets Uncovered is more than happy to supply the clichés and stereotypes they insist on leaving the twists to you, the gentle authors. No one enjoys subversion quite like Bewildered Heart, of course, and so the struggle to reinvent the gorgeous billionaire Lothario as new and sock-knocking begins here. Still, tragic gorgeous billionaires have been done as many times as arrogant gorgeous billionaires, and even revolutionary spins such as the sensitive, handsome millionaire have been attempted, to obvious less effect. The novelist faces the daunting task of involving a favoured archetype in an unusual situation, allowing an aspect of the character to emerge through the life-altering event he is confronted with, perhaps by a nurturing, beautiful heroine, who may or may not be a single mother and virgin.
For all their talk of invigorating variations on classic themes, Mills & Boon have been unsurprisingly reluctant to divulge a definition of any of those words, until now. 'Romance conventions are a must, they only become clichés when they don’t bring their own personality along for the ride. The trick is to understand the convention before you twist it. How many stories/films/TV series/cartoons etc. feature the Cinderella storyline and how many then go on to twist it? A few examples which work are Pretty Woman, Twilight, The Holiday, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Maid in Manhattan, Working Girl, 27 Dresses, The Wedding Date. All of these featured a less than lucky heroine, a make-over and a Prince Charming – but all with their own spin!' First and foremost none of those examples worked, and several cannot be compared to Cinderella any more appropriately than Cinderella can be compared to Pygmalion. Furthermore, once you have removed allusions to Solicititilation, Katherine Heigl and ethnicity you are left with Twilight, which was only mentioned to draw in the Twilight audience, a useful trick, admittedly. Twilight. Edward Cullen. Look at his perfect crooked smile. Monetize your blog.
The conclusion drawn from this contemporary examining of Cinderella is both eye-opening and disheartening. Firstly, whoever wrote it has a woeful taste in film, but secondly they are right to call for the reader to understand the appeal of Cinderella before making her Mexican and liberally stealing ideas from Roman Holiday. Mills & Boon seem increasingly intent on pushing the aspirational attraction of their books. Cinderella is a fairy-tale of fate, a rags-to-riches story of over-coming adversity with the trendy moral that beautiful people are better than ugly people. Readers empathise with characters who have made good and realised their dreams despite coming from nothing, often relying on nothing more than stunning good looks, a magical deux ex machina and a man with an unlimited fortune and plenty of time on his hands. Therein lies the secret to Cinderella's ever-lasting success, and the reason a handful of superficial changes can lead to publication, Hollywood adaptation and a red-headed actress reinterpreting the legendary character as something deeply offensive to women everywhere.
Somewhere awhile ago Secrets Uncovered gave up on trying to offer advice for writing a first chapter and simply slipped back into the standard sentences all of their articles slip back into, 'Make the reader believe that true love exists. Make characters unique and believable. Dialogue needs to fit with your characters and not be forced.' Those statements may well prove worthy of implementing, but a wannabe writer can look to the nonsensical contradictions of Secrets Uncovered for the reality behind the Mills & Boon spiel. The lack of depth of the characters and non-enterprising scale of the plot forces the author to fall back upon recognisable tropes. What other choice do they have when told to introduce both characters to one another and reader within the opening pages and hurry the story onwards with the minimal use of external conflicts? More worrying, however, is the implication that the target audience will not accept large-scale changes to the formula. 'Mills & Boon is about creating fantasy out of reality. Surprise us with your characters, stories and ideas!' The article ends on an uplifting note of innovation, but this is possibly the fantasy they were mentioning moments earlier. When working within a much tighter structural framework than the publishers seem willing to admit to, competition entrants may struggle to create characters and plotlines enterprising enough to shake the editors from their comfortable chairs while remaining suitable material for the Fast Track brief. If they do, mind, it is likely they have rewritten Casablanca with a happy ending and less memorable dialogue.
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