No sooner had we Bewildered Hearts sent our Fast Track entries into the Mills & Boon offices than Harlequin had announced a brand new competition. Yes, the benevolent publishers have launched a multi-layered global writing contest with a press release and a website, So You Think You Can Write, finally throwing down the gauntlet to their many admiring readers who probably all believe they are literate. ‘Do you dream of being a world-famous published author?’ they begin. If so, writing for Mills & Boon is a deeply illogical choice. However, simply by removing the phrase ‘world-famous’ from that sentence the slightly amended meaning suddenly seems much more appropriate. ‘Do you dream of being a publisher author?’ If so, does the internet have the career opportunity for you. Here is your chance to send a manuscript to that hallowed centre of disposable romance fiction and perhaps see your fake name sandwiched between a bombastic, sexist title you did not choose and a gently pornographic photograph of two unsuccessful models canoodling that you had no say over. Last year’s winner, Kat Cantrell from Texas, will see her debut published in February 2013 and critically-lambasted on this very weblog possibly afterwards.
Much like New Voices and Fast Track in every way conceivable, So You Think You Can Write will attempt to discover those hidden talents whose manuscripts were until now doomed to remain where they belonged, in a drawer or on a slush pile. Because Mills & Boon lack imagination and originality they have decided to create an event of their competition, but unlike the ebook Secrets Uncovered that preceded New Voices, So You Think You Can Write submissions will have been tailored to perfection by a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week week-long online conference where potential entrants will work alongside fifty romance editors over a variety of cutting edge technological communication tools, including, ‘Podcasts, videos, webinars, blogs, live chats, community discussions and Twitter events.’ Many of those are things that exist. Webinars are seminars that take place on the internet and are so-called because who ever invented the term didn’t take the time to check the etymology of seminar.
In case everyone wasn’t excited enough by the illicit thrills of learning the differences between webinars, videos, podcasts and live chats, ‘Aspiring authors will attend a virtual romance-writing "boot camp" designed to teach them how to write a romance novel that will attract the attention of publishers.’ Who doesn’t enjoy a boot camp experience? This online international festival of smut and mediocrity will last from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of September, giving plenty of time to those wishing to hone their novel before the competition deadline on the thirteenth of October. From there participants will submit an opening chapter and brief synopsis before the many hopefuls will be whittled down to twenty-eight through a combination of a public vote and Harlequin themselves. The twenty-eight writers will then send off their finished manuscripts, which professional editors will judge and select a final three for another communal election. The overall favourite will win a publishing contract to write a series romance novel, slightly undermining the amount of work, stress and unrestricted online opinion they will have had to endure from a contest with such a friendly, non-confrontational name.
With the press release released Mills & Boon swiftly moved onto the next obvious step. In order to prepare for the crash university course taking place in September there will be three month prep class, which will consist of numerous blog entries regurgitating the wisdom of Secrets Uncovered and fed to the next generation of unskilled romance writers eager for learning and eventual worldwide fame and glory. First up are two short essays, Vanquishing the Terrifying Empty Screen and How to Stand Out from the Slush. According to the latter, the crucial difference between the thousands of rejected opening chapters and the few selected success stories is, ‘The author’s natural voice – all too often we receive submissions that may be technically very good but there is no personality or spark to the writing. Sometimes it feels like writers are trying to emulate authors that they have read before but we’re not looking for a paint by numbers romance.’ While it may intermittently sound as if Harlequin lies in its promotional material this statement has the indefinable, elusive enigma that explains the publisher’s vague notion of quality control. Helpfully How to Stand Out from the Slush immediately moves on without a further word of insight.
Other than that opening, head-scratching statement the leftover hints are the straight-forward classics we have covered before such as dazzling dialogue, emotional intensity, colourless inflammable hydrocarbon, originality, humour, chemistry, characterisation and relatable, contemporary issues no matter what century the story occurs in. As Bewildered Heart has foolishly promised not to repeat itself on countless occasions we can therefore return to the troubling challenge of believably faking naturalism. We are consistently told that writing romance fiction is not easy, and while an understanding of sentence structure and narrative form can be acquired from schooling or scrolling downwards the skill of displaying affection for love and for this genre is an innate gift authors either have or do not. Furthermore, and most troubling for anyone after an easy payday, a winning personality cannot be disingenuously engineered, unlike technical ability. If a high standard of romance writing could be achieved through cynicism, research and pretence the company behind our cherished novels would lose any remaining credibility they hadn’t squandered through the drearily low standard of their product.
After all, Harlequin have set their stall out as editors with a sharp eye for the real thing, and can distinguish between writers born to churn out special moments and those writers willing to change a few adjectives in a Marie Ferrarella book and calling it their own. Expecting… In Texas becomes Trouble in Tennessee with a minimal amount of reworking and would a Mills & Boon editor really sense the missing ethereal elements they are paid to discover lacking between the words? If they were unable to shouldn’t we Bewildered Hearts establish a competition entitled So You Think You Can Judge? Regardless, So You Think You Can Write will select as winners only the novelists passionate about romance and dedicated to rewriting Marie Ferrarella with loving attention to detail. This should call to an end the dispiriting years of cynicism, research and pretence. There are romance writers and then there is everybody else. With any luck the boot camp will crush any desire among the aspiring authors to make any such suggestions about the duality of man.
Much like New Voices and Fast Track in every way conceivable, So You Think You Can Write will attempt to discover those hidden talents whose manuscripts were until now doomed to remain where they belonged, in a drawer or on a slush pile. Because Mills & Boon lack imagination and originality they have decided to create an event of their competition, but unlike the ebook Secrets Uncovered that preceded New Voices, So You Think You Can Write submissions will have been tailored to perfection by a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week week-long online conference where potential entrants will work alongside fifty romance editors over a variety of cutting edge technological communication tools, including, ‘Podcasts, videos, webinars, blogs, live chats, community discussions and Twitter events.’ Many of those are things that exist. Webinars are seminars that take place on the internet and are so-called because who ever invented the term didn’t take the time to check the etymology of seminar.
In case everyone wasn’t excited enough by the illicit thrills of learning the differences between webinars, videos, podcasts and live chats, ‘Aspiring authors will attend a virtual romance-writing "boot camp" designed to teach them how to write a romance novel that will attract the attention of publishers.’ Who doesn’t enjoy a boot camp experience? This online international festival of smut and mediocrity will last from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of September, giving plenty of time to those wishing to hone their novel before the competition deadline on the thirteenth of October. From there participants will submit an opening chapter and brief synopsis before the many hopefuls will be whittled down to twenty-eight through a combination of a public vote and Harlequin themselves. The twenty-eight writers will then send off their finished manuscripts, which professional editors will judge and select a final three for another communal election. The overall favourite will win a publishing contract to write a series romance novel, slightly undermining the amount of work, stress and unrestricted online opinion they will have had to endure from a contest with such a friendly, non-confrontational name.
With the press release released Mills & Boon swiftly moved onto the next obvious step. In order to prepare for the crash university course taking place in September there will be three month prep class, which will consist of numerous blog entries regurgitating the wisdom of Secrets Uncovered and fed to the next generation of unskilled romance writers eager for learning and eventual worldwide fame and glory. First up are two short essays, Vanquishing the Terrifying Empty Screen and How to Stand Out from the Slush. According to the latter, the crucial difference between the thousands of rejected opening chapters and the few selected success stories is, ‘The author’s natural voice – all too often we receive submissions that may be technically very good but there is no personality or spark to the writing. Sometimes it feels like writers are trying to emulate authors that they have read before but we’re not looking for a paint by numbers romance.’ While it may intermittently sound as if Harlequin lies in its promotional material this statement has the indefinable, elusive enigma that explains the publisher’s vague notion of quality control. Helpfully How to Stand Out from the Slush immediately moves on without a further word of insight.
Other than that opening, head-scratching statement the leftover hints are the straight-forward classics we have covered before such as dazzling dialogue, emotional intensity, colourless inflammable hydrocarbon, originality, humour, chemistry, characterisation and relatable, contemporary issues no matter what century the story occurs in. As Bewildered Heart has foolishly promised not to repeat itself on countless occasions we can therefore return to the troubling challenge of believably faking naturalism. We are consistently told that writing romance fiction is not easy, and while an understanding of sentence structure and narrative form can be acquired from schooling or scrolling downwards the skill of displaying affection for love and for this genre is an innate gift authors either have or do not. Furthermore, and most troubling for anyone after an easy payday, a winning personality cannot be disingenuously engineered, unlike technical ability. If a high standard of romance writing could be achieved through cynicism, research and pretence the company behind our cherished novels would lose any remaining credibility they hadn’t squandered through the drearily low standard of their product.
After all, Harlequin have set their stall out as editors with a sharp eye for the real thing, and can distinguish between writers born to churn out special moments and those writers willing to change a few adjectives in a Marie Ferrarella book and calling it their own. Expecting… In Texas becomes Trouble in Tennessee with a minimal amount of reworking and would a Mills & Boon editor really sense the missing ethereal elements they are paid to discover lacking between the words? If they were unable to shouldn’t we Bewildered Hearts establish a competition entitled So You Think You Can Judge? Regardless, So You Think You Can Write will select as winners only the novelists passionate about romance and dedicated to rewriting Marie Ferrarella with loving attention to detail. This should call to an end the dispiriting years of cynicism, research and pretence. There are romance writers and then there is everybody else. With any luck the boot camp will crush any desire among the aspiring authors to make any such suggestions about the duality of man.
No comments:
Post a Comment