During Bewildered Heart's travels through the morass of romantic fiction there have been the occasional oddities, ranging from the discovery of a NASCAR subgenre to learning how sadomasochism has become the new stiletto made of cupcakes. While it remains naïve to claim that there are no further surprises awaiting us there is a subject that continues to elude Mills & Boon, and that is comedy. While the publishers have released titles such as Cowboys are For Loving, Accidental Princess and The Midwife's Glass Slipper there are no signs that formulaic romance novels are anything more than unintentionally hilarious. This is a disappointing development, but the argument is passionately refuted by numerous romance writers who either can't take a joke or don't understand sarcasm. For additional insight we return to Secrets Uncovered where those lovable Mills & Boon editors have turned their fleeting attention to this pressing matter, searching through their stable of authors and finding Liz Fielding, romance fiction's funny one.
Fielding has so far committed over sixty novels to paper and technological devices. Now she has designs on presenting Mythbusters with their most tedious episode yet. 'My job is to bust the all pervading myth that humour and Mills & Boon are mutually exclusive. Incompatible.' Well, humour is subjective and the majority of romance books are laughable, so is there any reason to believe Harlequin is a publisher of nothing but dour, po-faced stories featuring serious characters having earnest conversations and no talking animals? How to raise a smile, or even a gentle chuckle then, without resorting to predictable tactics such as jokes and slapstick? 'I don’t write jokes and I don’t do slapstick, but humour is part of our everyday lives and I want it to be part of my characters’ lives, too. There is nothing sexier than a man with a sense of humour. Nothing more charming than a girl who knows how to laugh at herself.' Even the most cursory glance at the genre suggests that while a sense of humour is sexually desirable it does not come close to comparing to physical beauty, money or personal hygiene, as Mills & Boon titles, as well as Mills & Boon writers, have testified to. A well-groomed, handsome billionaire trumps a balding, flabby wit every time. Sorry, balding, flabby wits. At least you still have the internet.
Liz Fielding writes for RIVA, which is possibly an acronym. She discredits herself as both a writer and a contributor to a writing guide with a bullet-pointed list that seems either wildly inaccurate or scarily simplistic. 'I want (the characters) to be able to laugh even when they’re crying, because that’s what real people do. Humour in romance is an extra layer that can lift a dark moment, give depth to a scene.
• You have what is being said – funny.
• What is being felt – emotional.'
Perhaps this is not a general rule for aspiring authors everywhere, but rather a deeply misguided attempt to define the meanings of words. Emotions are certainly feelings, but surely the art of writing is more complicated than characters making puns while slowly dying inside. Hopefully Liz will follow her list with a beneficial explanation. 'That’s what humour will bring to your stories. The potent mix of laughter and tears that we’re all familiar with.' Precisely, when people aren't sobbing uncontrollably they are giggling breathlessly, and this is what Liz Fielding aspires towards, a combination of soppy emotional manipulation and observational witticisms, reducing her reader to one of two extreme reactions that make it impossible to read.
Now that humour has been clearly defined the next stage of the lesson concerns how to lace it into your heartfelt novel about a billionaire European Prince working as a bellhop and falling in love with a chambermaid who has forgotten what feelings feel like. 'What makes us laugh and cry is who we are, and can never be forced. It only works as part of our unconscious writing voice, something that comes naturally.' Despite this advice being entirely useless, and tricky to read, it does recall a recurring theme of Secrets Uncovered that establishes the importance of a strong, unaffected author's voice. Once the potential writer approaches their work honestly, with enthusiasm and a passion for the genre their personality should shine through, enlivening their prose with humour and sincerity. If this fails to happen then the writer should take solace in the knowledge that they are too good for romance fiction and can return to their families, friends and a life of productive duties. However, if the writer insists on persevering then Fielding has a few ideas for zany situations liberally stolen from classic screwball comedies of the 1940s.
'For example:
• The hero who pretends to be cooking a fabulous meal for a glamorous blonde – but with a cook hiding out in the kitchen doing all the work.
• The heroine who, while working as a cleaner, is writing a diary column for “Milady” magazine as Lady Gabriella March. The heroine who opens the door in her scrubbing the floor clothes to be confronted by the hero – and casually tosses her rubber gloves over her shoulder in an attempt to look a little less of a fright.'
Someone should check through the bibliography of Liz Fielding for novels eerily similar to Christmas in Connecticut. There has always been something suspicious about Kwanzaa in Kansas, but it seemed inappropriate to single that one out. At this point Liz Fielding moves on, satisfied she has dealt with the topic of comedy, yet knowing no discussion of humour and emotion would be complete without talk of what an emotion is. 'As human beings, we’re bombarded with emotions. They are the most simple and complex of feelings.' Before Liz gets too technical this is a suitable point to ignore her lengthy descriptions of different emotions and how those emotions make people feel and how those people then react to the feelings brought about by the emotions. Instead a few paragraphs down Fielding ruminates on how to use this innate human skill-set to make your reader react with either a laugh from the mouth or the secretion of clear salty fluid from the glands of their eye. 'Romantic fiction is character led and what brings readers back to our books time and time again is the emotion and the laughter generated by the conflicts, problems, heartaches that we toss in their path like so many hand grenades.'
There is no obstacle quite like a high number of hand grenades, but unless your heroine has fallen for an attractive, yet clumsy, hand grenade salesman the hand grenades must be metaphorical, and instead represented by internal conflicts such as surprise pregnancies, hidden identities, lack of sexual experience, lycanthropy, thinly-veiled misogyny, father issues or the classic, reliable conflict of realistically reacting to being seduced by an enigmatic, gorgeous billionaire with a self-depreciating sense of humour. 'Our reader wants to experience what the heroine is feeling. The excitement, the raised heart rate, the pounding pulse. An attraction that is all the more exciting, compelling, because she believes that it must be resisted.' These are the narrative issues every author must resolve before writing, although most resort to contrivances and word-wasting in lieu of rationality and plot twists. When this article began we were promised an examination of how to interlace humour into our profound love story. Instead Liz Fielding has offered us unhelpful clichés, a list of emotions and the vaguest notion of what makes a good romance novel without any indication of how to under-take the task, which in itself turns out to be the perfect example of how to write successfully for Mills & Boon.
Fielding has so far committed over sixty novels to paper and technological devices. Now she has designs on presenting Mythbusters with their most tedious episode yet. 'My job is to bust the all pervading myth that humour and Mills & Boon are mutually exclusive. Incompatible.' Well, humour is subjective and the majority of romance books are laughable, so is there any reason to believe Harlequin is a publisher of nothing but dour, po-faced stories featuring serious characters having earnest conversations and no talking animals? How to raise a smile, or even a gentle chuckle then, without resorting to predictable tactics such as jokes and slapstick? 'I don’t write jokes and I don’t do slapstick, but humour is part of our everyday lives and I want it to be part of my characters’ lives, too. There is nothing sexier than a man with a sense of humour. Nothing more charming than a girl who knows how to laugh at herself.' Even the most cursory glance at the genre suggests that while a sense of humour is sexually desirable it does not come close to comparing to physical beauty, money or personal hygiene, as Mills & Boon titles, as well as Mills & Boon writers, have testified to. A well-groomed, handsome billionaire trumps a balding, flabby wit every time. Sorry, balding, flabby wits. At least you still have the internet.
Liz Fielding writes for RIVA, which is possibly an acronym. She discredits herself as both a writer and a contributor to a writing guide with a bullet-pointed list that seems either wildly inaccurate or scarily simplistic. 'I want (the characters) to be able to laugh even when they’re crying, because that’s what real people do. Humour in romance is an extra layer that can lift a dark moment, give depth to a scene.
• You have what is being said – funny.
• What is being felt – emotional.'
Perhaps this is not a general rule for aspiring authors everywhere, but rather a deeply misguided attempt to define the meanings of words. Emotions are certainly feelings, but surely the art of writing is more complicated than characters making puns while slowly dying inside. Hopefully Liz will follow her list with a beneficial explanation. 'That’s what humour will bring to your stories. The potent mix of laughter and tears that we’re all familiar with.' Precisely, when people aren't sobbing uncontrollably they are giggling breathlessly, and this is what Liz Fielding aspires towards, a combination of soppy emotional manipulation and observational witticisms, reducing her reader to one of two extreme reactions that make it impossible to read.
Now that humour has been clearly defined the next stage of the lesson concerns how to lace it into your heartfelt novel about a billionaire European Prince working as a bellhop and falling in love with a chambermaid who has forgotten what feelings feel like. 'What makes us laugh and cry is who we are, and can never be forced. It only works as part of our unconscious writing voice, something that comes naturally.' Despite this advice being entirely useless, and tricky to read, it does recall a recurring theme of Secrets Uncovered that establishes the importance of a strong, unaffected author's voice. Once the potential writer approaches their work honestly, with enthusiasm and a passion for the genre their personality should shine through, enlivening their prose with humour and sincerity. If this fails to happen then the writer should take solace in the knowledge that they are too good for romance fiction and can return to their families, friends and a life of productive duties. However, if the writer insists on persevering then Fielding has a few ideas for zany situations liberally stolen from classic screwball comedies of the 1940s.
'For example:
• The hero who pretends to be cooking a fabulous meal for a glamorous blonde – but with a cook hiding out in the kitchen doing all the work.
• The heroine who, while working as a cleaner, is writing a diary column for “Milady” magazine as Lady Gabriella March. The heroine who opens the door in her scrubbing the floor clothes to be confronted by the hero – and casually tosses her rubber gloves over her shoulder in an attempt to look a little less of a fright.'
Someone should check through the bibliography of Liz Fielding for novels eerily similar to Christmas in Connecticut. There has always been something suspicious about Kwanzaa in Kansas, but it seemed inappropriate to single that one out. At this point Liz Fielding moves on, satisfied she has dealt with the topic of comedy, yet knowing no discussion of humour and emotion would be complete without talk of what an emotion is. 'As human beings, we’re bombarded with emotions. They are the most simple and complex of feelings.' Before Liz gets too technical this is a suitable point to ignore her lengthy descriptions of different emotions and how those emotions make people feel and how those people then react to the feelings brought about by the emotions. Instead a few paragraphs down Fielding ruminates on how to use this innate human skill-set to make your reader react with either a laugh from the mouth or the secretion of clear salty fluid from the glands of their eye. 'Romantic fiction is character led and what brings readers back to our books time and time again is the emotion and the laughter generated by the conflicts, problems, heartaches that we toss in their path like so many hand grenades.'
There is no obstacle quite like a high number of hand grenades, but unless your heroine has fallen for an attractive, yet clumsy, hand grenade salesman the hand grenades must be metaphorical, and instead represented by internal conflicts such as surprise pregnancies, hidden identities, lack of sexual experience, lycanthropy, thinly-veiled misogyny, father issues or the classic, reliable conflict of realistically reacting to being seduced by an enigmatic, gorgeous billionaire with a self-depreciating sense of humour. 'Our reader wants to experience what the heroine is feeling. The excitement, the raised heart rate, the pounding pulse. An attraction that is all the more exciting, compelling, because she believes that it must be resisted.' These are the narrative issues every author must resolve before writing, although most resort to contrivances and word-wasting in lieu of rationality and plot twists. When this article began we were promised an examination of how to interlace humour into our profound love story. Instead Liz Fielding has offered us unhelpful clichés, a list of emotions and the vaguest notion of what makes a good romance novel without any indication of how to under-take the task, which in itself turns out to be the perfect example of how to write successfully for Mills & Boon.
'the art of writing is more complicated than characters making puns while slowly dying inside'
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