“Connor's boots halted abruptly, and they stared at each other”

Secrets Uncovered brought Donna Alward to Bewildered Heart's attention, as she wrote of black moments, stories dealing with darkness and tragedy in a genre and market seemingly afraid of any kind of unpleasantness. Unfortunately, we were only able to track down Hired by the Cowboy, Alward's 2007 Harlequin debut, a relatively frothy love story set in the mythical land of Canada. The book contains only a few of the challenging elements Alward had attempted to convince us she is famous for. In her opening Dear Reader introduction she hints at the drama soon to unfold. 'If you ask any mother, she'll say unequivocally that she'd do anything for her child.' While her dear readers ponder why anyone would bother to ask then, the author sets up the usual dilemmas and contrivances romance fans expect and appear to insist upon, inter-mingled with a handful of those legendary Donna Alward twists.

Alexis Grayson, Alex to her friends (Hi, Alex!), has no friends to count on when she faces her latest personal crisis. No matter, for this tough, resolutely independent young beauty needs no help from anyone. She has made it thus far without any assistance and she has been getting along pretty well for herself, thank no one very much. Despite her sterling record, at the beginning of Hired by the Cowboy, she is unexpectedly pregnant, working for tips at a smoky bar and unconscious in a convenience store. Awakening to the ruggedly handsome face of a stranger, Alex is embarrassed and thirsty, but quickly forgets such pressing matters due to the gentlemanly conduct of this sharp-suited and extremely good-looking chap. He reassures her, humours her curt quips and resolute independence and then buys her a mug of peppermint tea. Alex does not need his help to figuratively get back on her feet no matter how kind he seems and she does not need his help to literally get back on her feet no matter how sturdy his arms. She will work something out, she always does. Remember when she was jobless and alone she still managed to become impregnated with a baby. She is a survivor, in summary.

Connor Madsen does not like wearing suits, would prefer to not be taking meetings in the city and has little understanding of herbal remedies, but one look at this troubled, yet determined, young woman and he is smitten. Connor has problems of his own. Due to a beef scare of some description he faces the loss of the ranch that has been in his family for generations. With no cash reserves to see him through such a bleak financial forecast he requires the money left to him by his parents in a trust fund. However, he can only access this small fortune when he turns thirty, and his feisty grandmother cannot change the rules. If only there was a statute within the contract that allowed him to acquire the money sooner, say if he was on the verge of losing the ranch? No, but what's that? There is a disclaimer that states if Connor were to get married the money would be released. If only there was a woman in as equally dire circumstances as Connor, who might agree to a marriage of convenience in exchange for a place to live and some help through her, for example, pregnancy and destitution. If only Connor had met such a damsel-in-distress mere pages earlier, who was not only beautiful, but had the good sense to reveal her life story and mention how she could be found at a moments notice.

Connor visits the smoky bar and finds Alex too busy working to hear about a life-changing ultimatum, so instead he waits outside all night with a bunch of flowers, because Connor is nothing if not chivalrous and old-fashioned. Walking her home, he explains the situation and proposes a shotgun wedding, to which Alex responds appropriately. Sensing she may be a tougher nut to crack than she first appeared Connor gives her the opportunity to think it over and suggests a trial period of living together at his isolated farm to see how she likes it, because Connor is nothing if not chivalrous and old-fashioned. When the next day comes Alex tentatively accepts the offer, because there is nothing a mother would not do for her child, and also because Connor opens doors for her, worries about her well-being and has thick-eyelashes, the masculine triad of goodness. Soon after they begin the drive to Canadian cattle country and a hearty spot of lunch from Connor's plentifully-stocked refrigerator. They make sandwiches amidst heavy erotic tension and light social awkwardness. Before long, the man must go out to tend to the livestock, so the woman makes herself at home and begins to think what she will make for dinner and how else she can please the man who will pay her to marry him.

Plot points are signalled when Alex finds a photograph, strewn haphazardly for all the world to see on the dresser of Connor's bedroom behind a closed door, and there ends the third chapter. For the publishers at Mills & Boon, Donna Alward's novel offers great potential, while never straying far from convention. The plot itself is a loose reworking of Solicititilation, but within the cuddly confines of Romance Romance the manipulative, misogynistic billionaire becomes a struggling, noble cow-hand and the recently unemployed, yet ambitious, female yuppie becomes seriously down-on-her-luck and pregnant. These superficial alterations are all that separate Hired by the Cowboy from the likes of Taken by the Sheikh or The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress. For Alexis the chance to play house, to cook and clean, look after a man and think only of her offspring is a welcome relief, having for years had to live within the gritty urbanity of Ontario. Thus her desire for feminine domesticity has been suspiciously embedded in character to avoid the understandable accusations of sexism. Alexis is an atypical heroine, but not necessarily a convincing one. Her pregnancy might be her defining feature, but it is utilised solely to make her acceptance of Connor's offer believable, much like Stacy's unemployment and tragic past allowed the reader to not judge her harshly for agreeing to The Millionaire's Indecent Proposal. As expected, due to the demands of the subgenres, Alex's situation allows for heightened drama while Stacy's befitted all those oily rubdowns and endless sex scenes.

Even at this early stage the reader will have no difficulty predicting the narrative turns toward this fixed marriage becoming a very real one. The blurb hints at airborne love, but there is no implication of conflict or tension. Has Alex made her biggest ever mistake by marrying the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with? the blurb asks, over-enthusiastically. It appears as if Alward can easily resolve her story without resorting to her favoured tactics of miscarriage, domestic violence or limb-losing. At this point, however, there is the nagging issue of Alex's baby and the matter of said child's conception. As with every Cherish title that involves a single parent, including The Dad Next Door, we are left to ponder where the father is, how he will further complicate the scenario and where has he been all this time? Will Connor seek him out, duty-bound and noble as ever, and will Alward develop a powerful, poignant human love triangle to make those last two hundred pages fly by? With an author seemingly so willing to embrace her every homicidal fantasy we cannot rule out genuine heartbreak, resulting in a happy ending all the more satisfying and fulfilling, but given Harlequin Mills & Boon's history, perhaps the reader should look forward to everything ending neatly without the author giving any thought to properly dealing with the issues raised by the narrative, something we should assume Alward is equally well-known for.

“Was he so perverted that he would risk death rather than be denied his sick pleasure?”

During our initial three trawls through the quagmire of wisdom that is Secrets Uncovered we learned of the basic elements involved in creating conflict for story-telling purposes. Following on from those lessons comes another fundamental insight, 'Emotional conflict needs to be emotionally impactful,' at least so say the editors at Romance HQ. However, these same editors proffer a warning that too much emotion will see your manuscript rejected just as easily as if you had not bothered with emotion at all. There is a careful balancing act to be performed, so your reader will be invested in your story and the journeys of your characters, but will never become afraid that something dramatic, or sad, is forthcoming, to shatter the warm buzz of romance and alcohol. Searching for additional insight, RIVA author Fiona Harper was drafted in to throw around her own experiences. 'New writers often make the mistake of thinking that emotion on the page is the same as drama on the page. However, too much high emotion can turn readers off just as quickly as too little emotion.' Once sense has been deciphered from that quote we are forced to ask, is this an implied call for subtlety, from the author of English Lord, Ordinary Lady and Swept Off Her Stilettos?

Ignoring that as skilfully as we have grown accustomed to, we move along. 'Too many manuscripts from aspiring authors feature heroes and heroines who are emotionally incontinent. You know the sort – the ones that just have to let it all out every time they get the urge! Toddlers might behave this way, but mature adults don’t. Or shouldn’t.' Until toddler romance fiction catches on a potential writer is best served reinventing the Mills & Boon standard with the introduction of mature adults, so long as mature means a woman no older than thirty and a man a few years older than his prospective bride, both of whom severely repressed because of previous relationships and unresolved issues with their parents. Now, instead of all this womanly talk of openly sharing, empathy and gin, we should embrace an era of heroes and heroines barely able to control their tempers, passions and other dangerous tendencies. 'Often, the most emotional scenes are the ones where a character struggles to keep a lid on their feelings. If your character doesn’t cry, your reader will.'

Therefore, the mental breakdowns of your protagonists must be carefully-structured, a deliberate-yet-inevitable build-up to forsaking all else for the love of a heartbroken cowboy billionaire recently returned from war. 'If you overdo the drama, you risk exhausting readers and they’ll switch off. Connection broken. Book put down. Also, if you use all your emotional ammunition on scenes that don’t need it you’ll have nowhere to go when the real emotional high points come.' Sound advice to many hopeful Mills & Boon fans, who must have no idea what they are doing in their new careers. There is an obvious pitfall to all this angst, hardship and crying, however. How much is too much and don't readers just want a hunky, yet egocentric, billionaire, a happy ending, a few sex scenes and about forty thousand words of padding? Surely depression, politics, addictions, heartbreak and brutal murder are at best ill-advised and at worst completely unjustifiable when telling the tale of two idiots falling in love against a backdrop of exotic paradise, or small-town America.

In what Bewildered Heart has chosen to describe as research we have witnessed the odd murder, the kidnap of a baby, the accidental death of a toddler, casual sexual assault, war and journalists in our past experiences with romance fiction. In the majority of those examples the serious issues felt unsuitable due to the superficial treatment they received in a character's back-story for present-day motivation. Despite this prescient warning, Secrets Uncovered turned to a self-proclaimed author of feel-good, emotional stories for Cherish, the sub-genre known to Bewildered Heart as Romance Romance. Donna Alward was more than happy to take some time away from fetishising cowboys to explain how to balance dark themes with inoffensive loving. 'There are times I walk a really fine line between deeply emotional and depressing. Let me say right now, if you have these tendencies, embrace them. It’s not a bad thing.' Fair enough, Donna Alward, but what kinds of gloomy tendencies should we expect from A Family For the Rugged Rancher, Honeymoon With the Rancher, or other depressing-sounding titles featuring ranchers?

'I’ve dealt with the death of a baby, miscarriage, physical disfigurement, post-traumatic stress disorder, physical abuse… I do emotional trauma.' There is nothing wrong with the big issues that plague the everyday lives of everyday people, and if Alward's books contain those traumas within the context of the stories, rather than as prehistoric scarring, then kudos to her. How does Donna do it then, and could she possibly tell us while skilfully publicising one of her own recent novels? 'I’m going to use my book Her Lone Cowboy as an example.' Well played. 'Noah is home from Afghanistan where he lost his right arm in combat. From the start I knew that he could be down but not out. He needed to be fighting to get his life back and reaching for a goal which may or may not be happiness.' Self-pity is not attractive, as most of us learn the hard way, and therefore Noah grasps heroically, albeit vaguely, for an objective that can be held in one hand. We can surely predict that his objective will involve a loving woman and maybe a ranch, with some horses.

The secret to Alward's definition of success? 'It’s about going deep. The conflict is not the issue, but it is easy to confuse the two. It is not that he has lost his arm and needs to adjust. It’s the ripple effect: his loss of identity as a combat leader, finding a new place in the world, reconciling himself to being home and the death of his father, falling in love but being unsure that he is man enough.' Suddenly his missing arm is the least of his troubles, as narrative necessities push it toward the periphery. Certainly, his disability is a telling metaphor for his feelings of emasculation, but Her Lone Cowboy is a poor example of chiaroscuro. The tale of Noah and Lily seems comparable to another Cherish title, The Dad Next Door, which heaped on the tragic crises, and then wasted them on soap opera histrionics. The sadness of losing a child, being jilted and the worst recesses of grief had happened before the story began, and this left the book itself to deal with the less dramatic telling of a coupling, one revelation that proved inconsequential, and the return of a secondary character, which was then dealt with ineptly. Alward's explanation is no showcase of the depth of Harlequin Mills & Boon, but merely proof that the tearjerker-elements should be kept to a non-existent prologue and then only sold under the Cherish banner.

The advice contained within Secrets Uncovered amounts to nothing more than Alward's statement that Noah is, 'Not self-pitying but proactive, always moving forward. A reader cannot cheer for your characters if your characters don’t cheer for themselves.' However, he must be proactive and moving the story forward, not to gain the reader's sympathy, but because he is a romantic hero, and the ostensible protagonist of the novel. With this the Conflict Chapter ends and the readers are left to ponder a few questions. How is our own attempt shaping up in view of these guidelines, and, just as importantly, were any of these guidelines useful? We have learned that our publishers share our dream of one day seeing a one-legged hero accidentally-impregnating a heroine, causing much internal conflict for them both, and while Bewildered Heart and our many followers pursue that immediately clichéd concept, we will examine Donna Alward’s debut Harlequin to see if her writing lives up to her shameless self-promotion. There is a wedding on the front cover and words such as pregnant, gorgeous, temporary and mistake within the blurb, so we can only assume that she learned about depth and ripple effects after Hired by the Cowboy hit the shelves.

“What was it about the words 'alone' and 'with me' that set her heart rocketing into her chest wall?”

Let us argue, purely hypothetically, that your debut Mills & Boon attempt is nearing completion. You have created a compelling heroine, who, in all likelihood, has unresolved issues with her father, money troubles and frizzy hair on especially hot days, and you have matched her with an emotionally-distant, arrogant billionaire whose resolute independence has finally been challenged by the attractive twenty-something marine biologist he has hired to be his live-in housekeeper and blackmailed mistress. Naturally, he never intended to fall in love, but he has been intrigued by how her feistiness and outward loathing could be overcome with weekly cheques and why she insists on wearing hats whenever it is sunny. With a lifetime of wedded bliss and endless baby-making one conversation away your hero manages to overturn the metaphorical apple cart with a display of masculine ego, stupidity, or an unlucky misquote, sure to infuriate both your heroine and your readers.

There remains the toughest scene to render, the showdown and apology, where the man confesses to having been a moron, bastard, pimp, or unfortunately loud when speaking privately, and must come to his sweetheart's window, car, private jet, nightclub bathroom and win her back with a heartfelt plea. The course of true love never runs smoothly, as fans of romance fiction know from reading romance fiction. However, as story-telling requires a dramatic impetus against the pastoral idealisation of pure, overwhelming happiness Secrets Uncovered saw fit to visit RIVA novelist Lucy King for a Grovelling Section in their Conflict Chapter. You, lucky reader, shall now learn of every ingredient needed for this must-have sequence, including the most important one of how to engineer an intelligent, arrogant billionaire into doing something so utterly appalling his only option is to apologise. ‘Ah, who doesn’t love a good grovel? The moment the hero realizes he’s been a fool, tracks the heroine down and begs for forgiveness. An alpha male brought to his knees by love?'

Right on, Lucy King. No one doesn't love a good grovel and no story would be romantic without one. Tell us, how on earth do we create such a scene in the first place? 'Screw up really badly. The worse the screw up, the better the grovel. Let his emotional baggage blind him.' Before aspiring authors become too excited at the myriad of dastardly possibilities open to their hero they should bear in mind that he can do nothing so drastic it cannot be solved with a smouldering sorry and some eye contact. Most often in the assorted Mills & Boon's we have studied this momentary breakdown in relations between hero and heroine is generated by a misunderstanding causing old tensions to flare up. Jealousy, pride or being treated as a prostitute are exacerbated by confusion or seeing her walking with another man, moving her belongings into his mansion without asking, or him continuing to treat her as a prostitute even after they have agreed to fall in love.

What's next? 'Leave. Or make the heroine leave.' Let them save themselves from love. After all, there are plenty more marine biologists in the sea. 'But hang on a moment. Reluctantly force him to re-assess the values he has held all his life, analyse some of the irritatingly valid points the heroine may have made during their last encounter and make him examine his feelings (shudder).' This is called character growth. Every character, besides the protagonist, needs to learn and become more-rounded and decent in order to earn the happy ending they are going to receive no matter what. While our hero continues to tremble violently in brackets, let us ponder how we should go about putting this reinvention of philosophy and long-term objectives into the sentences necessary to achieve the desired finished word count. Lucy King explains the significance of this life-changing epiphany, 'In a burst of clarity he realises that he has behaved like a complete idiot and acknowledges that his life is pointless without the heroine in it.' How this monumental thought process comes so swiftly to save the day, and the novel, may seem too important to merely gloss over on the way towards the Grand Romantic Gesture, but this lack of perception is consistent in all other areas of Secrets Uncovered and so we head onto the next statement.

'Waste no time in rectifying the situation. Make a Grand Emotional Gesture. Explain behaviour. At a push, confess that she might have been right after all. About some things. Possibly. Phew. Sorted.' Without details, explanation of importance, or advice of how to make this work convincingly King's guide sounds improbably easy. While the dramatic grovel offers a fine opportunity for sweeping romantic actions, the hero's sudden change of heart, and personality, simply works against everything else we have learned about writing romance fiction. There are merely two shades to the hero, as an epiphany turns him from an arrogant, misogynistic tycoon to a sensitive philanthropist who cannot make a decision without first consulting his wife. The fifty-five thousand words are split, unequally, with fifty-thousand of him being an irresistible jerk and a climatic chapter showing him in the midst of renaissance. This structure ruins the insights of a nuanced journey towards healthy new man of domesticity and fatherhood, and suggests a writer requires fifty thousand words to establish this man as a pillock.

'Wait a second.' What now, Lucy King? 'Something isn’t right.' You're gosh darn right something isn't right. 'Why isn’t she falling into his arms in gratitude?' Is it possible the heroine is smarter than she looks and has been written? Will her handsome owner have to go a step further and explain the plot even more heavy-handedly than the author had been doing throughout the book? Must he, 'Release all those emotions he didn’t even know he had, and take a deep breath and tell her that he loves her and can’t live without her?' Well, it couldn't hurt. Women love hearing that sort of thing. Now we have completed our heartfelt abasement and satisfied all the swooning female readers the world over, there is only the small matter of the heroine accepting this speech as genuine and their lover's arc as accomplished. 'Wait on tenterhooks for the heroine’s reaction.' Still, we know she will forgive, with a womanly smile of victory, and fall into his arms. 'Thank goodness for that. Live happily ever after,' instructs King, lastly.

Thank goodness and live happily ever after, indeed. For a moment it seemed as if those two would never work things out, so stubborn and made for each other as they were that not even their love could overcome an author rigorously committed to a pre-approved structure. In many cases the initial plot contrivance, or screw-up to use King's expert jargon, that prompted this narrative twist would either be too horrific for an apology to suffice, in which case the writer should begin their novel over, or be accidental, incidental or insignificant enough to be appropriate for Mills & Boon publication. Hearty congratulations to you, prospective authors, either way.

“Sadie was acutely aware that beneath the robe he was naked – and male”

When we ran screaming from the pages of Taken by the Sheikh to the warm embrace of Secrets Uncovered, Prince al Drac'ar al Karim believed he had found the perfect temporary wife for his elder brother, Vere. Together they co-rule the desert paradise of Dhurahn, but are being forced into arranged marriages to strengthen ties between their neighbouring states. Their only option is to find dim-witted Western virgins to marry quickly and then divorce once the fathers of their arranged brides have found somebody else. For Drax the plan sounds flawless and all seems ideal when he meets young English businesswoman Sadie Murray. The only spanner in the works is his own spanner, which tightens his bolts whenever he sees or thinks about Sadie. However, Drax has betrothed her to Vere, and the sacred bond of twin brothers is not to be meddled with, especially not by some woman, no matter how adorable, smart and sexy she is. For Sadie her attraction to Drax is instant and startling, so she is willing to undertake the many ridiculous plot machinations it requires to bring her to Dhurahn in expensive clothes, mostly because she is a dim-witted Western virgin.

While Vere is conducting business deals abroad Drax has the small matter of entertaining Sadie and convincing her the real reason she has a room at the luxurious palace is because the rulers wish to build a financial centre in town and seek those with knowledge of such things to join their growing team. Without employment, money or her passport, because Drax stole it, Sadie sees little option but to accept the job offer. Slowly their sexual chemistry is explored over a plentiful array of sequences involving fleetingly-glimpsed male nudity, light frottaging and displays of arrogance and emotion.

With all going as predictably as possible, Sadie and Drax run into Jack Logan during a tour of an office building. Jack is in Dhurahn for commercial reasons, yet his wandering eye and insistence all women agree to either consensual sex or rape cause severe problems for Sadie, who rejected him years ago when they used to work together. Jack maintains a grudge and having complimented her vilely he begins to grope and kiss her in the atrium. Drax intervenes in timely fashion, but his faith in Sadie's innocence has been compromised. If she were a demure virgin suitable for Vere, how come she kisses Jack Logan with his hand on her breast and terrified look on her face?

Instead, Drax resolves, he will marry Sadie himself, because sluts are more his speed. Suddenly, without warning for reader or Sadie, the first sex scene begins, but alas, with a hand gripping Drax's penis Sadie's inexperience betrays her, forcing him to wonder if the Jack Logan-incident was as damning as it had initially appeared. He abandons the sexual enterprise and instead has a brief, yet enlightening, chat with Jack, where the conceited Brit conceitedly admits he likes to scare women who have spurned his advances by threatening them with violation, but always jokingly and only when they have it coming. How could Drax have mistaken Sadie for every other girl on the planet? He rushes back to the mansion for the second sex scene, this time working himself into a frenzy only to abandon things to propose marriage. Sadie breathlessly accepts, and consummation is put off until their wedding night.

Unbeknownst to Drax, Sadie and Vere have already met in one of the opulent gardens of the palace, where Vere witnessed her charms for himself. Unfortunately for him and soap opera fans, despite their striking similarities, Sadie did not feel her heart beat inside its chest wall, her nipples pebble, or her sex moisten, so she was all too aware this Drax-lookalike was not her Drax. Therefore he could either be Vere or one of those doubles all Middle Eastern leaders seem to have. As it turns out the man is Drax's amiable, but emotionally-reticent, twin brother. Suddenly the younger Prince's best laid plans are torn asunder, so he retreats to aloof disdain, to allow Sadie to forget him and marry Vere instead, as promised in the prologue.

Shortly thereafter comes that time of the year to celebrate the anniversary of the Oasis of Two Doves, where Dhurahn's independence was first declared, at an oasis with a pair of doves. Typical of everything concerning this fictional Arab state the festivities are expansive and sand-swept, but sadly for Sadie and the servants of the party the entertainment must be cut short, due to a violent, incoming storm. Thinking this is as good an opportunity to confront Drax as she is likely to get, Sadie heads for his tent, only to be beaten to the punch by Vere, who has also decided an important conversation comes before fleeing certain death. Sadie has entered through a side tent-door, but is immediately trapped by a parked four-by-four. With no choice but to stay and overhear the twin brothers' discussion she misconstrues Drax's sarcastic comment, not made in his native tongue for reasons that are not entirely clear, about he and Vere sharing Sadie for their sexual pleasure, swapping her back and forth, turning her over only once one side gets stained.

Sadie scarpers, out through the side-door she was unable to get out through moments before, just in time to miss the next sentence, where the brothers clarify that sharing Sadie was not at all what they intend. Instead it is decided that Drax marry her, because while Vere thinks she the perfect wife he simply means perfect for Drax. You see, Sadie? They said innocent, complimentary things about you. Where are you going? Surely you're not about to steal a range rover and head straight into the sand-storm, desiring either to escape or die in the process. Wait, you are going to steal a range rover and head straight into the sand-storm, no doubt to crash into a bank of sand and hurt yourself. Oh, what a big, tragic confusion, and so close to the final chapter.

Drax heads off into the howling wind and sand, finding Sadie groggily semi-conscious and bleeding from the head. They return to the tent Vere considerately left for them to face the consequences of abandoning a threesome, while ignoring the head injury Sadie has suffered. Sensing the need to apologise and rectify the dire situation with a few words of explanation, Drax and Sadie strip naked and take to his bed, concluding that if they are about to die engulfed in sand, then waiting for their wedding night is an empty symbolic gesture. Soon the storm has ceased, Sadie has been filled with exquisite, tingly pleasure and Drax has left a baby in her belly. Penny Jordan marries them as something of an afterthought and then leaves them alone in their palatial bedroom quarters confessing undying love and hopefully finding out one or two personal things about each other, if they have character traits, that is, because the narrative failed to mention any.

So ends Taken by the Sheikh, a classic Mills & Boon Modern Romance, devoid of theme, romance, modernism or editing. With a tedious, contrived plot, a listless heroine, two-dimensional hero and atrocious prose style there were no redeeming features and no insights into why sheikhs are popular when they are nothing more than a synonym for billionaire in a slightly altered outfit. Previously, in a post concerning The Blagger's Guide, we referenced Penny Jordan's five tips for writing. Lamentably for her readers, Jordan was unable to follow her own straightforward advice, failing to introduce both hero and heroine by the end of the first page, and having a bland opening line, 'So the negotiations went well, then?' What kind of credible author begins a sentence with, 'So'?

Furthermore, her dialogue never convinces, the sex scenes gloss over sensuality and emotional intensity, instead insisting on lazy clichés and awkward euphemisms, while the protagonists are simplistic stereotypes of the genre. He the sheikh, arrogant, intelligent, but a deeply sensitive fool when it comes to matters of the heart. She the timid virgin with no personality, in the throes of servitude to male potency. Finally Jordan skimped on the conflict, her mismatched pair entirely made for each other, and both looking for love and a long-term commitment, although neither would have admitted it when the story began. Instead the author uses devices she swears against, the secondary character and two hokey misunderstandings. Where were the differences each had to overcome, where was the emotional development and what happened to the arcs? Finally, how has Penny Jordan been allowed to get away with this for so long?

“She didn't do lovers”

In our first discussion on conflict in romance novels we learned several valuable lessons, such as internal conflict is different from external conflict, developing emotional journeys takes precedence over developing plot and themes, writing for Mills & Boon doesn't have to be easy, and unexpected pregnancy can sometimes become a situation where feelings arise. Secrets Uncovered didn't stop there, however, and Chapter Two of the e-book continues, dealing with black moments, the pitfalls of plotting, the necessity of grovelling, creating intensity while avoiding threatening the reader and the dangers a romance author faces when tempted to write properly. Before all that, though, we should assume you, gentle reader, remain hopelessly incompetent, and so here are a few of the most obvious mistakes you have probably already made.

The best place to start would be with your opening, the setting of the scene, the introduction of your heroine and hero. There are so many archetypal beginnings to avoid Romance HQ lists them, before explaining that sometimes an obvious first sequence can be rescued with subversion and the correct amount of emotional honesty. Therefore, if your heroine has recently been dumped, found her boyfriend with another woman, or been caught in an embarrassing position in front of her family, or entire office, do not fret, because even though this is lazy writing and too familiar to catch the reader's attention it might be strong enough if your carefully-tailored characters add depth to the potentially superficial incident. 'Acting out of character for the sake of the plot is a no-no. If your characters start bending every which way just to reach your desired conclusion then you are writing puppets, not people.' A romantic heroine is rarely imbued with a credible sense of dignity, but if they are true to themselves the reader will understand why they are single and unhappy, and what kind of belief system they must destroy within themselves in order to enjoy their happily-ever-after.

Every writer receives and then immediately ignores an oft-repeated phrase of advice, show don't tell. Heavy exposition kills the pacing of the narrative and hurts the mood of the prose. The characters and plot should be revealed through actions and responses. This is a common mistake in many Mills & Boon novels, so Secrets Uncovered sees fit to point out the problems caused by bombastic explanation. 'Events that should be front stage are anything that moves on the romance or creates conflict and has its basis in emotion. Anything else is window dressing.' Yet hang on, what about back-story? In Chapter One we were told to write extensive biographies and justify every decision, flaw and misgiving with previous failed relationships and father abandonment issues. Why do that if we can't use it in a lengthy speech to eat up a few hundred words? 'Ah hah! I hear you say – what about back story? The thing is, the most powerful back story is the one the reader sees through your characters’ reactions.' Despite this, your heroine will eventually have the opportunity to reveal all about their father, or that time they were left at the altar by a handsome con-artist, in case their tendencies implied through reactions make them appear insanely paranoid.

Moving on, how do we avoid the usual trappings most published Mills & Boon writers fall into on their way to success and riches?

• 'Choose your set-up carefully'

Do not simply jump in with any old idea, write the first fifty-five thousand words that come to mind and then mail off your manuscript and hope for the best. This tactic is only suitable for authors who have a built-in fanbase and scores of books already on their shelves. For your debut novel it is worth spending time planning the details of your story, and working from a theme, with powerful, unique, grounded and believable characters in a tale familiar enough to attract an audience yet unfamiliar enough to strike for originality. Once you have these fixtures in place any fifty-five thousand words will suffice.

• 'Make sure your characters are driving the plot'

Often romance novels throw their hero and heroine together through unlikely contrivance and push the inevitability of the story to the forefront, leaving the characters powerless to affect change on their lives, locked in as they are to accepting their fates are intertwined and they were born to be together. Fighting their desires, doubts and better natures would be senseless and only delaying what is written in the stars in permanent beams of light. Even though this style is consistent with the genre as a whole, apparently it is wrong.

• 'The reader is interested in reaction not action'

And you certainly wouldn't want to second-guess your reader. After all, the author has spent hours honing their characters and shaping a structure to challenge them, resulting in epiphanies that strengthen and enrich their lives, and sometimes related to that, helping them to find love. Once you have proven to the reader your heroine is a strong-willed, stubborn, feisty, shy, sexually-naïve tourist who coos at babies in supermarkets, and had her meet a conceited Brazilian billionaire who had just happened to have made a bet with his friend that he could buy any woman to have sex with him, what will really interest the reader is why this girl would completely go against all her personality traits and say, 'Sure.'

• 'Know what your plot needs to be on the page'

Your plot just doesn't belong anywhere else. The majority of authors know what their book must look like because Mills & Boon have told them. Deviating from plot points such as heroine meeting hero by the end of the first page and declaring their undying love on the last page would be suicidally ambitious. Once you have a solid beginning and a happy ending your job is largely complete, and as long as what happens inbetween these two moments doesn't inexplicably flash-back to Civil War-era Spain you should be successful. In writing that, though, Bewildered Heart cannot be sure what, 'Know what your plot needs to be on the page' actually means.

• 'Your reader will go with any plot if they believe in your characters'

For more on this turn back to the chapter on character we have yet to write about. As long as your principals are consistent in their decision-making yet consistently surprising in their decision-making the reader will read on, hoping these two love-birds get their respective acts together and realise that while he maybe a ruthless tycoon who hates all women she is unlike every other women because of a troubled relationship with her dad, and while she maybe gutsy, proud and desperately fighting to protect her animal sanctuary from closure the tycoon wanting to replace the animals with a shopping mall is caring, rich and strikingly dishy. Throw in an unexpected pregnancy and the reader will have to know how they deal with the news, much more curious about that than why the grizzly bear is suddenly acting so suspiciously.

• 'The characters are going on a journey – think of the plot as a road, not the destination'

Much like driving the destination is often where the journey ends, once the driving has concluded and the driver and their travelling companions have reached where they intended to go. In romance writing terms the analogy is apt. After all, we know where the journey is headed and will end once we get there, as hero kisses heroine, having apologised for the speeding, never indicating when changing lanes and refusing to wear a seatbelt in order to be closer to her. The drama is kept to the trip, how and why they are going, rather than where, and will they stop to eat lunch at a burger van parked in a lay-by? Imagine the greatest road trip you have ever under-taken, the one where you took several wrong turns and discovered an abandoned theme park when you had originally set off to buy a lampshade from a furniture shop. Now reinvent yourself as an emotionally-insecure, yet beautiful twenty-something, and your Sat Nav as a sophisticated, gorgeous, yet heartlessly arrogant billionaire, exchange petrol for sex and the car for life itself and you have yourselves one hell of a novel.

"Arise being the operative word, he admitted grimly"

In time to cash in on the New Voices competition the gals over at Romance Headquarters compiled a handy, free, download-only e-book entitled Secrets Uncovered – Blogs, Hints and the Inside Scoop from Mills & Boon Editors and Authors. There are fifty-five pages of suggestions for improving your story and fulfilling your life-long dream of writing for Harlequin. Those wishing to experience the advice and general frivolity for themselves need only download Secrets Uncovered onto their Adobe software, Kindles, digital devices or e-readers. However, for those neither technologically-aware nor Scientologists allow Bewildered Heart to walk you right through this computerized book from whatever passes for a front-cover online to whatever passes for a back-cover.

As the opening chapter deals with the well-traversed subject of character, we will begin with the equally important area of conflict and the first question a potential author would ask before they begin writing, What is an emotional conflict? According to the official Mills & Boon definition (Mills & Boon have their own official definitions of things) emotional conflict is, ‘The internal battle a character has to overcome something intrinsic to their personality that prevents their happy ending.’ There, when it is that straight-forward how come so many writers have troubled defining it? ‘This could be specific personality traits (lack of trust, a guarded heart) or motivations and aspirations.’

Mills & Boon strongly believe in the importance of internal emotional conflicts, and argue a book simply wouldn't be worth reading without any. Often authors are encouraged to come up with two, one for both heroine and hero. Typically the writer imbues their protagonists with standard neuroses such as vulnerability-refusal, sexual frigidity, arrogance, misogyny or work commitments. Yet occasionally a hopeful novelist will go beyond the archetypal afflictions and create a hindrance of depth and originality, and thus see their manuscript immediately rejected by the publishers.

Once you have explained to the reader that your heroine has been previously betrayed  and your hero is a man you have the necessary arcs to build your plot around, but if you believe your work with emotional conflict is complete your knowledge of writing and life is severely lacking. ‘Emotional conflict can also occur within a relationship, when a specific emotional situation – unexpected pregnancy, an arranged marriage, a curse or a dangerous situation – provides a further barrier to happiness.’ There are no emotional conflicts quite like an unexpected pregnancy, or a gypsy curse enforcing one hundred years of lycanthropy on your billionaire tycoon. However, these suggestions should be seen merely as physical machinations to further strengthen the already embedded dilemmas of the characters. If, for example, your heroine has difficulties with trust, loyalty and losing control imagine the dramatic journey she faces now a witch has turned her potential boyfriend into a werewolf.

This is reliable story-telling formula. Invent a character with a problem to solve, based upon a theme of your inclination, and assemble the narrative around the concept that most strongly challenges this intrinsic flaw, allowing the plot twists to offer genuine conflicts to resolve in order to achieve the most satisfying resolution. For romance fiction the contractual plot points, girl meets boy, a happy ending, are worked into a well-chosen subject matter. Once you're convinced your internal conflicts are powerfully dramatic enough for Mills & Boon what about your external conflicts, such as unexpected pregnancy or a voodoo hex? 'External conflicts – misunderstandings, circumstances or a secondary character's influence – should only be brought in as additional support to develop romance and plot. Allowing the focus to fall on to theme and plot is a common and easy trap to fall into.' Precisely, leave the exploration of theme to the professionals. However, before one begins typing there are a handful of questions you must work out the answers to.

'1. What draws them together?' For a moment ignore the external conflicts that cause your star-crossed lovers to meet, and concentrate on the emotional issues. It is all well and good drawing them together through hackneyed clichés such as one being a nurse caring for a plucky orphan and the other a chauvinistic sheik surgeon single-handedly building a log cabin for the family he no longer has, but what are the personal and physical qualities that cause the initial and ongoing attraction? What do they receive from the contact, and how are the beginnings of a relationship specifically both appealing and foreboding? The reader will be intrigued, unable to see how hero and heroine will ever reconcile their disputes, leave the past behind, find love and save a child's life.

'2. What keeps them apart?' Yes, what are the nagging psychological disturbances they suffer from that prevent them from finding the happiness, stability and mental health only marriage and offspring can bring? She maybe a sensitive, good-natured nurse, but her trusting nature has seen her hurt before, not least by her cruel, distant father and the way in which he treated her mother. How could she possibly fall for such an arrogant sheik surgeon with an icy bedside manner and ridiculously thick eyelashes? Despite her intense physical longing for his touch she must resist him to protect the fragility of her heart and the well-being of a brave, little orphan who desperately needs her attention now more than ever.

'3. What emotional obstacles do they encounter on the way?' Now you have your characters, scenario and location how do you develop the emotional journeys toward a gratifying culmination, rather than letting them meander like a Mills & Boon novel, padded tiresomely with sex scenes and the slow realisation of the sheik surgeon not being mean, conceited or dishonest, but rather misunderstood and a generous lover? How could she have had him so wrong, to think he refused to operate on a courageous orphan because he enjoys watching children slowly die, when in fact through secret, endless bouts of boardgames he had ascertained the kid was not strong enough to survive surgery and first would have to witness the power of love between medical colleagues.

'4. What are the turning points of the story going to be – positive and negative?' How do they overcome their differences, and what epiphanies and external conflicts occur to further the emotional arcs and bring them closer to the inevitable conclusion that they must surpass their doubts, and banish their destructive memories of busted romances and patriarchal abandonment not only for the sake of a gutsy orphan, but also for themselves. Now she has found the man of her dreams and seen him for who he really is, as no one else can see him, shouldn't she let down her defences, forgive her father and finally accept the all-consuming joy of matrimony?

'5. Why will the reader truly care about their happy ending?' Have you won over your audience with characters both credible and worthy of support? Does your hero leap from the page, shouting that despite building the log cabin using nothing but wood, nails and masculinity the empathy of a good woman and the pluckiness of an sickly orphan have proven to him he no longer wants to be a sheik surgeon hermit living alone in a log cabin in the woods, but rather a decent, caring sheik surgeon husband and father who has to sell a log cabin to pay for a three bedroom house, preferably in walking distance of a hospital?

If so far this combination of Mills & Boon insight and Bewildered Heart inspiration has failed to light a fire within you, gentle reader, how about a writing exercise sure to get those creative juices flowing? 'What story would you tell if your characters were trapped in one room for the entire book? Think of the emotional journey your hero and heroine would go on without any outside influences. How would you sustain the tension between the couple, build up to the highs and lows, when all they can do is talk to each other?’

That sounds as if it could be worth a try, but if you can only contemplate the fall-out of two people trapped in a room trying to find a way out of the room and wondering how they are trapped inside a room and whether anyone is coming to rescue them you are under-taking the assignment incorrectly. ‘We’re not going to lie, it’s a tough challenge – but no one said this was supposed to be easy,’ Secrets Uncovered reassures us. Yet that is not true, Romance HQ, everyone tells us that writing a Mills & Boon novel would be incredibly easy and haven't we been talking about writing one for nearly a year and a half already, so where is it, Bewildered Heart, where is this mythical novel you seem to always be on the verge of beginning? It is as if these helpful guides we keep reading, reviewing and learning from aren't helping at all.