Ann Baxter, Leek u3a
West Midlands Region
How Not to Write a Romance
Clare looked at her manuscript in exasperation. ‘How does this keep happening?’ she asked herself.
Clare was an experienced and popular author of romantic fiction. Her faithful readership waited impatiently for her new book, and even queued overnight to get hold of a copy at the earliest possible time, not a thing to be undertaken lightly by ladies of a certain age.
Clare knew what her ladies liked, knew what she, herself, was good at writing, and her stories, though different in detail, followed the tradition of ‘boy meets girl, boy hates girl, girl hates boy, maybe he’s not so bad’ and then, well, you know the rest. ‘Let’s face it’ Clare often commented, ‘if it was good enough for Jane Austen, then it’s good enough for me.’
And, like Jane, Clare prided herself on a good opening line followed by an equally riveting opening chapter. There was no doubt that was the essence of a good romance, get them interested, keep them reading and then her dear readers would fall headlong into the story and gallop through to the end.
But this time it was not working. She had reached the stage in the plot where Melissa (girl) and Oliver (boy) started to think that, just possibly, the other was not so bad after all. The little spark was ready to be kindled. Oliver had turned out to be a rich but caring philanthropist, Melissa rescued injured wild life. It was all settling down nicely. The planned chapter had them meeting, supposedly by accident, but in reality with some strategic planning on Oliver’s part, in the hot and steamy tropical house at Kew Gardens, to be followed by some hot and steamy action in Melissa’s well appointed hotel room, with a massive four poster bed, unlimited prosecco and a bath the size of an Olympic swimming pool.
But every time Clare wrote the chapter she came down the next day to find it re-written. Oliver was delayed by traffic, or Melissa lost her ticket, or it rained too hard and they both lost their umbrellas, or the cafe ran out of cakes. Then it got out of hand. There was a zombie apocalypse or an attack of giant aphids. Once, ludicrously, the tropical house was closed due to lack of steam, which resulted in a matching lack of steam, or anything else, in the bedroom.
Every morning, Clare removed the catastrophe of the day, and replaced it with her one thousand word meticulously planned meeting of bodies and souls. Thus by the end of her writing day, she was back exactly where she had been the evening before. Something had to be done before the publisher’s deadline passed, which had never, ever happened to her before.
On this particular morning, apparently, a tsunami had occurred in The Serpentine in nearby Hyde Park, causing the evacuation of the entire area and a disruption of ducks.
As Clare wearily started to cut and paste yet again, she noticed a footnote. Clare did not use footnotes, of course, her books not being the type that required extra erudite information, so she paid this one a lot of attention.
Dear Clare, please don’t make me marry that idiot. He may be good looking and rich, but he’s bloody boring! And why am I such a vapid feeble woman? Can’t you write about women who are strong, intelligent, brave. Though you can keep the good looking bit in. You can do it, Clare, you know you can. I’ve already given you a few ideas, now you just need to write it! Love Melissa.
Clare sat thoughtfully for a long time, then pressed ‘DELETE’ and started afresh.
‘It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that the fight against a giant aphid attack must be in want of a strong, intelligent, brave and attractive young scientist. Although she did not know it yet, Melissa Bennet was that scientist’.