Mills & Boon recently launched a competition to find a new romance fiction star – a proposition that IdeasMag columnist John Nugent couldn't resist. Here, he shares a snippet from his lovelorn debut novel and celebrates the joys of writing romance...
Regina quietly nursed her elderflower cordial and gazed amorously through the bay windows of the solarium, gasping at her audacity.
Lord Henry Archer-Vole had visited the Winchester estate on many occasions – indeed, he was a regular fixture during pheasant season – but Regina had never previously looked at him in such a scurrilously lustful manner.
“Won’t you join me in the solarium, Lord Henry?” she beseeched him, scarcely believing her own feverish daring.
“Why, I’d be delighted, Lady Winchester,” Lord Henry replied, and his delicate mustachio appeared to dance as he spoke in the hot Buckinghamshire sun. “Tell me, my dear, are you betrothed?”
You’ve just had the unequivocal pleasure of reading the first paragraph from my upcoming Mills & Boon novel, An Encounter in the Solarium (working title). To clarify: I do not, at time of writing, have a publishing contract with Mills & Boon. But that could yet change – the world’s largest romance novel publishers have recently announced a “New Voices” competition, giving budding authors a chance to win a publishing deal; all that’s needed is a rollicking, lust-filled page-turner of a first chapter. Anyone, even an ovary-less old oaf like me, is in with a shot of glory.
I’ve never actually read a Mills & Boon novel. Why would I? I’m not a middle-aged housewife trapped in a loveless marriage yearning for escapism, nor have I ever spent all that much time in a dentist’s waiting room. Yet it’s a strangely familiar concept, one of those cultural yardsticks everyone seems genetically aware of. The formula is solid: lonely, lovelorn ladies, often in an historical setting, gain supreme and unending happiness from the unconditional love of a strong and handsome Alpha male, in 180 pages or less. Easy!
If I’m going to be the next Barbara Cartland, I need to know what I’m up against. So off I sallied to my local fusty-smelling second-hand book shop, apologetically bypassing piles of unsold Dostoyevskys and Prousts for a copy of Tangle of Torment, a ménage à trois of star-cross’d lovers set in the world of 1980s advertising, complete with requisite illustration of a windswept couple necking on the front cover. “It’s for research,” I sheepishly explained to the proprietor as I handed over my 50 pence.
I’m not going to lie, Tangle of Torment is really quite insipid – so bland it makes beige seem dangerous; so predictable it was foreseen by Nostradamus; so shallow you could paddle in it. Like everything on the conveyor belt of rubbish from whence it came (The Duke Wore Jeans and Not Again, Nurse! were also available), it’s designed to be cheap, quick, and disposable (any unsold Mills & Boon books are pulped three months after publication.)
But by God, it’s fun to write for. Any writers struggling to construct something of worth should consider romance fiction, where really all you need is a few mawkish platitudes (“Darling, you are the centre of gravity around which I revolve”) to make the housewives go weak at the knees. It’s a fraction of the effort or thought required for that weighty political drama you’ve been slaving away at. Selling out never felt so good!
So what of Lady Regina Winchester and Lord Henry Archer-Vole – do they live happily ever after? Well, you’ll have to vote for An Encounter in the Solarium in the Mills & Boon competition to find out... (Spoiler: they live happily ever after.)
More John:
... on fancy dress
... on water cooler TV
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