There's more to writing a love story than one might think. Rebecca Barry meets aspiring and published authors of the booming romance genre.
Soraya Nicholas has waited years for this. Poised at the hotel room door, she takes a deep breath. If it goes well, she could walk out with representation, and a better shot at becoming a published author. If it doesn't, well, there's always the prospect of hearing back from Harlequin Mills & Boon in London. It has been only a year since she sent them her manuscript.
The 27-year-old is about to pitch her military romance, Soldier On Her Doorstep to Californian literary agent Laura Bradford, an opportunity orchestrated through the Romance Writers of New Zealand organisation's yearly conference. There are 300 members in New Zealand but only 30 have been published. So chances like this are invaluable.
As well as giving aspiring authors the chance to discuss their work face-to-face with powerful agents and editors, thereby avoiding the slush pile, the conference is a networking opportunity. Many of the writers, like Christchurch-based Nicholas, have flown to Auckland for the occasion. It's also an opportunity to hear international heavyweights speak. This year's conference has Hollywood story consultant Chris Vogler and two best-selling authors, Melbourne-based Stephanie Laurens and Californian Jane Porter on the bill.
The day begins at 6.45am with a "cold read" session. A roomful of women - and one man - have braved the lousy winter weather in the hope that their anonymously submitted work will be read aloud for Bradford, an agent with 15 years in the industry, to critique. A scene from an entry called The Reluctant Countess is read out: a woman with "lustrous, raven curls" descends a marble staircase as a man checks out her pins. "He's been dreaming about these legs," reads an assistant in a breathless tone, "naked and wrapped around his body."
Bradford likes this one: historical romance is selling well at the moment, especially the spicy ones - let's hope the countess isn't too reluctant. Paranormal tales are also "hot right now" - a thriller about a dragon escaping from a bomb-trapped room and a tale about a gay vampire flatmate both get favourable appraisals.
But any inkling that all of these wannabe authors are about to have their egos stroked is soon dashed. At the mention of the hackneyed "slim hips, pert breasts" she screws her nose up. An "ethereal being cloaked in silver" is dismissed as over-the-top. Others are chastised for not being descriptive enough, the plots unclear. Bradford damns five submissions in a row for not setting the scene, for their "unbelievable dialogue".
"This just isn't doing it for me," she says as someone in the room deflates.
If you'd worked yourself up into imagining your first chapter was at least worthy of a few complimentary words (never mind a step up the ladder to bestsellerdom) you'd be feeling a bit bruised. Am I good enough to be published? That's what everyone here wants to know.
Nicholas is confident she is. Today the bubbly blonde looks like she's won large at pony club - several rosettes are pinned to her jacket acknowledging her finalist rankings for the Agent's Choice Awards and the Clendon Award, (sub-titled "Finish the Damn Book"), given to promising unpublished authors each year. After last year's conference Nicholas submitted a manuscript to Harlequin in London and was asked to do some revisions. Good things obviously take time. It's taken Nicholas five years of practice - including, she says, "an absolutely dreadful, waffling historical" written in her early 20s - to get to this point. Getting an agent is not a prerequisite to a book deal but it could help to speed up the process.
Nicholas is targeting the Harlequin Romance series (formerly known as the Sweet line), "who get up to naughty business, just not on the page".
At the other end of the scale is Natalie Anderson from Timaru, a mum of four who writes for the Harlequin Sexy Sensation line, the publisher's raciest genre where the action is so much on the page, you'd probably have to avoid reading it on the bus. Making it look easy, Anderson sold her first manuscript to Mills & Boon right off the bat. She'd just given birth to twins.
"Everyone hates her," Nicholas quips.
Alongside the likes of fellow Kiwi romance writers Nalini Singh, Karina Bliss and Robyn Donald, Anderson's lusty tales have set pulses racing all over the globe. She is a USA Today best-selling author who is about to publish her 15th Mills & Boon. Her most recent, Caught On Camera With The CEO, is a steamy account of a liaison between PA Dani Russo and her playboy boss, Alex Carlisle, who get it on in the lift.
Writing romance doesn't have the same cache as contemporary fiction - it is often rubbished as formulaic, sentimental and trashy - but it's no less demanding to pull off. The trick, says Anderson, is to be a fan. You're less likely to write a convincing love story if you only read crime novels in which the wife plots to kill her husband. Anderson fondly remembers her teenage years devouring her grandmother's Mills & Boon collection.
"I realised early on I was never going to write literary novels," says the former researcher who has a Masters in Library Studies. "But that's okay. I like to entertain. I love happy endings. I don't like doom and gloom."
There are no strict rules. But the demand for predictable formats determines the supply.
"You really have to fit your story in a tiny little box," says Bradford.
All of the major publishers (Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House among them) sell romance fiction, spanning young adult, women's fiction, thrillers, historical, suspense, paranormal and more. But the Harlequin Mills & Boon are the best-known. They're so specific they include Military, Medical, Modern - the list goes on.
Proving there really is something for every woman, RWNZ President Abby Gaines writes not only for the SuperRomance line - slightly longer books that allow for more background and sub-plot - but a Nascar range set in, and endorsed by, the world of professional motor racing. Gaines used to edit a speedway magazine, so she knows a thing or two about revving engines.
"It's so much broader than when I first started reading romance as a teenager," says Dianne Moggy, the Toronto-based Vice President of Harlequin. "There are so many sub-genres, the characters truly reflect where women are in their lives today. There's no longer the need to be the young, virginal heroine and the older, sophisticated, wealthy hero. That's still popular for many readers but there's just so much more variety. That's thanks to our authors."
She met his stare, matched it, refusing to let her embarrassment at being caught ogling burn her skin red. But then, when he knew he had her attention, he let his gaze strip down every inch of her body. She actually felt the way his attention lit on her neck, on the small V of exposed skin on her chest, on the curve of her breasts ...
From Unbuttoned By Her Maverick Boss, by Natalie Anderson.
They may not show it on public transport but plenty of readers lap this stuff up. In the US, romance equates to $1.8 billion in annual sales, making romance the largest share of the consumer book market (mysteries come in second at $903 million). The majority of Kiwi authors alter their settings to write for the US and British markets as the Australasian market is too small to rely on for a living.
"When you're at a cocktail party and you let people know you work at Harlequin, there are two responses: either, 'I've never read one' - and by virtue of the fact I know how many books are sold I know that 50 per cent of the people telling me that are not telling me the truth," says Moggy. "The other is, 'I think I could write one'. But it's incredibly difficult and if it wasn't, I would be writing them."
A good romance has just 50,000 to 70,000 words (about half the length of your average novel), in which the writer must develop relatable characters going through believable personal conflicts that are brought to a satisfying, emotionally fulfilling resolution.
"I think people don't realise the amount of craft involved in writing romance," says Moggy. "I know people who could write contemporary novels who could never write a romance - and vice versa. You have to have a particular talent for it. Because the readers are not forgiving, they really do want to feel fulfilled at the end of the story."
So do the writers. Most have cupids, rather than dollar signs in their eyes. While multi-published New York Times authors can make seven figures per book, entry-level advances can be in the low-four figures, peanuts really for the slog involved in writing 50,000 words.
So what makes a best-seller? Even this is contentious.
"We've had books ship one million and others ship 150,000 or less, and they've both appeared on best-seller lists," says Moggy. "It's not so much about how much you ship, it's the velocity at which it sells."
"In the US, something like 90 per cent of books published earn no more than $1000," adds Gaines. "It's just ghastly. Romance is definitely a far better genre in that there's a possibility to earn an income."
To make a decent living, she says you'd need to aim for three to four books a year. Gaines gets up at 5am and writes for two hours, gets the family out the door by 9.30, then spends another four hours at the keyboard. Anderson is a mum first, paperback writer second. And Nicholas is a freelance journalist by day, romance writer by night.
So what does it say about those who believe in happy endings, when the often pedestrian realities of relationships can seem a little boring by comparison?
"Romance is something all cultures respond to," says Moggy. "It's something people look for in their lives, they want to have that reflected in what they read. One of the traditions of the romance genre is the books have a satisfying ending, a happy resolution, and I think fundamentally that's something we're all looking for."
"I think they're realistic," says Nicholas, whose husband has yet to read her military romance. "There are always going to be fairy tale-type romances ... but in my book, I'm talking about a hero who has been at war serving his country. He's seen a lot of awful things which have made him messed up emotionally. My heroine is a widow with a young daughter. So I think they're very real. We're not creating perfect characters, they're flawed. The journey to their romance is not unrealistic, it's hard. Although they do get a happy ending, it's not easy to get to that point."
"... Marriage," Xavier clarified succinctly, "will be adequate recompense for me dropping all charges against your father." He added in dry, mocking tones, "And clearing his gambling debts." For a moment she lost the power to think as erotic images filled her mind ... images she'd never been able to erase ... Words tumbled from her lips. "I don't want to marry you."
From Bride, Bought And Paid For, by Helen Bianchin.
Louise, a perky woman with a shock of platinum hair, wants to know immediately what sort of romance I write (I can't bring myself to confess it extends to this article). Pamela Gervai, a thoughtful woman, loves to write futuristic, science-fiction romance. Statuesque Anderson adopts the Canvas newcomer with the ease of the popular girl on the first day of high school. And Nicholas, who looks like the pretty heroine in a romance novel, is approachable and articulate. It's fair to say no one gathered here today fits the stereotype of the tortured novelist, dark and brooding. No one looks like a desperate harpy either. The majority are married, enthusiastic and keen to find out how their peers are getting on. Positivity is a must, I'm told. To get published requires dogged persistence. The 800-plus international Mills & Boon writers come from a variety of backgrounds: doctors, teachers, stay-at-home-mums - there's even a Boeing 777 pilot who dreams up her saucy plots on the LA to Sydney route.
If there are just two traits they share it's that they don't mind the isolation that comes with writing, and they are convinced a soulmate is out there for everyone.
"A lot of women come to romance writing having been focused on just earning a living and now they want something more fulfilling, or something that captures their imagination," says Gaines. "Or, they may be on a break from paid employment, looking after kids. So we do have a lot of women in their 30s and 40s."
During the Chris Vogler session, one woman suggests a liking for romance fiction underpins a desire for control; it's comforting to know you won't be heartbroken at the end. Anderson can attest to this - she often sneaks a peek at the end of a book before she starts reading.
"I'm a total optimist and I do believe in true love and happy ever after," agrees Gaines. "I found that for myself and I think it's out there for everyone. And that's the kind of thing I like to read about and an awful lot of others do too.
"The romance genre is fairly recession-proof, because people get enough bad news in real life. We read mysteries and thrillers because we want to see the bad guys caught at the end and justice prevailing. That doesn't happen in real life unfortunately. I guess we want to read about the world as it should be."
The prognosis is good. "The story definitely grabbed me," says Bradford, once a nervous Nicholas has stepped into the hotel room. "I only read a tiny sample but I could tell right away it had potential."
Considering Bradford receives up to 1000 submissions a month, this is high praise. Playing it coy, she tells Nicholas she'd be happy to receive a formal submission. Nicholas tells Bradford about the pending response from Harlequin in London - she's already working on a follow-up book. She also has a 95,000-word novel on World War II war brides. Bradford leans forward. "I know an editor you could send that to. There's definitely a market for it."
A week later, Nicholas gets the good news: a two-book contract from Mills & Boon in London and representation from Bradford's agency in San Diego.
"It feels amazing," says the almost-author on the phone from Christchurch. "I was starting to think it would never happen."
Turns out there is such a thing as a happy ending.
