Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV Advises on Writing Romance

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Dear Reader Who Writes,

Before one does anything else one feels it imperative to apologise profusely to one’s faithful readership for last week’s entry under this illustrious imprint.

I. Cannot. Believe. What. My. Parent. Wrote. Last. Week.

One can only assume the woman was under the influence of her favourite cocktail – a tasteful mixture of advocaat, ruby port and rubbing alcohol, which she refers to as a ‘Dog’s Bollock’.

As I lay on my sickbed, near to death, the dreadful female managed to insult all I hold dear, ridicule my literary genius, and reduce these profound seminars to objects of derision. Were it not for the fact she is bigger than one, and packs a mean left hook….

But enough of my sorrows. To our work.

At the risk of pushing against an open door, I shall take a little moment to remind my beloved students of my credentials, and my reasons for preparing this series of little tutorials. I am, of course, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV and acclaimed author of the millionth bestseller science fiction and fantasy novel, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, and my writing these little posts to my adoring students is solely motivated by the desire to assist your writing endeavours.

And now to business.

Romance

The romantic novel is the graveyard of so much literary endeavour, being a crowded marketplace in which the average flounders and sinks itself beneath contempt and only the superlative can possibly hope to achieve success. Of course the paramount example of this pulchritudinous delight is the queen of pinkness and prettiness at whose slippered feet we are unworthy to worship. We cannot hope to even approach her superlative talent but we may use her incandescently shimmering writings as a blueprint for our own feeble scribbles.

The Rules

1. The heroine. A beautiful, shy, virgin whom life has treated unkindly. She must be intelligent, compassionate, and as pink and pretty as a rosebud.
2. The hero. An older man, handsome, cynical, wealthy, damaged.
3. The bitch. Beautiful, hard, not a virgin. Wants the hero
4. The antihero. Has designs on the heroine’s virtue
5. The plot. Antihero does a bad thing to heroine. Hero saves her. Hero wants her but bitch steps in. Much confusion arises. Hero and heroine come together in the end. Close with a chaste kiss.

And that mes estudas are the wrules of the write way to write a wromance.

Ecrit Bon.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.