If I Wrote Like I Want To

I was bragging the other day about the praise SEALed With a Kiss, my first novel--ever--has garnered since its release last April.

(Yes, bragging. Shamelessly. It turns out modesty does not befit a romance writer.)

My sister smiled in approval as the list went on and on. "And just think," she said, "how wonderful it will be when you can write the novels you want to write!"

What does she think? Somebody is making me do it?

No, if I could write exactly as I wish, I'd write romance. I love the genre. I even love the formula.

It's like bread-making. Did you know all yeast bread is made of flour, salt, oil/fat, liquid, and yeast? Understand how to mix them in the basic proportions, and you can create bread. If you don't kill the yeast, your bread will be...bread. You can't fail.

To write a romance requires a formula just as simple. Take one man. Add a woman. Create something that will keep them apart. Put them together anyway. Mix them up thoroughly.

Mixing is fun, but requires an understanding of how love, like yeast, moves through different stages. Like yeast, love is tough and can tolerate a good bit of mishandling, but it's a living thing, and it can be killed. Both yeast and love have a stage at which they are said to 'bloom.'

Next you add heat--gentle at first. Sure love, like yeast, can grow even without it, but if you want some drama, you're gonna need some heat.

Here's where the analogy fails. Or becomes very metaphysical. The final heat of bread making, baking in a hot oven, kills the yeast. The yeast has done its work of transformation and now it is sacrificed.

For the literati who write love stories killing the love or if that can't be done, killing the lovers, is good enough. To switch metaphors in mid-stream, they appear to believe, if the bowl is beautifully crafted, the soup will be nutritious.

Snort.

Craftsmanship alone not good enough for me, thank you very much. I have to apply the heat--hot enough to burn--and yes, there will have to be a sacrifice. But I'll be damned if I will sacrifice the lovers or their love for the dubious honor of being taken seriously.

It's hard to pull off the happy ending in a way that's believable and satisfying. The writer must grasp the subtleties of human nature, the greatness of small things, and the mechanics of miracle-making.

I might not always succeed, but I will always try. My book will not end until the love, far from being dead, has been brought back to life--transformed, and far more potent than before. It will now transform not only the lover's lives but the lives of all those they contact.

How could I settle for only writing well, if by reaching further, joy is within my grasp?

Love,

Mary Margret