Making Extra Cash Writing a Mills & Boon Romance.

I have recently discovered that the world is divided into two types of people:  

1. Those who think writing a romance novel is easy, and  

2. People who have actually tried to write a romance novel.

This revelation came to me after I read an article titled something like “Make Extra Cash Writing for Mills & Boon!” The article promised that anyone  even someone like me, who once misspelled his own name on a name badge could earn money simply by producing a “steamy, emotionally rich, character‑driven love story.” This sounded promising, because I enjoy money, and I have at least two emotions on a good day.

So I thought: How hard can it be? After all, I’ve read books before. I’ve even written things before, such as emails, and once a strongly worded note to the neighbour who kept putting his recycling in my bin. Surely romance couldn’t be that much different!?

I decided to begin by researching the genre. This was a mistake. Romance novels are not written by humans. They are written by some kind of supernatural entity that feeds on adjectives. Every page contains at least 47 references to “smouldering gazes,” “aching hearts,” and “rippling torsos,” which is impressive because I personally have never seen a torso ripple. If my torso ever ripples, I will immediately call a doctor!

But I pressed on, because I am a professional, or at least a person who once owned a pencil case.

The first thing I learned is that Mills & Boon heroes are not like normal men. Normal men, for example, do not “stride purposefully across the room.” Normal men shuffle, or wander, or walk into a room while scratching their nuts and forget why they came in! Mills & Boon heroes, meanwhile, stride everywhere, probably because they have thighs like hydraulic pistons.

Also, they have jobs like “billionaire rancher,” “brooding Mediterranean tycoon,” or “emotionally wounded neurosurgeon who is also a duke.” I don’t know where Mills & Boon finds these men. I have never met a duke who could perform brain surgery, although I once met a man who claimed he could fix a toaster using only a spoon. He could not!

The heroine, meanwhile, must be “independent yet vulnerable,” which is exactly how I feel when I attempt to assemble flat‑pack furniture. She must also have a name like “Elara,” “Seraphina,” or “Chloe, but spelled in a way that requires a pronunciation guide.”

Armed with this knowledge, I sat down to write my first chapter. It began:

> “El’khloë (the H is silent, the apostrophe is decorative) gazed across the windswept moor, her heart pounding like a malfunctioning tumble dryer.”

This, I felt, was a strong start.

Then the hero appeared:

> “Draxon McSteel, billionaire lumberjack‑astronaut, strode toward her, his jaw clenched with the intensity of a man who has just realised he left the oven on.”

At this point I was feeling confident. I had the moor. I had the heroine. I had the hero with a name that sounds like a brand of power tool. All I needed was a plot.

This turned out to be a problem, because Mills & Boon plots require conflict. Not normal conflict, like arguing about whose turn it is to take out the bins. No, this must be romantic conflict, which is a special kind of misunderstanding where two people who are clearly in love fail to communicate for 180 pages.

I tried to create one:

> “El’khloë believed Draxon had betrayed her by… something. She wasn’t sure what. Possibly a prophecy. Or a horse.”

It was at this point I realised something important: writing romance is hard. Writing good romance is harder. Writing romance that will earn me money is approximately as difficult as performing open‑heart surgery while riding a unicycle.

But I’m not giving up. No, sir. I am going to finish this novel, even if it kills me, or worse, forces me to use more adjectives. Because somewhere out there, a reader is waiting for the epic love story of El’khloë and Draxon McSteel.

And if Mills & Boon doesn’t want it, I can always self‑publish it under a pen name.

Something dignified.

Like “James Corbridge.”