Reality-Based Romance ™

Today’s guest post is by contemporary romance author Alison Kent.   Alison is writing in a new subgenre of the romance market: the reality-based romance.  Her new book, THE ICING ON THE CAKE, is a fictionalized retelling of a real-life romance.  As writers, we are all looking for ways to stay in the game, and Alison found a new one on us!  We were intrigued with the concept of  “ripped from the headlines” romances and asked Alison if she could share her experience with WU readers.  Happily, she agreed.  Enjoy!

In September 2010, Health Communications, Inc. (HCI) launched a new series of Reality-Based Romance™ called True Vows. These novels are fictionalized accounts of real life love stories.

Once upon a time, a real estate marketing director princess searched the D.C. area listings on Match.com. There she found a government technology consultant prince, and they lived happily ever after. With cupcakes.

And, yes, the real life romance of Michelle Snow and Todd Bracken unfolded just like a fairytale. Which is why, when the series developer for True Vows, the new Reality-Based Romance™ imprint from HCI (the original publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series), asked me if I thought the Snow-Bracken love story would make  a good novel, I jumped at the chance to write it. 

Todd and Michelle had a fun first in-person meet, an instant attraction, the conflict of balancing a new relationship with a new business venture – in short, everything readers love about the genre.

Almost.

And this is where fact becomes fiction. Todd and Michelle could not be better suited as a couple, but their story had very little conflict, and their relationship covered too long a timespan to work as a fast-paced read. Meaning I had to pull out every bit of crafty goodness from my writers toolbox.

I worked with the couple through email, using as my starting point questionnaires the series developer and series editor had sent to Todd and Michelle. They were to fill them out without comparing answers in order to give me a sense of what moments in their relationship they felt most important. Interestingly, the ones they chose were identical, and I knew I had what I needed to start.

The first thing I did was condense the couple’s courtship from two years to one. This made for a better sense of forward motion without leaving readers to wonder what went on during the months when real life was unfolding minus the ticking clock of fiction. To do that, I selected the events that would serve as turning points in what I knew would be a totally character driven plot.

The details came along as I wrote. Individually, Todd and Michelle had related memories that sparked my writer’s imagination. I would look to those tidbits for ways to organically reveal information. Case in point. Michelle mentioned more than once her grandfather’s showbiz past. She had also mentioned a charm bracelet of her grandmother’s that she loved to wear.

Having Todd ask her about the charms and what they meant was the perfect way to give the reader information important to Michelle’s life, while also showing her love for her family as a character trait. Did that conversation happen the way I wrote it? Did Todd and Michelle talk about the bracelet in the real restaurant where they had eaten brunch on that particular day?

Does it matter?

In writing THE ICING ON THE CAKE, I came to realize that merging fact with fiction was a balancing act in how to best serve the story. In the above example, I decided it was more important to let the “characters” share the information about the bracelet and the grandfather’s showbiz past with the readers in a way that “could” have happened. After all, I wasn’t there when it did, and I doubted even Todd and Michelle could have recreated the conversation word for word.

In another scene, the couple stands in line for a concert. The band was one they saw together. The venue was one they visited together. The weather was as it had been at one of the many shows they attended together. But the scene was actually an amalgam of all of the above, plus a conversation that my shortened timeline required happen then. A mix of fact and fiction that made for a compelling moment of conflict in the couple’s relationship.

When talking about the True Vows imprint during its initial stages, I likened the concept to a biopic of say Ghandi. No one making the film knew what conversations he had with whom, or where he was at the time. The events may have been true, but the filmmakers would’ve taken license with how those events unfolded in order to create an engrossing story.

In the end, giving readers what they want and expect in a genre novel is what matters. Whether a pivotal lunch actually occurred in spring or in fall, whether a character was standing in the kitchen cooking or sitting in a living room chair when they learned a bit of news . . . those are the things that can be adjusted to fit the story’s demands.

The three launch titles (THE ICING ON THE CAKE, Judith Arnold’s MEET ME IN MANHATTAN, Julie Leto’s HARD TO HOLD) have been extremely well received, and the next four Reality-Based Romance™ novels are in various stages of production. I think HCI, as a publisher of memoirs and nonfiction, was the perfect house to tackle this new form of romance novel. I’m excited to see what comes next.

Guest

Many thanks to today’s guest.

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