So, right, confession time - I didn't set out to write a romcom. Who, me? Don't get me wrong, I like romcoms, well, I like the films. I like Four Weddings and Love Actually, and Harry getting mail in Notting Hill and whatever. But books? Romcom books?
Serious question - is A Room With a View (the book) a romcom? You see, I saw the film first, Lucy Honeychurch was my first screen love, and the film was pretty romantic and funny. But was the book that much of a romcom, or did I just imagine it like that because I was remembering the film in my head as I read it? I just find it hard to see E M Forster as the writer of belly laughs. I scratched my brain for another romcom I'd read and could only come up with High Fidelity (Nick Hornby) and I wasn't even sure if that was a 'true' romcom or was it just ladlit?
So, why did I write a romcom? Well, as the title of this post sort of gives away - it was a bit of an accident. Really. I set out to write a comedy. My two previous books (Zen Kyu Maestro and Cucarachas or Cucuruchos, both written using the pseudonym Jeremy Dean) were comedies. They could hardly have been anything else. Just imagine being stuck in a classroom with 27 seven-year-old Spaniards, trying to teach them their entire primary curriculum in English! So, yes, I had to laugh...
So, when plotting Hitting the Jackpot, I decided to utilise some more of my back catalogue of linguistic catastrophes by making my main character an English teacher teaching foreign students. Mix this in with an attempt to keep a big (well, enormous) lottery win a secret from his wife (because she was divorcing him) and I thought I could craft a plot made in heaven. It all seemed so easy: maybe he could lose the ticket, or think he'd lost it, his wife could try to claim the winnings because she didn't believe him when he said he hadn't bought a ticket, one of his students could find the ticket - the permutations seemed endless, and I soon had my plot. All that was left was the writing...
It didn't take long for one of the main characters to start whispering in my ear that they'd like a new partner. No! I said. I have a plot! I'd been slightly burned by trying to pan out another novel, and I wasn't going to find myself with my finger on the delete button for another half an afternoon. So on I went, and on and on went my MC, Look, if I had a new partner then this could happen now... or that could happen then... I didn't listen.
And then I finished my first draft, and found I had a problem. 52,000 words wasn't nearly long enough. So, I thought of a great idea - I'd give my MC a new partner... ahem.
And that was when it hit me. If I was going to give my MC a new partner, in the middle of the story (which is what seemed to fit), then there would have to be some sort of a - gulp! - romance, which would turn my comedy into a romcom. How on earth had I got myself into this mess?
As I said at the top, my knowledge of how romcoms 'work' was paltry, so I had two options: One, I could read a few romcoms and call it research... Or two, I could just let it pan out, see how the characters behaved, let them take the lead (and maybe the blame if it all went wrong). I didn't like option one. I didn't want to fall into a trap of copying other authors - and what would be the point of reading them if I wasn't looking to filch a few ideas? So, option two it was, and a hope that maybe I'd write something that would (at least) be original, and maybe a bit different from the field...
So there you have it. My accidental romcom...
Looking forward to this.