Why Write a Romance Novel (Part Two)

I blame Netflix. Specifically, the Bridgerton show, season one. As with most television-watching, this began with my wife, Betsy, discovering the show, and me wandering through the room remarking, "Oh, what's that?" I'm not much for watching shows as their serial nature frustrates me. I want to see a story reach its conclusion. Any conclusion. Just end it. Yes, writers of "Lost", I'm looking at you.

The colors and the outfits caught my eye, and so I sat, like so many of you, and I watched episode after episode. Binge watching, as it were. It was good, engaging, and a bit of a thrill to be exposed to a sort of alternative reality Regency Romance. The characters were engaging, and the storyline was, for lack of a better word, satisfying. The idea of two individuals coming together to form not just a couple but a family, for the good of society, felt timelessly appropriate to my locked down and sheltered soul.

Somewhere during season two, I discovered the books (yes, I am slow like that) and fell in love with Julia Quinn's engaging world. That it was different from the show didn't bother me. Different isn't always terrible, particularly in this case. They were expanding the stories to an audience previously impossible to reach. Sitting and quietly reading each night before bed became my routine to unwind from the stresses of life. A guilty pleasure. And the more I read, the more engrossed I became. Looking back, it seems I finished all eight of Ms. Quinn's Bridgeton within about two months! Voracious appetite, indeed.

After I finished those, I went back and delightedly found that Ms. Quinn had written many more. Many, many more. In true obsessive fashion, I plowed through all of them, examining the tropes and the personalities, and the way she wove them together within the same overall world (or before, in the case of the prequels) blending the characters into the overall theme of growing up and taking one's place in society. As an avid reader of SciFi and military fiction, this theme was completely new to me. It would be hard to picture Tom Clancy writing a ball scene unless there were bad guys involved in a kidnapping during the dancing.

At some point, during the next year's journey through Regency England, it hit me; I could do this. I could write a book with this sort of feeling, this joie de vivre. In fact, during my once-per-Presidential-administration iPhone upgrade, I delightfully discovered that I already had the framework for such a tale. And, with just a bit of effort (okay, a LOT of effort) I could turn it into a novel. And, in a flash, I knew, in my soul, where my story had to go. The pieces fell into place in my mind like a mental Tetris game, zipping into alignment with effortless accuracy.

Continued in Part Three...