How to Write a Love Story Read online

  “Of course.” I rolled my eyes.

  “But that’s just the start,” Gran went on. “We’ll build you up as a writer, collaborating with me. Then, when you’re ready to fly solo, you’ll have all the Queen Beas desperate for your books! And then you can carry on my legacy for the next fifty years!”

  Fifty years. Wow. That was a very long time…

  Gran checked her watch, then jumped down from her stool. “Right! Must get going, darling. I have a date to get ready for!”

  Alarm bells started ringing in my head. And they sounded worryingly like wedding bells.

  You see, Gran didn’t do dates. She did falling headlong into love at first sight and getting married three months later. At least, that was what had happened the last three times she’d met a guy.

  “Tilly, I can’t wait for you to meet him. We just met this afternoon! And it was the sweetest Meet Cute.”

  In a book or film, the Meet Cute is the first meeting between the hero and the heroine. Sometimes it’s unbearably adorable – like he saves her from an oncoming car and they tumble to the ground together, or their dogs’ leads get tangled and they have to get nice and close to separate them. Other times, the meeting can be less friendly – a blazing row between two heirs to an estate, or Darcy snubbing Elizabeth at the Meryton Ball. The only hard and fast rule is that they have to meet. And that meeting has to have an impact.

  Gran looked like she might actually swoon with invented passion if I didn’t ask.

  “Tell me about the Meet Cute,” I said with a sigh.

  “Well, Aurora is filming about twenty minutes away at the moment, so I popped down to see how it was going,” Gran said. “And of course, I stopped by craft services – that’s sort of like a mobile buffet for the behind the scenes crew – because they always have the best doughnuts. I was just reaching for the last strawberry crème one, when someone else tried to grab it at the same time!”

  “Your date?”

  Gran nodded enthusiastically. “Of course, he let me have the doughnut. And then he said I’d better join him for dinner to make sure he didn’t starve!”

  “So he’s an actor?” I tried to guess which stalwart of British stage and screen she might have fallen for this time. Strange. She’d already married an actor once, and Gran didn’t tend to go for the same type twice.

  “That’s the funniest thing! He’s actually the new director, the one they just hired for this series. You’ve probably heard of him. Edward Flowers?”

  I held back a groan. Everyone had heard of Edward Flowers – he’d directed some of the best TV dramas of the last few years. Rohan was a big fan, so I’d seen most of them, too. He was on the red carpet at every major British drama event, and it had been a huge coup when the Aurora series had bagged him. He was famous, the man of the moment.

  Which meant he was exactly Gran’s type. She always wanted to be the first to jump on a new trend.

  “I’m not wearing taffeta this time,” I warned her. My bridesmaid’s dress for her wedding to Patrick had been hideous. All pink taffeta ruffles with a bow on the back. I was not going through that again – especially if the photos were likely to show up in the papers.

  (Patrick was the famous explorer who got lost somewhere in the depths of Central America shortly after they married, lost his memory, then finally came home three years later to be nursed back to health by his loving wife. His memory never fully returned but he fell in love with Gran all over again, until she divorced him six months later.)

  “Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself, darling,” Gran said, waving away my concerns. “It’s only a date. It might just end in tears long before we make it up the aisle.”

  “It never has before,” I pointed out. Gran’s romances always seemed to make it as far as wedding bells and celebrations – just like in her books. But the books didn’t always tell you what happened next – probably because, in Gran’s experience, it was usually boredom and then divorce.

  “Well, maybe I won’t ask you to be bridesmaid next time.” Gran tutted again as she headed out of the kitchen door. “Really. Such a lack of respect from the younger generation.” She stuck her head back in, just for a second. “And after I bought you your first writing hat, too.”

  Then she was gone off to prepare for her date.

  I reached for another chocolate chip cookie and decided to focus on the fictional romances in Gran’s idea file instead.

  It’s not romantic to admit it, but a lot of love comes down to probability. To statistics and averages.

  In short, love is maths.

  Sorry about that.

  The Probability of Love (2016), Professor Rory Frost

  The next morning, I sat down to breakfast with Mum, my head already buzzing with potential ideas. Gran’s folder was packed to the brim with possibilities and that was what I needed to get started.

  Well, that was all Gran ever needed, anyway. Just one idea that sparked off a whole story.

  And somewhere, in the mass of notes I’d read last night, I thought I’d found it.

  Gran’s Meet Cute story had actually been a huge help. It had reminded me of something I already knew but hadn’t really thought about too much. Romance books tended to follow a pattern – not a formula or a step-by-step guide but some key events that had to happen to make the romance work. And the first, of course, was the Meet Cute. (After all, if my hero and heroine never actually met, there wasn’t going to be much of a love story, was there?)

  So that was what I needed to start with. A meeting between my two main characters that set the whole thing in motion.

  “Are you having toast or cereal, Tilly?” Mum asked, holding the milk and jolting me out of my daydream. There were still real world things to contend with, too. Like meals. And school.

  “Toast,” I decided. I jumped up to find bread to put in the toaster and Mum put the milk back in the fridge.

  “Where are the twins?” I asked. The kitchen was uncannily quiet without them.

  “It rained in the night, so your dad decided to walk them to nursery this morning so they can splash in the puddles on the way.”

  I winced. Finn and Freddie’s nursery was only a five-minute walk away but getting both of them there on their reins could take up to an hour. Especially if there were puddles.

  Dad always had these lovely fun parenting ideas, which lasted until the twins actually got involved and Dad started trying not to swear. (Finn’s first word was ‘Pants’.)

  “Has he already forgotten what happened last time he did that?” I asked.

  “Apparently,” Mum said contentedly. “I didn’t remind him. But I did send them out half an hour early – and with two changes of clothes for them both. So now I’m just enjoying the peace, and breakfast with my lovely daughter.”

  “Works for me,” I said with a smile.

  “So, did you hear who your gran was out on a date with last night?” Her mug nestled in her hands, Mum perched on the kitchen stool beside me as I made my toast.

  “Edward Flowers,” I confirmed. “I’ve already told her I’m not wearing taffeta.”

  “She’ll probably want the twins in sailor suits, carrying the rings on little silken cushions.”

  “Finn would eat them,” I pointed out, grinning, and Mum laughed.

  “You were about their age when you were bridesmaid for her the first time,” she mused. “You were adorable in that white satin dress…”

  “Remind me to tell her no satin, either.” I’d seen the photos. And what was cute on a two year old did not necessarily work for a sixteen year old. But from past experience (three weddings since I was born), when Gran got wedding fever, all logic went out of the window.

  “Oh well. It was only a first date, right? It might not come to anything.” We looked at each other for a moment then dissolved into giggles.

  If there was one thing our family knew how to do well, it was falling in love.

  “At least I don’t have to worry about you running
off to marry some boy from school anytime soon.” Mum looked at me over the edge of her mug. “Right, Tilly?”

  I rolled my eyes. “If that’s a subtle way of asking me if I’m going out with anyone…”

  “No!” Mum’s eyes went wide and innocent. “Well, maybe.”

  “Mum…”

  “Your dad and I met at school, you know,” she went on, and I smiled. Of course I knew. Mum told me this story on basically a yearly basis, usually around the start of the new school year, when she got all nostalgic. “When I was sixteen, he was Romeo to my Juliet in the school play. I looked down from the balcony on the first night and saw him there in costume … and that was it. I was a goner.”

  “Fortunately things worked out better for you two than for Romeo and Juliet,” I said drily. I might have heard the story plenty of times but that morning it got me thinking in a way it never had before. That probably counted as their Meet Cute, right? But they’d been close to each other for weeks beforehand, during rehearsals, not to mention the fact that they’d been in the same school for years. So maybe a Meet Cute didn’t always have to be a first meeting. Just a moment that changed how you saw a person.

  As I munched on my toast and thought about Meet Cutes, Mum reached across the counter and took my free hand.

  “I just want you to know that you can always talk to me about things, if you need to. Friendships, boys, relationships. Anything.”

  She meant sex. My mother has been permanently worried I’m going to be a teen bride and mother since I was about thirteen. Probably because she had been – she and Dad married and had me when they were both nineteen.

  “I know, Mum.”

  “And don’t forget the cardinal rule…”

  “Don’t go to Gran for guy advice,” I chorused along with her. I’d heard that plenty of times, too. “I know, I know. Grannie Bea is only in charge of fictional romance in this family.”

  “Exactly.” Mum’s smile turned soft. “How did you grow up so fast?”

  I didn’t point out that she’d missed a year in the middle, when she and Dad had separated and she’d been off finding herself. We’d dealt with that, mostly. And it wasn’t like Mum hadn’t been there – at the end of a FaceTime call, usually – whenever I’d needed her.

  Except a phone call wasn’t the same as having her physically there with me – to hug me when I needed it, or share a look when Dad said something stupid, or even just to remind me to put my clothes in the wash basket! Sometimes when I watched her with the twins I wondered how she could have left me behind. (Sometimes I think she wondered, too. I’d catch her watching me with a sad smile, like she was looking for something. I’d asked her once what she was doing. She said she was searching for the year she’d missed.)

  For the first year after she came back, I’d woken up almost every night and had to check Mum and Dad’s room, just to be sure she was really there. But I knew that she’d come back happier. Better. And now, she was always there, whenever I needed her – even when the twins were being annoying or she had loads of work on. She never told me she didn’t have time for me, or she couldn’t talk right now.

  It had been so hard when she was gone. But now she was back, I knew we were stronger as a family for it.

  Sometimes, as Gran always said, a person just has to chase their own dreams. Their own passions.

  Their own sort of love.

  If nothing else, it had taught me that you had to be sure about love – and I didn’t know if I ever would be. If even my parents, who were soppily in love to the point of annoyance these days, could separate like that, anyone could. Just look at Gran and her many ex-husbands.

  Real love had to be strong enough to last. And I couldn’t truly see that happening with any of the boys at school, so why even try? I’d rather wait until I had a better idea about people and love and everything than make the same mistakes my family had.

  “At least you’ve got the twins to keep you young,” I joked, and Mum pulled a face.

  “I love them dearly, but some days? I just thank God for nurseries.”

  I laughed and picked up the last of my toast to eat on the way. “Right. I’m off to school.”

  Mum glanced up at the clock. “Already?” It’s not like me to be early.

  “I’ve got some stuff I need to do in the library before class.” I swung my school bag on to my shoulder.

  I had a Meet Cute to write.

  “You know, I think if you put the pen on to the paper and actually move it around, it works better.” I’d been sitting staring at the mostly blank page in my notebook for fifteen minutes when Drew spoke.

  “Thanks for that,” I replied, oozing sarcasm. “Gosh, it really was just as well you were here to explain that to me.”

  “Well, you know how much I love to help.” His dry words weren’t helping with my failing inspiration.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I wanted to write – all that thinking about Meet Cutes had paid off, and the perfect scene had flashed into my head on the walk to school. (Heroine rescuing hero from oncoming car – it had drama, it meant they had to get up close and personal, and it had a bit of a twist from the usual.) I just couldn’t quite seem to find the right words to make it real on the page.

  I’d got as far as the part where she grabbed him and yanked him back on to the pavement but then the at moment they actually had to talk I’d stalled. (Which was odd, since I was usually much better at scripting pretend conversations than actually having them in person.)

  I dropped my pen on to the table and looked up at Drew. He was reading this morning, a dragon curling over the cover of his paperback.

  “I suppose they’re mostly using magic quills in that,” I said, nodding at the book. Maybe that was what I needed … if only they weren’t fictional.

  “What is your problem with fantasy?” Drew rested the novel on his lap, pages splayed open to mark his place. “I mean, if you really like Juanita Cabrera—”

  “Which I do.”

  “—then how is this any different? I mean, she has magic and myth in all her books.”

  I considered. What was the difference? “It’s not that I have a problem with fantasy,” I said slowly, still figuring out my argument in my head. “I just don’t enjoy it as much as other books. And it’s not because of the magic or the mythical creatures, I don’t think.”

  “Then what?” Apparently it irritated him, knowing that I didn’t agree with him about this. It was like our English lessons all over again.

  “It’s the focus,” I said, finally figuring it out. “In fantasy, it’s all about beating the evil one or fulfilling a prophecy or whatever. But in Cabrera’s books, the problems are always real world ones. Even if they’re surrounded by magic.”

  “So it’s quests you have a problem with?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. But mostly I like books with real people in them.”

  “Then maybe you’ve been reading the wrong fantasy books,” Drew replied. “Because in the best ones, it’s only the worlds that feel made-up. The characters always feel like real people.”

  “Maybe.”

  I turned my attention back to my half-written scene. That was the problem. Neither my hero or my heroine felt real to me yet, so how could I imagine what they’d say in this situation? Everything I tried to write felt flat.

  Gran, I knew, often wrote her stories out of order – scribbling down scenes as they came to her, before she could forget them. And there was one other scene I’d had in my head since I started going through Gran’s notes – a first kiss scene, played out on a walk along the beach at sunrise. Why they’d been up all night, why they were wearing party clothes, why they were anywhere near a beach … they were all details I figured would come to me as I worked more on the story.

  But a first kiss – surely I could write that? I’d read hundreds of them in novels over the years, and probably paid more attention to them than the Meet Cutes. I knew how they worked.

  First kisses
were a huge turning point for any book – and they had to be right.

  I picked up my pen again and started to write.

  He moved closer, his bow tie loose around his neck, and Sophie found herself staring at his lips as they approached hers…

  As they approached? No. That was terrible.

  I started again.

  As he moved closer, Sophie stared at his lips, imagining them on hers.

  Better. Except now I was stuck again. Why? All I had to write was a kiss. One stupid kiss. What was so hard about that?

  Then it hit me. I’d imagined kissing, of course, and read plenty of stellar kissing scenes. But I had no idea how it actually felt to kiss someone.

  How could I describe a perfect first kiss when I’d never had one myself? Or even a Meet Cute? All I had was Gran and Mum’s descriptions of how they’d felt when that moment hit. I’d never experienced it for myself – and I wasn’t likely to at St Stephen’s, either.

  Frustrated, I threw my pen down on the table and it went skittering across until it fell off the edge and rolled under a bookcase. Drew and I both watched it go.

  “Want me to go ask Rachel if she has any magic quills in the office?” Drew asked, his eyebrows raised.

  I scowled at him.

  One way or another, I had to make this work. Imagination would just have to make up for lack of experience.

  Tomorrow, I’d bring my laptop. Maybe Gran liked writing her drafts longhand, but I had a feeling typing would work much better for me.

  After all, it could hardly be any worse.

  I was still thinking about Meet Cutes, and how to write one, when I got to English, the last lesson of the morning. Except Mr Evans had decided that, to try and contain our disagreements, Drew and I should sit next to each other, which didn’t make thinking about romance particularly easy. Still, I persevered. At least the chair on my other side was empty.

  Maybe I needed to do a little more planning. Sure, Gran could write a book with no preparation but she had over a hundred of them under her belt already. I had a third of one book. I couldn’t expect to be able to work as easily as she did.