Everyone in the path of the brute that Gustav has turned into is in my thoughtd. I hope that the next few days pass off as peacefully as can be and with as little damage and destruction as possible. I have reader friends in New Orleans and you will be specially in my thoughts.
And Linda - if Gustav damages your second copy of the 12 Point Guide again - I will make sure you get a replacement!
Heat - sadly, not here. Today has had the sort of torrential rain that has me thinking of building an ark, just in case.
No - the Heat in question is the Modern Heat line of romances.
As you may know, over on the I heart Presents blog, HMB have announced a writing contest for aspiring authors aiming at the Modern Heat line.
Because the Modern Heat books are published as Harlequin Presents in America, there has been quite a lot of discussion about why a 'MH' book is not a Presents and what makes the differences.
Discussion has centred on the type of hero and heroine and the description that editors once gave MH as 'Presents younger sister'.
Personally, I've felt that the descriptions and explanations given haven't really hot the mark in pinpointing just where the difference lies.
The point isn’t an alpha hero both series have that. The MH hero may be younger and perhaps on his way up but he's still alpha.
It isn't in the heroines - I’m not happy at all with the idea that there is a ‘Presents Heroine’ in a way that seems to imply that the Presents Heroine is passive, weak even, and lets the hero take charge, not matter what. the truth is that, as in any form of fiction, every heroine in every book is who she is in her own unique way. Some are milder mannered – some may take on the hero in a more confrontational manner. Some are sassy, some are uptight, some are sexually confident, some are not – some are assertive to the point of aggression – some need to take things in a less confrontational way. That's what makes each story different.
No the difference is that , to coin a phrase – the Modern/Presents book has an 'alpha conflict'. A high octane, fiercely intense conflict. It has a situation in which both the hero and the heroine have so much to lose that they can’t totally focus on anything else. There is so much at stake – outside their relationship and in – that they are driven to intense emotions that are not normally part of every day life – they are in a time of crisis and as people in crisis react they react in extremes.
Irresistible charm and humour are not the exclusive attribute of a MH hero. It’s the situation that the H&h of a Presents novel are in – both of them – that sparks reactions that sometimes don’t give time for charm or humour from either of them. It all depends on the book, the heroine, the hero – but most important of all it depends on the conflict.
And that, for me is where the big difference between an Modern and a Modern Heat story lies. A Modern Heat hero, or a MH heroine could probably be a Modern/Presents hero given the sort of conflict that a Modern/Presents author would put them in ....
As the editors are always saying – it’s all in the execution.
The official rules for the Feel the Heat contest can be found here.
1 comment:
That is a very, very good description, Kate. As soon as I read it I thought - oh yes, of course!
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