We were still talking about writing serial fiction when my friend, the Good Witch, asked me that. It was an unfair question, because it’s all about context, isn’t it? When my college roommate first discovered poison oak, then discovered that evening that she was highly allergic to poison oak, she sent her boyfriend away when he came to our door. That night, generic Benadryl was ranked much higher than true love.
There are times when true love is the shiniest star in the heavens. There are other times when I will absolutely abandon a hug and tickle for a pair of Café Rio’s fire-grilled chicken tacos. I enjoy hugs and tickles, but I haven’t been to my favorite Café Rio in almost two years. At this point, it’s not about desire. This is lust.
But Good Witch had a point to make: “What’s better than finding true love is finding a true love with a massive bank account.”
I disagree with her. The only person I’ve personally met who has a massive bank account – lottery winnings, who says there’s justice in this world? – is a gigantic hemorrhoid of a person. Which is what I shared with G.W.
“First of all, ---- is barely a multi-millionaire. Does ‘five’ count as multi-millions? Secondly, he’s a douche. He’s nobody’s fantasy lover,” G.W. pointed out, quite accurately. “I mean, for this new serial fiction thing, you should write a billionaire romance story. They’re so popular.”
I vaguely knew that “billionaires” are a romance trope. The heroes (because it’s usually a man who has the money) are often emotionally-damaged and uninterested in commitment, which is in keeping with what I’ve read about the super-rich, they tend to be gorgeous, unlike every other billionaire anyone has ever seen in person, and they end up falling in love with the story’s extraordinarily ordinary heroine, which seems so unlikely to me. But I enjoy reading and writing romance, where the unlikely is what makes the motor run, so I was okay with that.
“Maybe I should use a trillionaire,” I said, because if an ungodly amount of money is good then a massively obscene amount of moola would seem to be better.
“It’s been done. Didn’t go over well,” G.W. told me. “It’s not realistic.” As if realism is the defining feature of any serial I wrote in this genre.
“How about a multiplujillionaire, then?” – which is when we learned that Harrell had been listening in to our conversation. “Mr. Scrooge McDuck. From the way he acts, I’m pretty certain that he’s emotionally-damaged.”
(Before I wrote this blog, I did a little research. In 2011, Forbes magazine estimated that the avian multiplujillionaire’s fictional money vault held over $44B in gold. Also, although McDuck’s been in love before, he’s currently single. On the downside, he’s a duck. But what man is perfect?)
“You promised me fire-grilled chicken tacos,” I told Harrell. In less than a minute, he’d gathered his books and left. Not to get me my tacos, just to escape from sight.
If you go online, you’ll see there are over 50 pages of listings for billionaire romance books on Amazon alone. Going by the cover photos, the world’s wealthy spend an inordinate amount of their time at the gym. There are bad boy billionaires, gangland billionaires, billionaires with babies, billionaires who want babies, vampire billionaires, and werewolf billionaires.
Overwhelmed by so many options, I didn’t see anything new I could bring to the genre. And then, out of nowhere, a new story title popped into my head.
I shared the name with G.W.
“You can’t use that,” G.W. told me. “It’s obscene!”
But it’s my working title or, it will be, if the Amazon Vella folks approve it. If they don’t, I think I’ll pass on writing big dollar romance – or maybe I’ll use The Bad Boy Multiplujillionaire’s Surprise Werewolf Baby. It’s not dirty in the least, it covers a few of the bases, and, as of this morning, no one else has used it.
I can hear the cash registers ringing already.
There are times when true love is the shiniest star in the heavens. There are other times when I will absolutely abandon a hug and tickle for a pair of Café Rio’s fire-grilled chicken tacos. I enjoy hugs and tickles, but I haven’t been to my favorite Café Rio in almost two years. At this point, it’s not about desire. This is lust.
But Good Witch had a point to make: “What’s better than finding true love is finding a true love with a massive bank account.”
I disagree with her. The only person I’ve personally met who has a massive bank account – lottery winnings, who says there’s justice in this world? – is a gigantic hemorrhoid of a person. Which is what I shared with G.W.
“First of all, ---- is barely a multi-millionaire. Does ‘five’ count as multi-millions? Secondly, he’s a douche. He’s nobody’s fantasy lover,” G.W. pointed out, quite accurately. “I mean, for this new serial fiction thing, you should write a billionaire romance story. They’re so popular.”
I vaguely knew that “billionaires” are a romance trope. The heroes (because it’s usually a man who has the money) are often emotionally-damaged and uninterested in commitment, which is in keeping with what I’ve read about the super-rich, they tend to be gorgeous, unlike every other billionaire anyone has ever seen in person, and they end up falling in love with the story’s extraordinarily ordinary heroine, which seems so unlikely to me. But I enjoy reading and writing romance, where the unlikely is what makes the motor run, so I was okay with that.
“Maybe I should use a trillionaire,” I said, because if an ungodly amount of money is good then a massively obscene amount of moola would seem to be better.
“It’s been done. Didn’t go over well,” G.W. told me. “It’s not realistic.” As if realism is the defining feature of any serial I wrote in this genre.
“How about a multiplujillionaire, then?” – which is when we learned that Harrell had been listening in to our conversation. “Mr. Scrooge McDuck. From the way he acts, I’m pretty certain that he’s emotionally-damaged.”
(Before I wrote this blog, I did a little research. In 2011, Forbes magazine estimated that the avian multiplujillionaire’s fictional money vault held over $44B in gold. Also, although McDuck’s been in love before, he’s currently single. On the downside, he’s a duck. But what man is perfect?)
“You promised me fire-grilled chicken tacos,” I told Harrell. In less than a minute, he’d gathered his books and left. Not to get me my tacos, just to escape from sight.
If you go online, you’ll see there are over 50 pages of listings for billionaire romance books on Amazon alone. Going by the cover photos, the world’s wealthy spend an inordinate amount of their time at the gym. There are bad boy billionaires, gangland billionaires, billionaires with babies, billionaires who want babies, vampire billionaires, and werewolf billionaires.
Overwhelmed by so many options, I didn’t see anything new I could bring to the genre. And then, out of nowhere, a new story title popped into my head.
I shared the name with G.W.
“You can’t use that,” G.W. told me. “It’s obscene!”
But it’s my working title or, it will be, if the Amazon Vella folks approve it. If they don’t, I think I’ll pass on writing big dollar romance – or maybe I’ll use The Bad Boy Multiplujillionaire’s Surprise Werewolf Baby. It’s not dirty in the least, it covers a few of the bases, and, as of this morning, no one else has used it.
I can hear the cash registers ringing already.
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