Writing Competition: Harlequin Presents Series Guidelines
6 Comments November 3rd, 2007 in writing contest Posted by Malleby Tessa Shapcott, Executive Editor
In order to enter the INSTANT SEDUCTION Writing Competition (entries will be accepted between January 1 – February 14, 2008) you need to understand what makes a winning Harlequin Presents novel. Today the HP guidelines; tomorrow the guidelines for Mills & Boon Modern Heat.
Harlequin Presents / Mills & Boon Modern
Word length: 50,000 WORDS/192 published pages
Harlequin Presents is the home of intense emotion, international settings and a range of sensuality and moods. Climb on to a roller-coaster ride of fast-paced plots, sophisticated relationship drama and sizzling attraction. Travel to the world’s most glamorous locations, where you’ll meet unforgettable strong men who make love in a variety of languages. Seduction and passion are guaranteed!
Passionate, dramatic and compelling!
Novels in this series include stories that are intense, with international settings, and are driven by alpha male heroes. The relationships portrayed are provocatively passionate, highly-charged conflicts and the plots are dramatic and compelling, and able to deliver on favourite core themes such as marriages of convenience, mistresses and revenge.
International glitz and glamour
This series has a consistently international focus. Readers particularly love settings such as the Mediterranean, Australia, the Caribbean, and South America. Backgrounds must be chic, glamorous, cosmopolitan – the habitat of the international jet-set. Life-styles of the rich and famous are what it’s all about.
The Hero
Readers love Men-of-the-World heroes in Presents. Our audience seeks out the alpha male as a fantasy and as an enjoyable escapist experience; he’s not a dominant man who will subdue the heroine, but someone who’ll take the reins: strong, decisive, wealthy, a touch ruthless and intensely focused on the heroine – he’ll do anything to make her his. The Presents hero has a sensitive side which only the heroine can bring out in him.  Â
Sensuality
These are provocatively passionate stories that sizzle with sexual tension and sensual action. Sensuality can be explicit, and arises from an emotionally-driven situation.
Favourite Themes
Core Themes: mistresses, marriage of convenience, secret pregnancies (not babies but conception), revenge. These themes are traditional and long-standing. However, we constantly seek to innovate by introducing fresh voices in the shape of new authors, and by introducing compelling new plot twists. Also, our writers and editors strive to maintain ongoing appeal by reflecting current, relevant trends, so that Presents is a microcosm of society’s love-affair at the moment with wealth, scandal and celebrity. Presents authors include many who’ve become international bestsellers such as Penny Jordan, Miranda Lee, Lynne Graham, Lucy Monroe, Sandra Marton, Emma Darcy, Michelle Reid, Julia James, Sarah Morgan and Sharon Kendrick.
Tomorrow: Mills & Boon Modern Heat
Have you started plotting your first chapter?
6 Responses to “Writing Competition: Harlequin Presents Series Guidelines”
- 1 Pingback on Nov 7th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I certainly have,Tessa!
The tips you gave yesterday were really useful and today’s guidelines have really got the juices flowing.
The ironing can wait for another day…
Rach.
Hi Tessa,
Thanks so much for this opportunity and the fantastic guidance.
I have a question about yesterday’s post. When you say “Give your reader a tantalising taste of the emotional conflict within the first few pages,” is there any preference for internal conflict, external conflict or conflict in the relationship?
I realise things are not cut and dry in choosing one over the other but it would be interesting to know if you think a particular aspect works better.
Thanks!
Carol
These workshop posts are fascinating – even for authors. I read through yesterday’s and today’s and the problem then is that I end up thinking – as other author’s said yesterday – ‘Do I do this?’
It’s always intriguing to see what we write analysed from the editorial point of view – it makes me wonder how I do it!
carolc – Obviously I’m not Tessa, but as it’s the deep emotional intensity that creates a Presents novel, my personal opinion and the approach I would always follow is to concentrate on that internal conflict. The extrernal conflict can create the internal one but it’s the characters struggles with their feelings that, for me, really matters most. That’s what I have always focused on anyway.
Kate
Hi Carolc,
Kate’s advice is spot-on. Conflict in Presents is essentially internal – between the hero and heroine and very much focused on the development of their romantic relationship. This means that what happens to them must primarily arise from what’s working between them and what’s not and how both feel about it. The classic example of a source of internal conflict in a Presents is the revelation of a secret pregnancy.
External conflict, for example, hero and heroine forced to marry by the terms of a will (to pull something out of the air) can get a story going or add another twist. But it will not give the emotional depth that the reader craves.
Tutorial on Generating Emotional Conflct coming soon!
I came across this site many months ago and said hi. I’ve been reading this and eHarlequin.com but kept quiet.
Just wanted to say hi again… and that I started writing a Harlequin Presents style book three days ago. I’ve already got about 9000 words, it’s going good. I’m browsing the posts here and writing guidelines and it is definately helpful. I’m having fun! Thanks for the resources!