How to Write a Love Story

by Katy Cannon

  “In a manner of speaking.” His gaze darted towards the Book Club, who were all talking over each other as Drew ordered them to calm down, then he put a hand on my arm to guide me towards the privacy of the nearest set of bookshelves. His fingers felt warm even through my school blouse and for a brief moment I felt like Rosa in Aurora Rising, when Huw returns home and takes her aside to the drawing room at Aurora to tell her how he’s always felt about her. That strange sense of anticipation and hope and fear all mingling at once.

  I didn’t want declarations of true love. I just wanted the opportunity to know what falling for someone felt like. And from one brief touch and conversation with Zach, I hoped I was getting an idea.

  “So, I’ve heard this week – from a surprising number of people – that you don’t date guys who go to St Stephen’s,” Zach said, his voice low. “Is that true?”

  This was it. This was the conversation I’d really prepared for. When he asked about my dating rules.

  I could handle this. Even if my knees felt wobbly as he looked at me.

  “Kind of. I mean… I haven’t dated anyone here – mostly because I’d need convincing first that anyone from school was worth my time.”

  “I can respect that,” Zach said.

  I continued the script I had planned for this conversation. “I have high expectations of romance, you see.” I looked him straight in the eye, hoping he could read my comment for what it was – not a dismissal but a challenge.

  This time, his smile was a little sharper somehow. “Understandable, given who your grandmother is.”

  “Exactly.”

  He looked at me for a moment longer. I felt like I was being assessed, like he was figuring out how I worked before he came up with the right approach. I supposed I couldn’t complain – I’d been doing that to him without him even knowing for the last two weeks.

  Finally, he said, “OK, in that case, here’s the proposition.”

  “I’m listening.” I folded my arms across my chest, to make it look like he really had to try to convince me. Like this wasn’t what I’d wanted all along. Like I wasn’t still just praying I wouldn’t screw this up.

  “You agree to be my partner for the English project, and I’ll take you on the best – most romantic – study date ever.”

  “What’s the catch?” I asked.

  “If you have fun, you have to agree to a real, proper date with me.” Zach folded his own arms, mirroring me, and waited for my response.

  I took a moment to wonder at the success of my plan before I answered. Sometimes, things really did happen exactly like in books.

  “You’re on.”

  “Through the mirror, everything changes.” Lydia looked me in the eye, her gaze steady and true. “The world you know has shifted, and nothing is as you have always believed it to be.”

  I thought I knew what she meant. I thought I knew what to expect.

  I was wrong.

  Looking Glass (2018), Morgan Black

  The news of my date was somehow all around school by the end of the day. I blamed one of the kids in Book Club. When Zach and I emerged from between the bookshelves, they were watching us – Drew glowering as usual, although whether that was because Zach was in the library or because I’d left him to deal with the Book Club alone, I wasn’t sure. Either way, it was pretty obvious that they’d given up on Alice and eavesdropped on our conversation instead.

  Not that I cared. Everything had gone exactly according to plan – something that caused Anja to give a celebratory whoop when I told her, and Rohan to shake his head and mutter protestations of doom.

  Zach and I planned our study date for Saturday, which gave me a couple of days to prepare and to figure out a way to fictionalize the big asking-out scene for Gran’s chapters. I’d planned to work on it that evening but almost as soon as I got through the door from school, the home phone rang, making me jump. I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like, it rang so rarely. We all just used our mobiles instead.

  “Tilly, darling?” Gran’s voice echoed down the line. “I need to ask you the tiniest favour. Do you think you could come down to The Mad Hatter’s, please? And bring my emergency credit card from the kitchen drawer.”

  The Mad Hatter’s is Gran’s favourite hat shop in Westerbury. I think Gran must actually keep the place in business, as surely no one else buys that many hats these days.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, pulling my coat back on as I held the phone between my ear and my shoulder.

  “Oh, darling, it’s terrible! I came into town to do a spot of shopping and someone must have stolen my handbag when I was trying on hats! Fortunately I had my car keys in my jacket pocket but now my purse has gone, and my phone, and I really need to pick up a few bits from the supermarket on my way home. Not to mention I just found the sweetest hat here that would be perfect for the Queen Bea Tea.” Trust Gran to focus on what was really important in times of crisis.

  “Gran! That’s terrible! Of course I’ll—” I broke off as I headed back into the kitchen to find the emergency credit card.

  There, sitting on the kitchen counter, was Gran’s handbag. I checked inside: purse and phone still in place.

  “Tilly? Are you there?”

  “Yes, Gran.” I picked up the bag to take with me. “And so’s your handbag. You must have forgotten to take it with you.”

  “I couldn’t have… Did I? Well, I suppose I was in a bit of a rush…”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Gran’s love affair with hats has outlasted all four of her marriages. In fact, it even led to one of them. While she sticks to fairly modest creations for her day-to-day wear, for big events she prefers big hats. The sort of over-the-top, flamboyant headgear that means everyone in the room is watching her (mostly to make sure she doesn’t take their eye out with a stray peacock feather or something).

  Once, back in the late eighties I guess, she wore this ridiculous hat for a party in London – it was black and neon pink, and added an extra forty centimetres or so to her height. It also had these pink and black fake flowers dotted all the way up it and sticking out to the sides. (I’ve seen photos. There is no justification in the world for that hat.) Anyway, the story goes that the party was packed (Gran wouldn’t go to one that wasn’t) and someone knocked one of the flowers off her hat and this guy stood on it. Gran was outraged, naturally, but the man swept round and grabbed this whole floral arrangement from the nearest table, dropped to one knee and presented it to her, saying, “Fake flowers are not nearly a match for your beauty.”

  Gran was charmed, of course, and they spent the rest of the night talking – well, who wouldn’t, after that Meet Cute?

  The guy was James Francis, star of stage and screen – and Gran’s second husband.

  (Sadly, the marriage didn’t last much longer than the wedding flowers. But that’s not unusual with Gran, either.)

  The walk from Gran’s house into town is less than a mile, so it didn’t take me long to reach her and hand over the bag.

  Gran shook her head. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking.”

  “Probably about your next date with Edward this weekend,” I teased her, and she smiled.

  “You might just be right about that.”

  Gran paid for the hat – a blush pink one, with tiny white flowers coming off it in a spray, much more tasteful than some – and we picked up the essentials she needed from the supermarket (which turned out to be speciality tea leaves and cake) before heading back to get the car. She’d been lucky – there was no ticket on the windscreen, even though she clearly had neither paid nor displayed.

  “How’s the book coming?” Gran asked as she started the engine.

  I thought back to Zach’s proposed study date – followed by the real thing. “Pretty well. I have an opening chapter and I just need to write up the next one. Then I have some ideas to work on over the weekend for the third chapter, so hopefully I should be able to
get something to you in a week or two, by the time I’ve finished polishing it up.” I didn’t want to promise anything too soon. After all, getting dating experience took time, too – and I really wanted to get that first kiss into the story. And my life.

  “Sounds brilliant,” Gran said. “And really, since it’s going so well, and with the Queen Bea Tea coming up and everything – maybe you should just keep going?”

  “Keep going?”

  “Yes! Really make it your book. Of course, I’ll still take a look at those three chapters, and your outline for the rest of the book, offer my advice, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t just keep writing it. I mean, since it’s your idea, your characters – and from what you’ve told me about them, it sounds fab. So it makes sense for you to continue, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose it does.” I’d been concentrating so much on those opening chapters I hadn’t really thought about what I’d do when they were finished. I had notes for what I thought might happen in the rest of the book, but since it all depended on my fledgling romance with Zach, nothing was set in stone. But still, the idea of handing Eva and Will over to Gran to tell their story felt wrong. Like it made my insides itchy. Except… “How do you think your editor would feel about it – me writing more of the book, I mean.”

  Gran waved away my concerns with a flap of a hand that really should have been on the steering wheel, and a car horn beeped as we swerved. “As long as she gets a book in time to publish next year, she won’t mind how it happens.”

  “You haven’t told her yet?”

  “Of course not! We agreed it was our secret, yes?”

  “I suppose.” But it couldn’t stay a secret forever, right? “But if I’m writing it, I definitely want my name on the cover!”

  “Of course,” Gran said as we pulled into the drive. “Right under mine.”

  On Friday lunchtime, I settled down into a quiet corner of the library – well, quiet except for Drew, sitting across from me – pulled out my laptop and my notebook, and prepared to transform reality into fiction again. Rachel was locked away in her office on the phone, and the rest of the place was pretty deserted. Perfect for getting down to some serious writing.

  I’d been thinking about it ever since Zach asked me out and I’d finally come up with a scenario in which Will needed to convince Eva to have a practice date with him – before they managed the real deal, of course. It was an audition, of sorts, given that they were both actors. Having finally worked out the plot mechanics, I was ready to write the scene.

  Sitting back, I closed my eyes and tried to relive the moment, to remember exactly how it had felt to have Zach’s hand on my arm, the fluttering of excitement in my stomach as he’d smiled at me. With the memory fresh in my mind, I started typing – and didn’t stop until I had the whole scene down.

  Reading back over it, I sighed at the memory – and then again because I realized I had no idea what happened next. I’d have to wait until after Saturday to write the actual date scene. When once I’d thought I could rely on my imagination to create my story, I knew now that to make it feel real I needed to have actual life experiences to call on.

  A horrible thought popped into my head.

  What if the date was a disaster? I’d worked so hard to get to this point, what if it went horribly wrong? If I couldn’t write this book without the romantic inspiration of an actual, real-life romantic hero on side, what did I do if he turned out to be a dud?

  “Daydreaming about the new boy?” Drew asked, his tone caustic. “Because I’ll be honest, all that infatuated sighing is kind of noisy.”

  “Maybe I’m just sighing to express existential teenage angst.”

  “Well maybe you could do that more quietly.”

  “Like you and your music?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Do you see any headphones?” Drew indicated his headphone-less ears and I frowned.

  “What, are you on some sort of music detox? Or did they get confiscated for crimes against musical taste?”

  He shrugged. “I only wear them when I’m trying to block out the noise around me. For some reason, with only you and me here today, I thought it might be quiet. I hadn’t banked on existential teenage angst.”

  “You should have,” I said seriously. “It’s basically all around us.”

  “Apparently so.” He pushed his laptop away from him on the table. “If you’re not mentally picturing your marriage to tall, blond and annoying, what are you working on that’s got you all angsty?”

  I bit my lip, while I tried to think of a suitable lie. “English project,” I said eventually, hearing Rohan object in my head as I spoke.

  “The one you’re supposed to be working with Gates on. Right…” Drew didn’t look convinced. “Fine, don’t tell me. It’s not like I actually care.”

  Somehow, that made it easier. “It’s just a creative writing thing.” I shrugged. “I’m kind of … stalled, that’s all. Nothing important.”

  Except that it was my entire possible future career riding on one book, not to mention the weighty expectations of my gran and the Queen Beas, and everything hinged on my study date with Zach going well.

  Mentally, I ran through all the reasons why Zach was the perfect romantic hero – gorgeous, a TV star, could sing – and soon reassured myself that of course the date would be a success. I liked him. Like, really liked him. And it seemed he at least wanted to get to know me better. We had a date planned – and the promise of another one after it. So it was no problem at all that I had nothing more to write about until after that.

  Probably.

  Suddenly, the full weight of what Gran had asked me to do seemed to land on my shoulders with a thump. This wasn’t three chapters any more, it was a full book – eighty thousand words. That was a ridiculously huge amount. Not to mention Gran’s deadlines – which, yes, she’d always been fairly fluid with in the past (apparently you could get away with that sort of thing when you were a big star) but I knew her publisher really wanted another book out next year.

  One that I was apparently going to write. Alongside getting my first real dating experience, doing my schoolwork, and, you know, living my actual life and spending time with my friends and family.

  The sheer length of my new to-do list threatened to overwhelm me until I was distracted by my laptop pinging with a new message that had been sent over our school network. An IM from Drew, who had never messaged me in any way ever before. Had he taken to it purely to object to my sighing in new and interesting ways? Or was he afraid – as I was – I might actually start hyperventilating soon?

  Thankful for the distraction, I opened the IM. There was no actual message – no pleasantries or anything like that. Just a link. I scrutinized it carefully, wondering if it might be some sort of virus or something. Across the table, Drew rolled his eyes.

  “Just open it, will you?” he said, as I met his gaze. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help.”

  Well, he looked sincere enough. I clicked on the link and held my breath, just in case. I didn’t believe that Drew would really send me a virus as a joke – annoying as he was, he wasn’t generally cruel. But all the same, the last thing I needed was my laptop dying on me right now. That would definitely hold up my writing progress.

  But the link opened a perfectly normal web window, with the image of an old-fashioned typewriter at the top. Underneath, it read:

  The Writers’ Room.

  A home for all aspiring writers, editors and their readers.

  Huh. “Where did you find this?” I asked as I clicked on the About page and read the text. Apparently it was a UK-based site aimed at 14-21 year old aspiring writers. I started surfing through the links – beginning with the one marked Writing advice.

  Drew raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Google. Well, originally, anyway. It’s a good site – one of my favourites, actually. Some good stories on there. I figured it might be helpful.” He’d sent me a link to his favourite website? Tha
t was … unexpected. And surprisingly nice.

  “It is.” Page after page of articles on structure and conflict and characters came up, and I started scrolling around, taking in the titles. There were even a few specifically on writing romance.

  I’d visited plenty of writing websites over the years, but I’d never seen this one before. It must be reasonably new – I flicked back through the blog to find that it had launched the summer before, when I’d been stressing over Aurora Rising. I guess I hadn’t done much online writing research since then.

  Maybe I should have because The Writers’ Room looked really useful. I’d learned a lot working with Gran on her books but I wasn’t cocky enough to think I knew everything. I’d take whatever help I could get. Even from Drew.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He just shrugged again and turned back to his own laptop, staring at the screen as usual. Occasionally he’d scroll down or click on something but I had no idea what he was actually doing.

  I turned my attention back to my own screen, skimming through a few of the articles and bookmarking some to read properly later. And then I spotted another link at the top of the page, labelled Stories. These must be what Drew had been talking about.

  Intrigued, I clicked on it, and a whole different style of page came up. This one wasn’t for writers, exactly. It was for readers – and wannabe editors.

  Need a beta reader or a critique partner? All authors are invited to post samples of their work, or even full stories, to get feedback from readers, or to appeal to the hive mind to find their perfect editing partner.

  Interesting.

  Apparently all critiquing was anonymous, done through the on-site messaging system, which meant I needed to sign up.

  “What’s your screen name on here?” I asked Drew as I typed in my own – RosaRae, a mix of two of my favourite characters, one from the Aurora series and one from Cabrera’s books. It would do for now, anyway. If I decided I wanted to contribute to the site, I could always change it, or set up a new account.