Page 1 of Guys Can't Write Romance
Chapter one
Slime Monsters and Boring Male Leads
“Miss Fields,” came a small voice from the classroom. “Why are boys so mean?”
29-year-old Daisy Fields looked up from the notepad on her desk and across her class of first graders. She spotted little Cindy Duncan with her hand raised. In the next row over, a young boy was discreetly sliding down in his desk.
“Boys aren’t mean,” Daisy said, and she mostly meant it. There was one exception, a member of her writers’ group, but now wasn’t the time to dredge that up.
“Billy Rogers is,” said Cindy. “He threw this paper at me.” She held up a crumpled sheet of paper, shooting a frown at the boy in the row beside her, who had all but disappeared beneath his desk.
Daisy sighed and looked over at the young boy peeking out from beneath his desk.
“Billy. Did you throw that paper at Cindy?” Daisy asked.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Did too,” Cindy said.
Daisy rolled her eyes. Become a teacher, her friends had told her, it would be easy and give her plenty of time to write. Of course, none of them had ever taught first graders.
“Billy, I want you to apologize to Cindy,” Daisy said.
“But I didn’t do anything,” he insisted.
“Then why are you hiding?”
“I’m not,” he said, sliding up in his seat.
“Are too,” said Cindy.
Daisy groaned. “Billy. Either apologize, or no cookies.”
Billy frowned and let out a sigh. “Okay, fine. Sorry.”
Cindy seemed to accept the bribed apology, and with that, order was once again restored. Which was just how Daisy liked it.
For as far back as she could remember, Daisy had thrived on order. Some of it came from growing up in a military family, but most of it was self-inflicted. She just liked the way order kept her world sane and organized.
The girls in her class agreed; the boys took a bit more convincing.
For the first two months of the semester, the kids had arrived at school each morning to find their desks lined up alphabetically, with labels stuck to the tops noting where each kid sat. This went on until the boys realized they could peel off the labels and stick them in girls’ hair; and that was the end of the labels. But Daisy still kept her shelves in rigid order, with books arranged by height, and their spines set back exactly one inch from the edge. Even the colored Post-Its on her chalkboard were squared off in perfect columns and rows.
The girls thought it made the room pretty and nice, with the pink, yellow, and blue Post-Its; the boys thought it was dumb and girly.
With order restored, the kids resumed their naptime. Daisy turned back to the notepad where her latest romance novel was slowly coming together. It would be her fourth novel, after self-publishing her first three. Never mind that she barely earned enough from them to buy coffee, this one would be different. It would be the ticket to her lifelong dream of being a full-time writer. She could already picture it on shelves at Barnes & Noble, and traveling the country on book tours. And never having to break up another spitball fight would be sheer bliss.
Daisy wrote ‘clean’ romance novels her mom could read. She had lost her dad to cancer three years earlier, but before that, he had also appreciated her books’ wholesomeness. Her male leads were bankers and doctors, and other professionals. Men who provided her heroines with financial security and stability, without tying them to bedposts. Men who drove nice cars and took her female leads to upscale restaurants. Men who... well, actually that was about the extent of their character development.
To everyone whose last name wasn’t Fields, Daisy’s male leads were tragically safe, predictable, and painfully dull. As one member of her writers’ group put it, Daisy had single-handedly invented the ‘boring male lead’ trope. That member was Chad McKenzie, the exception to the ‘boys aren’t mean’ rule. Chad was a frat-boy turned P.E. coach, who thought romance was a werewolf chasing a scantily clad girl through a cemetery. And as for Chad himself, he was about one crayon short of being one of her students.
Chad had joined the writers’ group earlier that year, and within two weeks, Daisy was sure it was because God hated her. Up till then, Daisy had been the youngest member of the group, with the other four being retirees or nearing retirement. Two of them had been published by the ‘Big Five’ publishing houses,and one had hit the New York Times best-seller list multiple times.
And then came Chad, whose maturity seemed to have peaked in grade school. Chad wrote horror, of the campy 70s horror movie variety. No subtly or nuance; just lots of female skin and monster-induced mayhem. Kind of like Chad himself.
Like Daisy, Chad had also self-published his previous books, with such notable titles as ‘Bikini Babes vs. The Slug Demon,’ ‘Cheerleaders vs. Zombies,’ and ‘The Bikini Monster Mash.’ Even Roger Corman was blushing in his grave. It killed Daisy that he sold more books than her, thanks to a large social media following of frat guys, jocks, and other juvenile delinquents.
Fortunately, Daisy only had to deal with Chad once a week during their meetings and then have the rest of the week to detox. Unfortunately, that was tonight.
