Delia Darling

Delia’s Thoughts on the Final Kiss

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It occurred to me that we haven’t heard from Delia for a while so I trawled through her ramblings and found this one, Delia on the Final Kiss (and related subjects.)

Delia 6Delia and the Final Kiss

Good evening romance fans.  My name is Delia Darling and I’m delighted to welcome you to another in my series of master-classes on How to write a Romance Novel. The matter for discussion in this  class is an area where many romance writers fail – the final kiss.  Now you may think that writing a kiss is a piece of cake but you would be wrong.  Remember this is the high point of your novel.  Your readers have been waiting breathlessly for this supreme moment and you must not disappoint them.  I cannot emphasise enough that this is the climax (no pun intended) of your work and you must give it your all.  However, there are elements that some of my fellow so-called authors introduce which you would do well to avoid.

Firstly, I have a deep aversion to “tongue.”  Tongue is an ugly word suggestive of cold, meat sandwiches.  Tongue isn’t sexy.  However, I’m afraid its use is almost unavoidable.  I try to slip it in as quickly as possible and then move on.  For example: “He moved towards her, his eyes burning into hers with a passion that knew no bounds.  As he caught her to him she melted into his embrace, half swooning in the torrent of his passion.  He bent his head and captured her lips, his tongue setting her mouth aflame as she yielded to him like a flower unfolding its petals to the sun.”

Another pet hate of mine is nibbling.   For goodness sake don’t let you hero nibble at any portion of your heroine’s anatomy.  While you may personally find nibbling quite pleasurable (as indeed do I) the word is a complete romance pooper as it is associated with hamsters, which naturally leads one to think of gerbils and we really don’t want to go into all that here.  With a little imagination you can convey the impression of nibbling without actually using the word: “He lifted his head and gazed down at her lovely face.  Her eyes were starry with rapture, her cheeks delicately flushed.  With a groan of longing he buried his face into the hollow of her slender neck, his lips and teeth savoring her sweet-scented flesh.”

Lastly, I implore you, let us have no tweaking of nipples.  How anyone can find that abominable phrase remotely erotic I cannot imagine.  When your hero caresses the heroine it should be done tastefully and within the romantic context: “His hand slid to the warm swell of her breast and delicately teased her tender peaks of sensation until she lay helpless in his arms, quivering with desire.”

In conclusion let me say this: to a man the kiss is merely an aperitif, to a woman it is a meal in itself.  In romance novels, as in life, the hero who understands this simple fact need never be hungry again.

Delia Darling on the Office Romance

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I wrote this piece when Over Here Theater were trying to get in on the very lucrative Team Building entertainment business. You know the kind of thing. The whole department goes off to a country house hotel for a day of interminable presentations which is the price you have to pay for a lovely 5 course dinner and afterwards some entertainment and then a boozy free for all in which reputations and marriages are destroyed before everyone climbs drunkenly into, one hopes, their own bed.

We put together a business themed comedy show which would have been very funny if anyone had actually hired us to perform it.

Delia on the Office Romance

Good afternoon.  Let me introduce myself.  I am Delia Darling, romantic novelist, television celebrity and relationship counsellor.  I am here to talk to you today about something so important, so vital to happiness and productivity in the workplace that I am frankly astounded to find that no other training facility attempts it.  I refer of course to the office romance.

Delia 6Some heartless and insensitive employers, of course, frown on the office romance but this is a short-sighted view.  If they only understood what a marvellous tool the office romance can be in dealing with human resource issues.  Take for example the problem of tardiness.  What could be more of an inducement for a lovely young woman to arrive early at the office every day than the knowledge that she will find her handsome boss already at his desk and for a few brief moments before the rest of the department arrives he is hers alone.   Together they plan his day and if her hand brushes his oh so lightly as she hands him his coffee, will not their hearts be lighter as they go though the soul destroying routines of the business day and will not her perfume sweeten his mighty burden?

Absenteeism is a serious problem in the City.  Yet, what greater incentive could a young man possibly have to go to work every day than the glorious possibility of a brief encounter with the beloved by the jammed photocopier, as each of them bends to open Door A and their fingers oh so accidentally touch sending a shock of ecstasy through every fibre of his being.  How lovely she looks as she bends to turn Handle B and her slender hand disappears tantalisingly into the open orifice and emerges with the burned and crumpled paper.

Even in the board room how much more exciting a PowerPoint presentation can be when a nylon clad toe tentatively caresses a manly sock under the conference table and two hearts may still beat as one even if the quarter-end numbers are represented on the screen in a gracefully declining arc of red.

In conclusion, to the team leaders among you, I say this.  Your aim is to keep your team in the office for as many hours of the day as you can possibly get away with.  In this endeavour, the office romance is your greatest weapon.  Provide some cosy and private spaces where love can blossom, for example a walk-in stationery cupboard, or lockable photocopy room, and you will soon find that your team will be in no hurry to take the 17:30 back to the suburbs.  As you walk though the office and hear a dozen different employees calling their partners with “I’m sorry darling I have to work late” you know that they will be at their desks for a least another couple of hours in case their partner calls back and you can retire to your own personal stationery cupboard with the employee of your choice with a clear conscience.

 

 

 

 

 

Delia on Vampires

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Delia 6Delia on Vampires was first performed at the Hard Rock Cafe, London, on Halloween. One evening during rehearsals, our director’s husband had been kept late at work and had failed to pick up their two little girls, then 10 and 8 and so she had to bring them with her to the rehearsal room. I didn’t feel very comfortable performing this particular speech in front of two children and so I waited until, I believed, they were out of the room before rehearsing my monologue. We worked on it for about thirty minutes and then she suggested we do a run through without stopping. I had just come to the line Thirdly, remember the vampire’s fangs represent the penis. Well, two penises actually…. and had paused dramatically, after the vampire’s fangs represent the penis. To my absolute horror, two little voices came out from under the director’s table chorusing “Well, two penises actually.”

Delia on Vampires

Hello again romance fans. My name is Delia Darling and I’m delighted to welcome you to my blog How to Write a Romance Novel.

As we have seen the Romance novel can be subdivided into various romantic genres. We have the Regency, the Hospital, the Shopping. But nowadays these are not enough. Publishers expect blood, violence, sadistic sex and not just at the office. The novelist is under pressure as never before. How to quench this thirst for blood? The answer is, of course, the Vampire!  

Your vampire hero must be of aristocratic lineage and European descent. I’m afraid American vampire heroes are rarely successful despite recent attempts. On the other hand Americans make excellent werewolves, perhaps because they require so little transformation.

Now, how do we convince women who swoon at the prospect of a flu shot that the fangs of the vampyre represent the culmination of all their sensual longings?

Well first of all of course he must be beautiful. Ugly vampires, one cannot help feeling, would be staked pretty sharpish! Just my little joke. Do remember however, that you are describing the living dead. “In the glimmering moonlight, his chiselled cheekbones slashed across his face like blades, and above them his eyes gleamed with a savage hunger, belied by the sensitive curve of his full, pale lips.”

Secondly the setting must be sumptuously romantic. Your cowboy hero may get away with making love in the back of a rusty pick-up but the vampire lover requires ambience. “A nightingale hymned the stars as she sped lightly down the steps to the moonlit rose-garden where her dark master awaited her.”

Thirdly, remember the vampire’s fangs represent the penis. Well, two penises actually, and the heroine’s ladyparts are, of course, in her neck. Your language must reflect this. “As his fangs slid like silk into her tumescent, quivering flesh she was carried on a wave of desire to the very pinnacle of rapture.”

Now there may be some of you who, for religious or spiritual reasons, have difficulty with the concept of the vampire as hero. If so I strongly recommend that you purchase my new book entitled Religion and Romance: what is the Missionary’s Position?