Not since Ignorance and Want peered out from the shadows of the Ghost of Christmas Present’s robe have so many people recoiled from children as they do from secret babies. (Well, okay, there was Damien. And Rosemary’s Baby, and that girl from The Exorcist. Oh, and…never mind.)
Mocked, scorned, shunned, and starring on numerous pet peeve lists, secret babies would seem to be unwanted. And yet, their numerous appearances in the most popular lines from Harlequin and Silhouette paint a different picture entirely. As I heard Leslie Wainger say on a conference tape, “Hooks are hooks because they sell, people.” From personal experience, Forever Again and 72 Hours are probably neck and neck as the favorites among my readers. Both have secret babies.
So what’s the deal with them?
As an aside, today my own (brilliant & lovely) editor listed her 13 Pet Peeves in Reading on her blog and look: 10. Secret babies (and yet, I’ve edited two books that have “secret babies” in them). Those were me. Back to back, even. Can I hear a big WOOT! for editors who throw themselves into and give their best to a book containing a plot element with a high personal peeve factor?
So why the disparity? Besides personally believing there are many, many closet secret baby fans, here are two points about secret baby romances I feel are key:
- It is very, very hard to create and maintain sympathetic characters in a secret baby book. Asking readers to emotionally bond with a woman who hid a child from its father (and thereby hiding a father from her child) is asking a lot. The reason for secrecy has to be compelling and believable. A broken heart, infidelity, and “because my Daddy said so” are weak unto themselves, and if a reader can’t empathize with the heroine, the book is toast. If a reader comes across enough of those, the entire premise is toast. And, although the idea is that the hero didn’t know about the child and therefore is blameless, he can also lose a reader’s sympathy very easily. My editor and I worked hard on Travis (Forever Again), as she kept trying to pull him back from unsympathetic territory. To me, a nearing-middle aged man looking forward to a wedding and a new life and suddenly finding himself the father of a teenaged girl is going to have to work through some issues. It was a tightrope with Travis, and even the most favorable reviews mention the reviewer wanting to slap him upside the head occasionally.
- On the flip side, a secret baby ratchets the emotional conflict up to a near primal level. Internal conflicts come from the beliefs and values of the characters, and nothing impacts those more strongly than children (although, the child can’t be the only conflict). I also think the writer can have a much stronger conflict pulling the hero and heroine apart, because the child keeps pushing them back together. No matter what lies between the characters, they have no choice but to work through it.
So how about you? Do you love secret babies? Hate them? (It’s okay if you do. I promise I won’t cry.) Do you secretly love them but don’t admit it because of the ridicule they’re subjected to? What’s the appeal? What repels?
Shannon
www.shannonstacey.com
Secret babies, PAH! A pox on them and their little dogs too. As an adopted child and the mother of two adopted boys, all of whom were “secret” pregnancies and babies, I just cringe like crazy over this story line. It’s almost like the child is carrying a stigma and I hated that feeling growing up.
It’s so cliche and people think it’s an easy storyline to write. Bah and hum-buggery on that idea. It’s not. It takes a clever story, balls of steel and an inventive writer to make plausible these days.
This is a new millennium. The time of dark of the night shuttlings to the home for unwed mothers is gone, and good riddance. Many women are single parents and doing a fine job.
It would take a clever writer to make me interested in this storyline. Fortunately, Samhain is dripping with clever writers.
I love a good story, and that’s all that matters. As far as the secret babies, Shan, you pulled it off really well in both your books, and that’s not easy to do. They were fantastic reads with incredible emotion. Well done!
I don’t have a problem with secret babies. Heck, half of the category romances have secret babies, there must be something to the story line. If it’s not a good story it won’t matter if there’s a secret baby or not.
My two cents.
Don’t mind them in the least and neither do thousands of readers out there. There’s a reason they keep cropping up in series books. They SELL!
I’ll read anything done well, and 72 Hours and Forever Again are top-notch books! Bring on secret babies if it gets me stories and characters like those. ; )
How many myths share the secret baby element? Why does anyone remember King Herod?
And let’s not forget that George Lucas built an empire off not one, but two secret babies.
It’s only a hook, and as everyone’s already said, it’s the characters, their motivation, and what they do about it that matters.
If an author’s phonin’ it in, the reader knows. This hook gets a bad rap because some pub houses seem to have it on speed dial, but it’s been done to such powerful effect so many times, the hook will live on, whether it’s in NY vogue at any given moment or not.
As a reader, I just want a good story. Make it compelling enough, and I’d happily spend several hours with a flying pig’s secret baby.
I love em. Shoot, I’ll read just about any romance if it includes a baby.
Generally, I don’t like them, but I’ve also read several books that had that plotline and did it well. I’m not sure if I could write it or not, but I think – as in most stories – if the motivation is clear and strong and the writing is good, then it’s a book worth reading!
I just want a good story. As long as I get invested in the characters I don’t care what the hook is.
It’s not one of my favorite plots, but a good writer can turn it into a good story. I don’t always seek it out, though.
I hate the storyline BUT 72 Hours is on my favorites list from last year so there.
Give me an inventive author and she can do most any storyline proud.
I’ve written three secret baby stories (I think). The first one, although I loved it, I probably wouldn’t write today — it was a pretty typical she-kept-the-baby-secret-because-she-didn’t-want-to-trap-the-father (who’d more than indicated he wasn’t interested in taking the relationship further) plotline. And, to make things even worse, I’d thrown in a Big Mis, too. Hell, I was still new, what did I know?
Lotsa people still bought it, though, so I knew the basic premise was popular. Soooo, the next time I did a Secret Baby story, I put the onus on the father — the heroine couldn’t very well contact him if a) she didn’t know where he was and b) didn’t know WHO he was. By the time she found out, there were other issues involved — like her current husband making her promise NOT to tell him. Basically, everybody screwed up, and the focus of the story was how they all fixed it. Worked for me.
The third time, I took the blame off BOTH protagonists, by making the heroine not the mother — and her dead sister had refused to tell who the father was. As soon as the heroine found out, she went looking for him — even though, for all she knew, he could have been a total jerk. So you still had all that lovely angst without all that messy “there’s no good reason for a mother to never tell the father” stuff.
Having said that, and knowing any number of real-life secret baby scenarios, I don’t happen to agree that there’s NEVER a reason for a woman to not tell a guy about the baby. There could be family pressure, for instance, she’d be hard pressed to circumvent, at least for a few months or a couple of years. And sometimes, a gal just knows the man who knocked her up ain’t gonna be a plus in her baby’s life. Or at least, so she thinks at the time. People sometimes make dumb decisions, like sleeping with people they shouldn’t. And birth control is a lot dicier than we’d like to believe. Now, whether or not somebody could turn a real loser-type daddy into a hero-type daddy is something else again.
But in the right author’s hands. . .why not? And that’s the challenge that keeps me, and other authors, going — how to give those who love a particular plot device what they want while while addressing the objections of those who hate it.
It’s kinda fun, actually.
I like “secret baby” books, too. Emphasis on BOOKS. For some reason I “buy” it when I read a well-crafted romance, but when they do it in the movies it just seems stupid.
I just watched Superman Returns and I had no sympathy for Lois Lane. She came across as mean for not telling Superman the boy was his son.
I’m just glad our books are more varied than the movies these days.
>looks around furtively< I love ‘em. I love a good angsty book. Well, I love all books, but when I want a good emotional, tug-the-heartstrings book, I look for a hidden baby, blackmail or revenge and if I can find all in one, I’m in heaven.
Gimme one about a woman who has the strength to build a life after the hero—through a misinformation, of course—casts her aside and refuses to hear anything she has to say, bars her from his life and thereby sets himself up for not knowing about the child. She’s poor, he’s rich, but she makes due as best she can…
Or. Her father his life by ruined his father destroying the family business and sleeping with his mom and now he’s back to take his revenge. Blackmails her into his bed then leaves her while telling her all about how she was a pawn in his vengeful justice and how awful her dad is—like she doesn’t know it already. Now she finds out she’s preggers and decides not to tell him cuz he’s obviously a ^&*/can’t reach him because he refuses all contact/leaves a message but his girlfriend wanna be deletes it…
Yes, my secret love is Harlequin Presents. I admit it. I can’t get enough of them, bad titles and all. Well, can’t get enough of the well crafted stories. Sometimes I scratch my head at a few.
~Crissy
Crissy, I spend more money every month on Harlequin Presents than I do any other line, book, publisher etc
Im not in the least apologetic either hehe.
I do admit, however, to havng just read one with a secret baby plot that was so mind numbingly stupid that I was blinking hard and shaking my head. I skimmed over most of it and the ending was just as moronic.
I hesitate to be scornful of any plot device. Sure, I have my favorites and my least favorites, but it’s all on the author. A well crafted story can make me put aside all prejudices. I will believe ANYTHING in a story if an author writes it compellingly enough.
Every time I see someone who says somewhat snidely that they hate XYZ plot or they hate this or that, I cringe because A. they’re missing some really terrific stories by making such a blanket statement and B. I can summon 3-4 titles just off the top of my head in each of these reviled topics that were beautifully written, impeccably rendered stories, not to mention all the others I could think up if given a few minutes
And P.S. Karen Templeton could write about love with the garbage man and his six secret babies and I buy it and devour it. She rocks, no matter WHAT she writes about.
Okay, I admit it . . . I love secret babies. Actually, I love the suspense of the reveal. I like the plot to be well-done, and I want to be able to believe it without hating her for not telling him or him for being a jerk . . .
But give me a well-done secret baby plot and I’m in heaven.
It’s that box of Harlequin Presents someone gave my dad when I was in middle school and which Daddy passed on to me without realizing what he was doing!
Maya — hey! You’ve just given me the idea for my next book! <vbg>
And if it wasn’t the end of the day and I hadn’t just finished writing a synopsis, I might even be able to think of a catchy title.
I’m so glad this topic came up. My writing partner and I had a story idea that involved the secret baby angle and then we sold to Samhain and she read somewhere that secret baby stories got a thumbs down.
Our story doesn’t hinge on that hook so it could be taken out, but it’s cool to see that readers aren’t so against it. So maybe it will find its way back in.
I have to agree with Maya. I have my own personal likes and dislikes. But I’ve read books featuring a hook I didn’t like but written so well I couldn’t put the book down.
And yes, Karen Templeton does rock. She’s a gifted writer and very generous of her time and talent.
I usually don’t care for secret baby stories, simply because too often the author doesn’t come up with a compelling enough reason for the heroine to have kept that secret. But I agree with so many others, give me characters I care about and a compelling plot and I’ll follow you anywhere
YAY! It’s so awesome seeing those secret babies getting some love.
I absolutely agree that sometimes one misses out when doing a blanket dismissal of a plot premise. I, as a rule, don’t read amnesia or twin stories unless they’re recommended to me, and I’ve really enjoyed a few of them.
I guess that phrase “It’s all in the execution” really is the bottom line. If you can do it and do it well, then go for it.
And P.S. Karen Templeton could write about love with the garbage man and his six secret babies and I buy it and devour it. She rocks, no matter WHAT she writes about.
Well, she did an electrician and his six (not-so-secret) “babies”. Or were there five…. And I totally agree!
I was thrilled to see my secret babies get some love when they came into the world, and it’s awesome to know that if I should come up with another one (my editor just recoiled in horror…OMG, a secret baby hat trick?) that there are plenty of secret baby fans out there.
Great post, Shan! I loved 72Hours and can’t wait to see what’s next for the group. (that was a hint to hurry it up because I want to read it)
I’m with everyone else here today…I love a good story.
Hmm. Wonder what MY editor will say when she gets a gander of the secret baby story I sent her on New Year’s Eve.
It’s a dark and complicated plot. The baby doesn’t belong to the heroine, but to another woman. The hero and the other woman were teens when the baby was conceived. Both grew up rough and on the streets and lost contact before she learned she was pregnant. She’s NOT a sympathetic person, but…
that’s all I’m gonna say.
If my editor does accept it, it may just mean I handled it well.
Stop pinching me, Mandy. You’re starting to leave bruises.
And Marie-Nicole, it doesn’t sound like the mother of the secret baby needs to be all that sympathetic, since she’s not the heroine. The story sounds intriguing, so hopefully your editor will accept it soon so all of us secret baby fans can read it!
Years ago I read a secret baby story that truly made me mad, so I quit reading them for a while. Lately, however, I’ve been reading, and enjoying, them again. To repeat – it’s all in the execution and I’ll read a good story – regardless of the plot if it’s well written.
My first book (with another publisher) was a secret baby that was a secret to both the h and H. A friend who read it and passed it along to her mother told me today that her mother loved it so much she cried. I thought “WOW!” I love the book, but I certainly didn’t expect that reaction.
I guess it’s like any other plot device — if it works, it works. I’m not for or against the secret baby ploy, but I’m not sure I could write it. Honestly, with five children of my own running around, I find it highly difficult to write any type of child into my romances.
I agree, Shannon, you really have to handle it well and pay careful attention to making those clueless dads (and moms) sympathetic.
I find the secret baby plotline hard to swallow, because if it’s done in the conventional way of the heroine keeping the secret from the hero without any other factors brought in (like it’s not really her baby or whatever), then you need to write the hero VERY carefully.
I use my DH as my “template” if you will for my heroes.
They may or may not end up like him, but they’ve all got qualities of him. I guess the adage “write what you know” rings true.
But when I sit back and think what my DH would do if a woman told him of a secret baby, he’d fly off the deep end. It would take a very long time for him to forgive a woman that. I read a secret baby/twin book rolled into one (no, the secret baby wasn’t a twin) the twins were the hero and his brother. Anyhow, he and the heroine have a falling out and she’s PG with twins herself and gives birth.
He comes back after a year of galavanting God only knows where, to find out she’s had his babies and she didn’t bother to tell him, either.
Problems with this book:
1.) I cannot stand romances that lead you through the love story and at the end have a year of separation before the HEA. Unless it’s specifically a story about finding love after being reunited, I don’t want to read about a separation before the HEA.
2.) It was hard to empathise with the heroine because she was pissed at the hero. It was almost as if she was “punishing” him for what he’d done in the book, and that was a very petty motivation and left a bad taste.
3.) The hero forgave her too fast. Literally, I think it was one chapter. He came home after dreaming of her and realizing she’s the one, he sees her, notices her body is “fuller” than it had been and figures it out that she’d recently had babies. She tells him of the twins and he’s shocked, and angry at first, but then they’re locked in a passionate embrace because, of course, they’ve been separated for so long and cannot resist each other now (let’s not forget the evil things he did or the petty revenge on her part).
Anyway this book closes with them making love before he even sees his daughters and I’m thinking, “huh?”
But it’s true, there are a LOT of secret babies out there in the romance world. Naming their titles is almost like a drinking game. LOL
“The Billionaire’s Baby Bonanza”
Can Jackie Struthers face oil tycoon Brian Steele two years after their one-night stand and tell him he’s a father? And what will Brian do when he finds out he’s not just a father to one bundle of joy, but to a set of adorable triplets with blonde curls?
Will he survive the child support? (Thank goodness he’s a billionaire!)
snort
~~Becka