Writing the Dark Side of Chick-Lit

A Guest Post by Anna Bell

I think that a lot of non chick-lit readers think that everything between those bright pink covers are fluffy and light-hearted, but so many chick-lit books have a darker topic within. My new novel, Don’t Tell the Groom, does too. Penny, the main character, has gambled away £10,000 on internet bingo. The challenge for me when writing the book became: how do you write a laugh-out-loud comedy centred around such a serious topic.

I picked online gambling as a theme for Don’t Tell the Groom as I’m always fascinated by the bingo adverts on TV. Bingo ads are often an assault on the eyes with all the bright colours, and the people in them are always having ridiculous amounts of fun playing it. The adverts always got me wondering - behind all the flashing lights and jollity, surely there has to be a darker side to it? A quick search on the internet soon revealed that gambling addiction amongst women was on the rise, and online gambling was one of the main causes.

I knew then that if I was going to tackle gambling, I had to do it both sensitively but also as accurately as I could (without becoming a bingo addict myself). I asked a friend to introduce me to one of their friends who I knew had had an online gambling addiction. The friend was amazing, they told me all about their motivations, the ramifications of the gambling, and their treatment. I think what hit me the most about the addiction was how secret it could be. Unlike alcohol, drugs or smoking, there are no physical signs that a person has a gambling addiction. And especially with online gambling no one needs to see you do it, and with mobile apps, it can be done anywhere.

After realising just how serious the consequences were, I had to create a balance between portraying the addiction well and remembering that I was writing a romantic comedy, not a tragedy. I tried to keep the humour to a minimum in the scenes where Penny got help with her addiction. But I couldn’t lose the humour entirely or else it wouldn’t have fit with the rest of the tone of the novel.

It is the first time I’ve challenged myself as a writer to tackle such a difficult topic. I guess now, it’s over to the readers to judge whether I got that the balance between sensitivity and humour right!

Here's the Amazon link for Don't Tell the Groom

Anna's website: www.annabellwrites.com