Writing Romance - Chapter One1. Ingredients of a Successful Romance NovelCategory or single-title?Romance novels can be divided into two types according to how they are published. Category Romances are marketed monthly under imprints readers have learned to associate with romance—Harlequin Presents, Bantam Loveswept, Silhouette Special Edition. Each book bearing the same imprint carries a distinctive cover design its readers recognize. Under each imprint or "line," the publisher issues a fixed number of titles each month. To reduce costs, all books in the line have a fixed page length. Once printed, they are marketed in a block. Each store selling the line agrees to accept a fixed quantity of each title monthly. In addition, many category romance lines are also marketed by publisher book clubs. Readers have certain expectations of category romances: that they will be romantic, have a happy ending, and that the theme will be empowering. When a new writer sells to a category market, she has the advantage that the book will be delivered to every drug store, grocery store and bookstore selling her category line, and also to book club subscribers. Because of this large exposure, the new writer may earn good money writing her first category romance. As her name becomes better known, readers will also recognize her name on the shelves and she can hope sales will increase. For more information about specific categories and their publishers, see Appendix II. Single-title romance novels are not part of a category line, their page length is not fixed, and each is sold on an individual basis. The reader must examine the book spine or title page to identify the publisher or imprint. Avon, Bantam, Berkley/Jove, Dell, Harlequin Mira, Harper Paperbacks, Kensington Publishing Corp., Penguin Books, Pocket Books, Leisure Books, St. Martin’s Press, and Warner Books all publish single-title romances. An authors’ income is based on royalties paid as a percentage of the cover price of books sold. Because booksellers order single-title books by author and title, a single-title novel is a gamble for a new writer. If the publisher pushes the book, the booksellers stock it, and readers buy it, a single-title novel may do very well. As with category romance, the single-title author’s sales may increase as she writes more books and readers come to identify her books as a good read. |
|
Whether you choose category romance or single title depends on the type of story you like reading and the area of the market you feel comfortable tackling. Whichever area of the market you choose as your goal, you’ll want to write a successful romantic story that excites both you and your readers.
A good novel begins by stirring a question in the reader's mind, the story question. The nature of your story question is determined by the type of novel you are writing. In a romance novel, the story question is usually something like: Will the heroine overcome her problems and find true love and partnership? The story question must remain the focus throughout the story, and should never be completely answered until the end of the novel.
The best love stories are fantasies in which the deep emotional values of love, family, and partnership in marriage emerge victorious over lesser values. Even when the ending is unhappy, the value of love triumphs, as in Bridges Of Madison County and Casablanca. Hero and heroine are deeply altered by their love. They emerge from their struggles more emotionally whole than they began.
The reader wants to identify with the heroine, care about her, and believe in her. The heroine need not be beautiful, but it must be believable that the hero finds her attractive. Many memorable romances have been done about heroines with disabilities. In Draw Down the Moon, Bobby Hutchinson told the story of a heroine bound by a wheelchair. In Mermaid, Judy Griffith Gill created a courageous yet vulnerable heroine with only one leg. Whether physically whole or disabled, your heroine needs strong personality characteristics and at least one believable and non-trivial weakness. She needs fears, dreams, hopes, a personal history, and hang-ups. She should begin the story at a change or crisis point in her life. Depending on the category of fiction you choose, she could be any adult age.
Your hero must be a man your heroine can love. Although the stereotypical hero is strong, macho, taciturn and stubborn, many memorable romances have featured unique heroes who do not fit this profile. Like the heroine, your hero needs strengths, weaknesses, goals, and dreams. He should also begin the story at a change or crisis point in his life. Depending on the category you are writing for, he may be either older or younger than the heroine.
Most good books begin with an immediate initial problem or conflict which keeps the reader turning pages until the core conflict develops. By the time the immediate problem is solved, other problems have developed. Although this initial conflict rarely has the emotional depth to carry the book, it should be related to the characters and the core conflict.
As your hero and heroine come to know each other, new obstacles to their happy ending must appear, or the original conflict must grow and change. In the strongest stories, the developing conflict grows out of the characters of hero and heroine, to reveal a core difficulty between them which must be resolved before they can have a successful relationship.
To be interesting, the events in your romance novel must be important to your characters. In a successful romance novel, the story or plot develops logically and naturally from character and conflict.
In a successful romance novel, the degree of sexual intimacy must be appropriate to the characters and the story. A love scene should reveal hero and heroine’s feelings and the excitement of their growing intimacy. The most powerful love scenes are ones in which the writer focuses on the emotions of the characters, not the clinical details of lovemaking.
In our myths and stories, certain character types appear again and again, based on a pattern or archetype. Psychologist Carl Jung believed many powerful archetypes have a deep universal appeal.
If you have a strong story idea that you care about passionately, it probably contains at least one powerful archetype. To develop an awareness of archetypes you might use in your stories, think about the themes and characters you like reading. Look at the descriptions of archetypes below and ask yourself if the characters that touch you fit any archetypes.
Powerful Archetypes For Your Characters
As you read a good novel, the obstacles to happiness and fulfillment intensify as the story progresses. As you near the end of the book, you reach a point where it seems impossible for hero and heroine to resolve their differences. This is the black moment.
The more emotionally intense a black moment is, the more satisfying the reader will find the resolution and victory that follows. A particularly intense black moment is created when a character experiences the event he or she most fears. For example, the heroine who fears abandonment may discover the hero has abandoned and betrayed her.
When readers pick up a category romance, they expect a happy ending. In a single title romance, a happy ending isn’t strictly necessary, although most single title romances do have a happy ending. Whether the ending is happy or sad, by the time hero and heroine arrive at the end, they must achieve personal growth. The ending must be emotionally satisfying, affirming the values of love and positive relationships.
|
|
Why is your hero so tough, hard and outrageously masculine? You need to know, so that you understand what sent him down the Alpha road. What secret vulnerability is he hiding—especially from the heroine? An Alpha hero should directly threaten the heroine’s peace of mind, her way of life, but never forget—he’s a good man. Show that he’s a hero, with all that that implies—generosity of spirit, competence, confidence. Because he’s a hero, he is never needlessly rude or aggressive. A hero demands high standards. Although he’s a natural leader, that inborn authority and control over his emotions have been honed by intelligence, experience, and circumstances. The writer needs to know what those circumstances were, or discover them as she writes. An Alpha hero tries to behave according to his own ideas of honor. If he fails, he has an over-riding reason for his treachery—often the greater good of mankind—for which he may feel he has to sacrifice both his own happiness and that of the heroine. There’s an aura of danger about the Alpha hero. This man lives by his own rules; he’s strong-willed enough to impose those rules on others, but he has a healthy respect for humanity and its laws. At first he may not understand that the strong sexual attraction he feels for the heroine can be transmuted into love. He may begin by being cynical about emotions, but by the end of the book he’s learned that he can trust the heroine with his happiness and honor. So he must have the capacity to love, to feel compassion, to learn to live with another person. |
Thirty years ago category publishers would seldom buy a novel that dealt with a controversial issue. Today, the extent to which a romance editor will be friendly towards a book dealing with a sensitive issue depends on the editor’s interests, and the publisher’s recent experiences.
Here are only a few of the issues that have been tackled in category romance:
If you are writing about a controversial issue, watch the bookshelves carefully to discover which publishers and which lines are dealing with similar issues today.
|
|
Serious matters are dealt with successfully in romance by being individualized, given a personal face. One woman’s efforts to overcome the effects of rape on her love life, one man’s battle with alcoholism for the sake of his relationship with a woman, described by a skilled and sincere writer, can illuminate, educate, comfort and influence, even mobilize. A reader who cares about your characters will gain understanding of their problems in a wider sense. Stories influence readers. "Big" issues like saving whales or rain forests tend to overwhelm the story. If the heroine has reared a pet whale from birth, or lives in the threatened rain forest, there’s a germ of a story—not about whales or rain forests but about two people. Does the sheltered but imprisoned whale represent the heroine’s own need for security? Or does the hero’s determination to build a road and hospital in the wilds arise from guilt at failing to save his son from some tropical disease? And how does that affect the love story? The issue should be central, not an extra that could be removed without affecting the romance. But a romance is not about a problem. It is about a woman or a man with a specific problem who falls in love with someone who at first compounds the problem and ultimately helps resolve it. The relationship between two people falling in love is at the heart of every romance. |
Because each area of the romance genre has its own unique flavor, there’s probably a place for your story idea somewhere in the genre. For the best chance of publication, study market information before writing and submitting your story. Read what’s being published today, and read about writing and about romance. For more resources, see Appendixes 2 and 3.
Trade orders call 1-800-663-3007.
Outside North America, call 604-986-3366
Excerpt from Writing Romance by Vanessa Grant, 1st edition © 1997 Vanessa Grant.
(Cover Art © 1997 Self Counsel Press.) ISBN 1-55180-096-9.
Reproduced by permission of Vanessa Grant and Self Counsel Press.
This page last updated
September 1, 2002
.
Copyright © 2002, Muse Creations Inc
and Cameron Oltmann. All Rights Reserved
