Any Advice from Romance Writers?

It's done. I mean I still have to polish it, and run it by my editor, but the whole story is out of my head and onto the screen. It came in at over 32k words, the longest thing I've ever written.

Which brings up a new question for Romance authors. Should I publish it as one long 9-10 page story? Or should I break it out into chapters? I know there are other threads specifically about this topic, and I've read them, but I'm curious about the perceptions of Romance authors.

Personally, as a reader, I don't usually start any story over 3 pages unless I have a good reason to think I'll like it. And the Romance stories I've read on Lit have all been multi-chapter with short chapters. So I'm kind of tempted to go that route. On the other hand, when my attempt at Sci-Fi grew to 6 pages, I was assured by Sci-Fi authors that Sci-Fi readers have patience with longer one-part stories and actually prefer them. Do Romance readers feel the same?

Any thoughts or advice are welcome. Thanks.
 
My one story in Romance was 24K words in one chunk, and it was successful. It was divided internally into chapters, and I envisioned that readers could use the chapters to mark where they were in the story and then read it in multiple sittings. I don't know if anyone actually did that.

Romance readers may be more patient than some. After all, they aren't reading for quick gratification.
 
Why are a lot of people writing stories using four part sentences? Are they called quadphrase sentences? Is it really one sentence or is it four divided by commas and not full stops. There has to be a technical term for it. I find it develops a rhythm that becomes very irritating in its blandness. Is it a form of poetry and not prose? I guess it demonstrates some skill in writing but the story becomes dominated by it and loses its sense of immediacy. It's like a technical text book style. Does that look of officialness allow the writer more leeway in outrageousness in ascribing to charactors traits that are in real life very rare? To support it a lot of clumsy, unnecessary and often highly sanctimonious verbiage is used. I notice it associated mostly with romance.

Looooong sentences with lots of commas. Like this example maybe? Or were you thinking something different. It can be really clumsy, but in the example below I did it deliberately to try and convey that breathless non-stop action and thought that goes on when you've totally got the adrenaline flowing and the shit's hit the fan and you're totally in the zone and .... you get the idea. :eek: That kind of long sentence? Altho I used a lot of "ands" rather than commas I guess.

"Chupacabras," I screamed at the top of my fucking voice and put the next round through the head of the nearest one. It went down but they were all moving and moving fast and I was shooting like I was on the fucking range, totally cold, no emotion coz there's no room for that, double tapping and counting my shots and this was a ten round mag with an eleventh already loaded coz there's no such thing as to many rounds and when you need them you need every single fucking one and this was definitely a need them fucking moment and I was down to four left and then two and then it clicked and Steve musta been counting as well coz his hand grabbed my shoulder like a vice and just yanked me back into the cab and onto the floor and he had his Colt 1911 in the other hand and he was blowing away that one that was leaping for the side-window and I was already slamming a spare mag in from the reloads and the last of those fucking monsters was on the windscreen trying to break through and I just pushed myself up and passed Steve a spare mag with one hand and closed my eyes for a second and shot right through the fucking windscreen with the other.
 
Romance readers may be more patient than some. After all, they aren't reading for quick gratification.

I have tried both approaches. The multi-part story did quite well, but the all-at-once story got more readers and a slightly higher score. But maybe the story and the characters had more general appeal. Who knows? :)
 
It's done. I mean I still have to polish it, and run it by my editor, ...
Any thoughts or advice are welcome. Thanks.
a) don’t polish too long (I know what you’re like); and b) one long story. If you split it into say three chapters, you’ll just get depressed discovering how many people don’t finish. With one long story, you’ll never know. If you’ve written it as one long thing I reckon it’s best to publish that way.
 
...If you split it into say three chapters, you’ll just get depressed discovering how many people don’t finish...

Interesting point, EB. I hadn't thought about that. I had thought that multiple chapters might get more comments, and I could tag each chapter more precisely. I certainly wouldn't enjoy seeing readers drop off though.

...If you’ve written it as one long thing I reckon it’s best to publish that way.

The story covers an eight month time span, so there are jumps between scenes. Once I realized how long the story was going to be, I started toying with the idea of breaking it up, so there are already good cliff hanger break points written into it. But they'd work just as well in a long story as in chapters.
 
a) don’t polish too long (I know what you’re like);

It's off to the editor.

Seven days of polishing isn't too much is it? I sent 34k words to my editor; that's 10 Lit pages, so it's less than a day of polish per page. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't find any gaping plot holes or jarring continuity errors. If it comes back with nothing but a few typos to correct, I should have it submitted soon. So now I just have to be patient.

Ugh.
 
I do tend to add more words than I delete when I polish, but I'm not sure I have enough polish for a whole extra page. ;)
Ten to twelve pages are close enough. Too bad (for us) we're not paid by the word. Even a penny a word would be a hundred bucks for a three-pager here. I could polish-up a few pages, no problem.
 
I finally got it back from the Editor and submitted it for publication. It only took me 221 days from concept to submission—I'm not sure that's a record I want to break. Now I just have to wait for it to be released. At least I could pester my editor. I mean, I didn't pester my editor. That would be rude. But I always knew I had the option, and somehow that made the waiting easier. I can't pester Laurel. I just have to wait.

Double ugh.
 
I finally got it back from the Editor and submitted it for publication. It only took me 221 days from concept to submission—I'm not sure that's a record I want to break. Now I just have to wait for it to be released. At least I could pester my editor. I mean, I didn't pester my editor. That would be rude. But I always knew I had the option, and somehow that made the waiting easier. I can't pester Laurel. I just have to wait.

Double ugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg
 
If you write the romance story, let me know. I want to read it💋

It's live at last. And even after all of my proofreading and editing, of course I noticed typo right away. Ah well.

Once more, Thank You to all of the experienced Romance writers who offered their advice. I think I learned a little something from each of you, and tried to fold in everything I'd learned. If any of you do take the time to read it, I hope you can recognize your own influence on the work. I'd be happy to have any feedback, both good or bad.

Here's the link:
Springer Mountain Bride
After the night we shared, I never thought I'd see her again.
 
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