Any Advice from Romance Writers?

[MelissaBaby]

I tend to agree. Three chapters all written in different styles. First, a long build up to sex but with a happy ending. Second, lots of seducing of the male MC buy the sister-in-law, but with a happy ending back with the wife. Third, sex all the way through and male MC dying. Second chapter has been the best received so far. Fourth is a happy sort of ending with a cliff hanger. I wanted to see how romance handled it. So far it's second best of the four.

There is a formula to romance but you have room to play inside it. The trick is character development. Get the reader to identify with your characters and they'll forgive, or hate them. Either is a win. My first chapter has a comment about hating the MC. I left it as it means I got them involved.

The only advice I can offer is when it comes to sex scenes. If you want to describe them, make sure it's for a reason. Stories that go on for chapters will get tedious if it's constantly described. When you get to later chapters you'll find readers are there for the characters and can fill in details themselves. If it's a one-off then by all means, give them something to spank about. Part three of my story has a very explicit scene at the end, but it's for a reason. It brings to a close what had been building, and sets up the ending, sort of.

Most of my chapters have contained an explicit sex scene, and I've had no complaints, other than that I got to the first one too soon, a critique with which I concur.

I think it's important to keep them succinct, to avoid describing them in vulgar terms and to make them realistic.

As someone else said, the key to successful Romance writing is the readers identification with the characters. I wrote a scene in which, because Alvin had strained his back putting in an air conditioner for Mary, he isn't up to intercourse, so she gives him a hand job. I got a lovely message from a reader saying that her husband has a bad back and they have been in the same situation. What had been for me just a change of pace was for her a special moment.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Without knowing the formula, that's about how I wrote my one Romance so far, a historical piece (The Botanists) about actual notable middle-agers, science celebs in their day (1880-1920), in 3rd person focusing on individuals.

To start: They've known OF each other professionally but meet for the first time at a science thang. Sparks fly. They are very nervous and reserved for years, but the bond grows. Their work often keeps them apart... until they decide to join. There's exactly one bit of explicit sex but much reporting of their interactions.

The whole was inspired by one line in a botany book. After their surprise wedding in San Diego in 1889, they honeymooned by WALKING the 500-odd miles (plus side trips) to San Francisco, "botanizing along the way." The end is almost anticlimactic. The future looks bright. HEA?

I just read it, and thought it was wonderful.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think the basic story idea is a good one. I can see a good romantic story from that. I agree with Hector Biden that the natural point of view for the story would be the man, who would be surprised at the beginning by the woman's announcement and then would spend the story struggling to deal with that. You have to think through what his struggle is, and what it is he has to overcome. That will govern the arc of your story, and also should govern its POV.

I would NOT recommend writing a story with alternating first person POV. In most cases, I don't think it works. It often seems gimmicky. It's confusing to the reader to be told a story from one person's point of view, and then from the other's. To me, it takes the reader out of the story and makes the reader conscious of the author manipulating the POV behind the scenes. If you want to reveal what multiple characters are thinking, the best way to do it, most of the time, is to tell the story from the third person POV, omniscient. This is a much more natural, common way to write a story. But in this case, the story might be just fine told just from the point of view of the man.

 

[MelissaBaby]

But in this case, the story might be just fine told just from the point of view of the man.

I do not subscribe to the opinion that a man can not write from a woman's point of view. But a pregnant woman, with all the physical and emotional turmoil that condition brings? That would be a tough row for even the best male writer to hoe.

 

[Hypoxia]

I just read it, and thought it was wonderful.

Thank you thank you! And it's all true, except for the personal parts I made up. I knew exactly where the story went because history; my task was merely to flesh it out.

I would NOT recommend writing a story with alternating first person POV. In most cases, I don't think it works. It often seems gimmicky. It's confusing to the reader to be told a story from one person's point of view, and then from the other's. To me, it takes the reader out of the story and makes the reader conscious of the author manipulating the POV behind the scenes. If you want to reveal what multiple characters are thinking, the best way to do it, most of the time, is to tell the story from the third person POV, omniscient. This is a much more natural, common way to write a story.

Shifting 1st's can be made to work but also go stale very fast. To me, 3rd omniscient is lazy and can reveal too much. I like shifting 3rd limited. In any story section, a hidden telepathic camera follows one player or group.

Fixed 3rd limited can be a lens through which we see and hear only the surface, like a stage play; we must infer the depths. Show, don't tell. 1st's are all about telling. The MC tells you what they sense, think, and do. Are they lying?

 

[SimonDoom]

I should have been clearer. I think I agree with you about this. It works best, usually, when one POV is emphasized in a particular scene -- when the omniscient narrator doesn't flit from one character perspective to another indiscriminately within a scene.

I've written a story where I narrated both perspectives within a specific scene, and I think it worked in that case, but generally speaking, I would agree with you.

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

Depth of emotion is a key element in Romance.

The trick is character development. Get the reader to identify with your characters and they'll forgive, or hate them.

The only advice I can offer is when it comes to sex scenes. If you want to describe them, make sure it's for a reason.

In my experience, romance readers will clap and cheer if a) you have a believable story to tell; b) the characters have lives of their own; c) there are hurdles to be leapt, mazes to be negotiated; and d) the end suggests a future - usually, but not always, an HEA future.

The essential ingredient of a good romance is emotional sincerity.

As someone else said, the key to successful Romance writing is the readers identification with the characters.

Now we're talking. These are the kinds of tips I was hoping for. I mean they're all just good basic advice for any kind of writing, but they're the kind of thing that you can lose focus of when you get into the sex (or the science in my last story). Having people who know remind me will really help me keep a tight focus on what matters most. Thank you ALL for these reminders.

I would NOT recommend writing a story with alternating first person POV.

Shifting 1st's can be made to work but also go stale very fast. To me, 3rd omniscient is lazy and can reveal too much. I like shifting 3rd limited. In any story section, a hidden telepathic camera follows one player or group.

I do not subscribe to the opinion that a man can not write from a woman's point of view. But a pregnant woman, with all the physical and emotional turmoil that condition brings? That would be a tough row for even the best male writer to hoe.

MB, you just ratcheted up the pressure. So here's the way I see it. Romance is outside my comfort zone as a writer. Third person, limited or omniscient, is also outside my comfort zone (well not really, it's just that my journalism/academic background makes all of my third person writing sound stilted and matter-of-fact, but you know what I mean). Rather than doubling down on the risk, I think I'm just going to write this one in first person. That way if it fails, it won't be because my third person sucks. (uh, phrasing?)

That said, I think I may try to get through the first few thousand words and then find an early beta reader to tell me how it's going while there is still time to rewrite the perspective if I need to. Thank you ALL for your arguments supporting both perspectives.

So far I've written up to the phone call, and think it's pretty good, but I don't have the MCs face to face yet. We'll see what happens.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Spoiler alert for readers of Mary and Alvin. This post contains spoilers for Chapter Nine

Depth of emotion is a key element in Romance.

Having achieving some success writing Romance here (much to my own surprise), I have been thinking about what makes it work, and I believe you have hit on the key. It's not just emotional content, it's the depth of the content. But just telling someone they need to add more emotional depth isn't any help if they don't know how. So I gave some thought as to how I do it. And I make a lot of readers cry, so I might be on to a thing or two.

It's my belief that you build real emotional depth over the course of your story by creating many different threads of narrative and eventually weaving them together.

I'll use the last part of my most recent chapter of Mary and Alvin for an example. Mary and Alvin go, along with his daughter and her girlfriend, to a karaoke bar.

Here are pertinent things the reader knows as the scene begins, if they have been reading from the first chapter (and thank you if you have):

-Mary is 27. She is from Los Angeles. When she was young, she wanted to be a dancer. Her father was kind and loving but indifferent to her ambitions. He died when she was 16, and she never achieved any closure with him.

-Alvin is 46, a taciturn Mainer who feels very deeply, but struggles to express it other than in a joking manner. His first wife died suddenly, leaving him with two preteen daughters. The experience has made him fearful that love inevitably leads to unbearable pain.

And it's been established before they go to karaoke that Mary has a fine singing voice, while Alvin's is atrocious. That's a fairly obvious metaphor, I suppose; she's good at expressing her inner self, he's not.

At the bar, Mary takes the stage and dedicates a song to Alvin. She sings Desperado, a song pleading with someone to let down their defenses and let love into their life. The song breaks through to him and they talk about their relationship, Mary telling him that he must decide if he will be ruled by love or fear. Alvin chooses love.

Now here is where I tie the threads into a nice big emotional knot. On the drive home, they snuggle in the back seat of the car. Alvin's daughter fiddles with the radio and stops on Elton John's Tiny Dancer. "Blue jean baby, LA Lady, this is a song for you," she jokingly says to Mary.

In the back seat, Alvin begins singing the chorus, softly, so only Mary can hear. "Hold me closer, tiny dancer...". As the car rolls down the dark road, we are privy to his thoughts and know that he will risk any pain for his love of Mary.

So, bust that Tiny Dancer bit down. Alvin sings to her, sincerely, illustrating that he has broken through in expressing himself. He sings so that only Mary can hear him, underscoring that this breakthrough is specifically about her. He's singing friggin' Tiny Dancer, bringing back to mind that as a little girl she dreamed of being a dancer, and now she is being referred to as such by the older man, in some ways the replacement father figure, that she loves.

I think I can say, from the rating and the comments I have received, that the scene packed the emotional punch that I had hoped for (and waited nine chapters to deliver).

Is that the only "right" way to do it? Of course not, but it's how I do it and it's working for me. I've drop references in the first chapter that won't mean anything significant until the tenth or the twentieth. Maybe nobody but me even remembers them, but I believe that even subliminally, they add to the depth of feeling.

Mary and Alvin Chapter 9: The Queen of Hearts

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

Having achieving some success writing Romance here (much to my own surprise), I have been thinking about what makes it work, and I believe you have hit on the key. It's not just emotional content, it's the depth of the content. But just telling someone they need to add more emotional depth isn't any help if they don't know how. So I gave some thought as to how I do it. And I make a lot of readers cry, so I might be on to a thing or two.

It's my belief that you build real emotional depth over the course of your story by creating many different threads of narrative and eventually weaving them together.

I'll use the last part of my most recent chapter of Mary and Alvin for an example. Mary and Alvin go, along with his daughter and her girlfriend, to a karaoke bar.

HEY HEY HEY! Spoiler Alert! I haven't gotten to Ch 9 yet. It still has a "N" tag, and I have a backlog of Sci-Fi and Fantasy from the GPD event I'm still working through. Sheesh!

Thanks for elaborating on the idea of depth though. It's kind of nice to know how much actual thought and consideration you put into writing that seems so natural and effortless. I had not planned on a particularly long story, or a particularly complex one. I don't expect to have many narrative threads to weave together. But I think I see your deeper point about layering small incidents vs one big expository info dump. Good advice, and definitely I something I can make use of.

 

[Hypoxia]

As someone else said, the key to successful Romance writing is the readers identification with the characters.

That can be tricky. Do they identify because they're familiar, similar to the reader, or because they aspire to be an exotic character? How many wretched schlubs er I mean readers identify as princesses, action heroes, victims in need of rescue, criminal masterminds or sleuths, etc?

I suspect few LIT readers are anything like The Botanists: scholars, explorers, plant-hunters, whose romance was constrained by their social setting of late Victorian propriety. I see the story as pure escapism that's quite factual. I suspect readers liked it because they WANT to be like those characters. That's the identification I see.

 

[NotWise]

Having achieving some success writing Romance here (much to my own surprise), I have been thinking about what makes it work, and I believe you have hit on the key. It's not just emotional content, it's the depth of the content. But just telling someone they need to add more emotional depth isn't any help if they don't know how. So I gave some thought as to how I do it. And I make a lot of readers cry, so I might be on to a thing or two.

I haven't thought that much about it, but you did describe how I set up the two key scenes in Valentines for Cinderella. There are converging threads, many of which start near the beginning of the story, that make the scenes very layered.

 

[MelissaBaby]

HEY HEY HEY! Spoiler Alert! I haven't gotten to Ch 9 yet. It still has a "N" tag, and I have a backlog of Sci-Fi and Fantasy from the GPD event I'm still working through. Sheesh!

Thanks for elaborating on the idea of depth though. It's kind of nice to know how much actual thought and consideration you put into writing that seems so natural and effortless. I had not planned on a particularly long story, or a particularly complex one. I don't expect to have many narrative threads to weave together. But I think I see your deeper point about layering small incidents vs one big expository info dump. Good advice, and definitely I something I can make use of.

I'm sorry! I have edited in a spoiler alert on my post.

I don't think I write in an orthodox manner. I wrote the first chapter of M&A, then I wrote a rough draft of the last chapter. The next thing I wrote was a first draft of a scene that will be in Chapter 10. From there I have generally written the story in chronological order, but I have rough outlines and a few paragraphs written for other future chapters. Some of those I jotted down because I thought of something that would be part of a long thread.

For example, I read a post somewhere from a woman who kept what she called "the pocket jar". From the time her daughter was a toddler, when she did the laundry, she put whatever she found in the little girl's pockets in a jar. By the time the daughter was old enough to leave home, she had a large jar full of stones and shells and barettes and little toys.

Now suppose that Mary and Alvin have a child some day. Might Mary not be the kind of Mom who keeps a pocket jar? And on the day the child leaves for college, might she not sit and empty the jar and explore her memories through the objects in it? Of course, it would be more effective if the reader thinks, "I remember when Mary started putting things in that jar about ten chapters back"?

Of course, it doesn't have to be an epic length narrative to do the same thing, it can certainly be done in a short story. It ought to be easier in a short story, actually. I think of it as "resonance". Most readers didn't consciously notice that the beginning and ending of My Fall and Rise echo each other, but I write as if they will, and I think it adds emotional weight.

 

[MelissaBaby]

That can be tricky. Do they identify because they're familiar, similar to the reader, or because they aspire to be an exotic character? How many wretched schlubs er I mean readers identify as princesses, action heroes, victims in need of rescue, criminal masterminds or sleuths, etc?

I suspect few LIT readers are anything like The Botanists: scholars, explorers, plant-hunters, whose romance was constrained by their social setting of late Victorian propriety. I see the story as pure escapism that's quite factual. I suspect readers liked it because they WANT to be like those characters. That's the identification I see.

I think identification with what they would like to be rather than what they are is very powerful. Some might call that escapism, but it can be the source of aspiration as well.

I never wanted to be a princess or a ballerina. I wanted to be a forest ranger. I think someday I might write a series about a sexy forest ranger.

 

[Hypoxia]

I think identification with what they would like to be rather than what they are is very powerful. Some might call that escapism, but it can be the source of aspiration as well.

1930's thru '50s SciFi space operas drove 1950's thru '80s NASA engineers, or so they say. Actual control systems were based on superscience tales by hack authors, sort of like STAR TREK influencing device designs. Aspiration can indeed produce results.

I never wanted to be a princess or a ballerina. I wanted to be a forest ranger. I think someday I might write a series about a sexy forest ranger.

First I flash on Kerouac's DESOLATION ANGELS. Then on R.Crumb's WHITEMAN MEETS YETI. Then on too many Scouting and lost-in-the-woods fantasies. The amorous adventures of a resolute rangerette offer endless fun. Or maybe MELISSA OF THE MOUNTAINS -- or MOUNTIES, eh?

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

I wanted to be a forest ranger. I think someday I might write a series about a sexy forest ranger.

I dated a guy studying to be a sexy forest ranger. He even had an old mint green National Parks Jeep already!

 

[Hypoxia]

I dated a guy studying to be a sexy forest ranger. He even had an old mint green National Parks Jeep already!

When we first met, and for years after, my partner (and I) drove a 1968 Chevy 250ci straight-6 long-bed stepside pickup (same platform as the old Toyota Landbruiser because post-WWII technology transfer) with a low-gear two-speed differential, almost as good as a 4-by, formerly a National Forest Service vehicle in Alaska. Fucker ran anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

Well, almost. We drifted through a sandy snaky slot canyon near Death Valley when another truck hauling a trailer appeared, too fast. We stopped. He didn't. Crunch. Our unbelted Dobergirl flew into the dashboard but lived. Our hood was ruined and stayed ruined until we sold the poor beast, laden with trash.

Anyway, surplus National Parks and National Forest vehicles rock. So do the rangers, rangerettes, rangekins, and rangellos. But no rangoons.

ObTopic: Romantic rangers should do just fine here.

 

[MelissaBaby]

When I was 12 or 13, I wrote a number of stories about Regina Greentree, Maine Guide. Regina was a professional woods guide, even though she was just a kid. She had all kinds of adventures in the woods, often accompanied by her pet moose calf, Butchie.

She'd be all grown up now...

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

When we first met, and for years after, my partner (and I) drove a 1968 Chevy 250ci straight-6 long-bed stepside pickup (same platform as the old Toyota Landbruiser because post-WWII technology transfer) with a low-gear two-speed differential, almost as good as a 4-by, formerly a National Forest Service vehicle in Alaska. Fucker ran anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

My brother had a 1970 Landcruiser he outfitted for mudding. I don't know what year my boyfriend's Jeep was, but it was good for off-roading in the mountains. Didn't like driving either one, or being a passenger that much either.

 

[HectorBidon]

It's my belief that you build real emotional depth over the course of your story by creating many different threads of narrative and eventually weaving them together. . . . I think of it as "resonance".

This is indeed a very effective technique for building emotional depth. And you don't have to necessarily storyboard out the different threads and payoffs as if you were salting away clues in a detective story. In the natural course of the story, as in real life, things happen, and these things become threads in their own right. They have an emotional coloring that is remembered by the reader, and they can be invoked like an emotional vocabulary to build the kind of resonances that Melissa is referring to.

One of my stories contains the following sentence: "This time we did fuck, wordlessly, sunnily, soaringly, glidingly, scrub-a-dubbingly, sparklingly, goldenly."* Not very meaningful perhaps outside the context of the story. But each of the adverbs recapitulates an aspect of the day the two had just shared. To my mind this sentence conveys a sentiment with much deeper undertones and much brighter overtones than any more literal paragraph I might have come up with.

(*Eight authorial commandments broken in one sentence, I might also humbly point out. Seven adverbs not avoided, one darling not murdered.)

 

[Hypoxia]

(*Eight authorial commandments broken in one sentence, I might also humbly point out. Seven adverbs not avoided, one darling not murdered.)

I'll suggest that standard Good Writing rules are appropriate for producing reports, technical literature, public statements and press releases, school essays, and official orders. I'll suggest that reader-engaging 'literature' i,e, storytelling is the place to indulge whims and LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY!

Our stories should only be news reports if they're parodies. A favorite old SciFi story was merely an exchange of miscued official notes and reports about a library patron whose copy of KIDNAPPED by RL Stevenson was overdue, said patron then tried and executed for kidnapping RL Stevenson, now deceased. Capitol crime!

A similar romance parody might be a series of surveillance reports that dryly detail and drive a developing romance. Guy and gal, strangers, are mistaken for crime suspects, and tailed. Guy and gal don't sense the official interest but it serves to push them together. The reports are Good Writing, clear, dry, no adverbs, no life. They contrast the richness of the romance.

 

[TeflonGuy]

I'm a romantic at heart.

I try to insert that undeniable trait in every story in some way.

Sorry, I have nothing specific to offer.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think someday I might write a series about a sexy forest ranger.

This sounds promising. Make sure you squeeze her into some tight sexy hiking shorts.

 

[Hypoxia]

This sounds promising. Make sure you squeeze her into some tight sexy hiking shorts.

Don't forget her pet baby bear that follows her everywhere.

 

[TeflonGuy]

I never wanted to be a princess or a ballerina. I wanted to be a forest ranger. I think someday I might write a series about a sexy forest ranger.

Don't forget a jeep. Gotta have a jeep. And sexy hiking boots........w/short shorts.

 

[SimonDoom]

Don't forget her pet baby bear that follows her everywhere.

Or "Baby Bear" can be the pet name of her boy toy.

"Only you can start MY forest fire, baby."