How to write romance – from A to Z
I remember when I first decided to put a romance thread in my story. I got so confused that I almost didn’t do it at all. But I knew that for a story to be satisfying to me, I needed a romance thread otherwise I didn’t enjoy them. So why should I not write them? Then I found the RWA website and realised that there’s a whole community out there to help me. You don’t have to be a full-fledged romance writer, you can write in other genres with romantic elements. I’ve learned a lot over the last year, and am now writing a contemporary romance that I’m going to pitch to publishers and agents at the yearly conference in August. What better way to celebrate, than to do a blog feature on how to write romance, because it’s not as easy as it sounds. Here’s what I have so far:
Romance writing topics
A – Attraction Stages, Alpha Male
B – Beats, Bad Boys, Body language, Business, Bodice Rippers and other Stereotypes, Blurb, Baby-Boomers
C – Character Tropes, Consistency, Conflict, Cliché’s
D – Definitions, Dark Horse or the Under Dog, Damaged Past, Desire
E – Erotic Romance vs Erotica, Endings, Editing
F – Friends, Falling in Love, Formula (is there one?)
G – Good Boy vs Bad Boy, Goal, The Grand Gesture, Genres
H – Heat Levels, Heroes, Heroine
I – Interracial (Diverse Relationships), Idea generation, Infodumping, Intercourse vs Sex
J – Judgement (What people say when they hear you’re writing romance)
K – Knock-offs, Kick Ass Heroine
L – Lying & Deception, Love Story vs Romance, Likeablity, LGBT
M – Motivation, Meet Cute, Marketing, Myths, Money
N – Novel vs Novella, Networking
O – Outlining vs Pantsing
P – Point of View (Female vs Male), Pitching, Publishers
Q – Quick and Dirty Tips, Quest
R – Rejection
S – Statistics, Sex appeal, Setting, Social Media, Synopsis
T – Tension, Tropes, Triangles, Trends
U – Underwire – Your Story Structure, Under the bra/Over the bra (How detailed should your sex scenes be)
V – Vocabulary, Villains, Viewpoint and Voice
W – Writing Groups, World Building, Walk ons
X – The X-Factor (looking at romance stories that had the x-factor)
Y – You – Benefits for the writer and reader
Z – Zombies, Werwolves and Vampires in love (Paranormal), From Zero to Hero
I need your help -> What do you think? Are there any topics listed that you’d prefer to hear about? Let me know your vote or suggestions in the comments.
About the Author
Lana Pecherczyk Facebook TwitterDon't miss anything from the Author Zoo blog, sign up to the e-newsletter today.
Lana Pecherczyk is an author, artist and bookshop marketer from Perth, Western Australia. She's the Webmistress for Romance Writers of Australia (and no, that's not Spiderman's lover). Is a fan of 'pro-caffeinating' and writes in many genres, including romance, comedy, fantasy and paranormal. She also loves Sailormoon. No judgement.
Lana's latest novels are the Rom-Com Suspense, Robin Lockslay, and the Urban Fantasy, Hunting for Witches.
The post How to write romance – from A to Z appeared first on Author Zoo.
