Hayes Structures Romance
Gwen Hayes. 2016. Romance the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels. www.RomancingTheBeat.com.
Review by Stephen W. Hiemstra
When I wrote my memoir, Called Along the Way: A Spiritual Memoir (2017), my editor encouraged me to write about members of my family. This idea ideally seemed odd to me—Isn’t this memoir about me? Why devote whole chapters to other people? As began reluctantly to write about family members, I realized that my interactions with them revealed even more about me. We are born, live, and die in relationship.
Introduction
In her book, Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels, Gwen Hayes writes about a key relationship—romance—and how to write about it. She writes: “The following story beats are intended to help you craft the romance arc that will hook your reader and keep them on the line all the way to a satisfying ending.” (2). Her target audience is:
Romance writers who have been told their books focus to much on the external plot.
Romance writers who know something is missing from their books, but are not sure where to look to find it.
Non-romance writers looking to strengthen the romantic elements of a different genre book. (6)
Hayes treats the word, beat, as synonymous with what others call a scene.
In my experience as a fiction author, I find that romance is a key element of just about any book in the postmodern era because men and women co-habitat virtually all aspects of life: family, school, workplace, even war. There is no place to hide in life so why would this not be true in postmodern fiction?
Background and Organization
Gwen Hayes (1970 – ) is a romance writer and editor.
Hayes structures her book around the beat sheet that she provides for romance books that share one theme: Love conquers all (7).
Her beat sheet includes these elements arranged into four acts that she refers to as phases:
Phase One: Setup
Intro H1
Intro H2
Meet Cute
No Way 1
Adhesion Plot Thrust
Phase Two: Falling in Love
No Way 2
Inkling this could work
Keeping Desire
Maybe this will work
Midpoint of Love Plot Thrust
Phase Three: Retreating from Love
Inkling of doubt
Deepening doubt
Retreat
Shields up
Break up
Phase Four: Fighting for Love
Dark night of the Soul
Wake-up/Catharis
Grand Gesture
What whole hearted looks like
Epilogue (v-vi)
The beat sheet is introduced with an extended introduction broken into a number of chapters and it is followed with a sample beat sheet, appendix, and about statement.
Assessment
Gwen Hayes writes her book, Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels, as a brief, how-to book for beginning romance authors. Her chapters are short and could be described as annotated beat elements that can be used much like the hero’s journey to begin a book outline. She writes in an accessible style and her points are clear. Her focus on conventional romance throughout the text left me unprepared for the unconventional romance described in her sample beat outline.
Footnotes
Hayes Structures Romance
Also see:
Books, Films, and Ministry
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:
Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
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