If you are writing a romance, it can sometimes be difficult to know exactly how to build all the pieces so that you have the right amount of tension in your story. How soon do you make them fall in love? When do you start breaking them up? How do they get back together? This problem is solved by understanding the two main story arcs of romance: The Why/Why Not, or the Why Not/Why. (These arc models apply to both a straight up romance, or just a romance thread.) Understanding the kind of story you have helps you understand how to layer in the tension and where to insert the different components of your romance. Let’s a take a look: The first structure is Why/Why Not: These are stories that […]
Read the RestArchive | 6. Search by Series: RSS feed for this section
Conversations: The basics of writing a romance.
Sally came into the coffee shop with a smile. “My husband gave me the entire weekend to write. I’ve written five chapters since last Monday.” “That’s a good man you have there,” I said. “And a good model of a romantic hero. This week, we’re going to talk about how to craft your romance.” “Oh, I know how to do that. I’ll just make them fall in love.” “That’s of course, the goal, yes. But along the way, we have to doubt that they will, indeed, live Happily Ever After, and we do that by creating obstacles, or what I call, Why Nots – both internal and external — that feel so big that they can’t overcome them.” “Consider this – if you know how much a couple has overcome […]
Read the Rest
March’s Writer’s Challenge and A Vision in a Kiss
Congratulations to Michelle Weidenbenner who won the February writer’s Challenge with her delicious story “A Vision in a Kiss”: Mom and Dad could peek at Trae and me from the kitchen window of our new home, but we didn’t have anything to hide. Yet. We were taking a break from unloading moving boxes—my parents had insisted. I couldn’t believe our permanent home would be a few blocks from Trae’s. He sat across from me at the wooden picnic table the movers had placed in the shade under the maple tree in the backyard. The humid summer air clung to our skin and made Trae’s tan glisten in the fading sunlight. He blew up at his wavy, tousled blond hair that had fallen out of his cap and onto the […]
Read the Rest
Quick Skills: Make your Hero/Heroine unique
How do you make your hero or heroine unique? Have you ever written a hero or heroine and thought…oh, they seem just like the last character I created? It’s easy to do – you can only pick so many creative combinations for your character…UNLESS… …Unless you go about character creation from the inside out. I’ve talked at length about finding an identity for your character unique to him, and then building the “outside” to match that inside identity. However, I have a quick trick to help make him even more unique. To make him stand out on the page without going over the top. Yes, we’re going to start with identity again, but this time we’re going to focus in on his greatest fear. We’ve asked him about his dark […]
Read the Rest
