“How is your writing going? Do you feel ready to dive into crafting the Black Moment and Epiphany?” I asked Sally as she came to the table with a chai latte. “Not yet. I want to write a suspense into my romance.” Sally sat down and pulled out her notebook. Outside, the sun shrank the snow banks, spring in the air. “I watched Eagle Eye on FX over the weekend, and I realized how much I love suspense.” “I love suspense too,” I said. “A romantic suspense combines the fun of falling in love with that edge-of-your-seat-fear that the people we care about could get killed. “Let’s take a look at what that would mean for your story. Writing a romantic suspense means adding another story structure/plot to your novel. […]
Read the RestTag Archives | How to write a Romance
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 RestAct 2: Deepening the Romance Thread
Yesterday, we reviewed the Whys of falling in love, and how we might build that into our romance. Just to add a shameless plug here – if you want to know how to build a full-fledged romance, try Kiss and Tell, my brand new workbook on writing a romance! (Check it out here: http://stores.mybooktherapy.com) So, bringing this back to the story: How do the hero and heroine complete each other? For Kenzie, it’s that she remembers who she is. For Luke, it’s the sense that he doesn’t have to be alone. I’ll be building on that in the next scene. Once I figure out the romance element I’m building, I’ll also take a look at the kind of scene I’m building. In this case, it’s a combo scene […]
Read the RestAct 2: Getting to the Good Stuff
Getting to the good stuff: Act 2 Writing a suspense is all about the adventure, romance, suspense and disasters that happen in the middle of the novel. A great suspense should pick up speed as the hero/heroine launches into the second act. All the great stuff happens during the Guts phase – confronting fears, reaching out in the darkness for the girl’s hand, stealing a kiss, failing big, learning something new about yourself and summoning your courage. The overall concept is Make it Worse. At the start of every chapter, the character will have choices. He’ll contemplate these choices, weigh them against possible outcomes, consider his motivations and then move forward into the danger, during which something bad will happen he didn’t expect, and will cause him […]
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