I fell in love with Romance novels when I was a teenager. Connie Mason introduced me to a world of strong, handsome men tortured by life’s cruelty, and the strong, beautiful women who loved them, and made them whole again. Over time I developed certain criteria for what I looked for in a story. First of all, they had to be set in the past, preferably in Europe. The men had to be tall, muscular, and dark haired with some tragedy in their past that haunted them. The women had to be petite, fair, and feisty. Also, I always looked for stories involving a child. I think a child’s impact on two lovers is the ultimate in romance. The man discovering he is going to be a father, the fragility of life in the distant past causing the knowledge his beloved could be lost so easily, I can hardly stand it. Anyway, I found myself spending ours in the bookstore thumbing through the later pages of novels on the shelf trying to determine if my criteria was being met without ruining the story before I read it. To make a long story short, I decided to write my own stories. What I would like to do here is give you an idea of how I do this so that you may do so as well. Who knows, you may actually be able to make some money at it.
1. Read, read, and read! You must read to get a real feeling for how the stories are structured. Many of the well-know authors you enjoy have spent years traveling and researching the places they write about and the times in which their characters live. Well, I do not know about you, but I do not have the resources to travel all over the world, nor do I have hours on end to do detailed research; I have a day job and three kids. If you read enough though, you will notice similarities. For example, novels in the Regency timeframe in England almost always revolve around a set of rules society followed at the time. A man in the aristocracy could not just marry anyone, nor could a young lady. The stories often go against these rules or two people who were forced to marry find a love they would have never dreamed possible. So I will say again, read what you want to write and take note of threads that run through each story.
2. Develop your plot, or story diagram. What is your story about? The daughter of a Viscount falls for the second son of a Baronet, so she seduces him into compromising her with the knowledge her father would be forced to demand a marriage between them. The young husband feels inferior to his bride which forces a chasm between them. She devises a scheme with an old friend to make him jealous in the hopes he would return his attentions to her, but it back fires and nearly tears them apart. It is up to you at that point, as to what you like.
3. Research. Yes, I know I said I did not have the time, but a small amount of period research is essential and not that time consuming. I am not a fan of 500 page Historical Romance novels that spend more time on the conflicts going on is society than the conflict going on with the two star-crossed lovers. I tend to find myself thumbing past the boring parts. That being said, it is fairly easy to research the essentials such as, names for your characters that fit within your setting. You can go to most any of the baby name sites and they have ways to search what names were popular in years past. Also, if you are like me and love the Jane Austen era there is a wonderful website (http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/) that has links to hundreds of sites with information on the period. Google is your friend. For example, I needed to understand the hierarchy of titles in England (they call it “peerage”), I typed in “hierarchy of titles in England” and several sites were listed that provided me with exactly what I needed.
4. Begin writing. Many books have been written about plotting your story completely before writing. I tried it, but for me, it does not work. I apparently have the attention span of a flea. By the time I made it to the middle I was bored out of my gourd. I just have to write as I go. I have my general idea of what is going to happen from Step 2. What I do is I use my Gmail account to write, that way I can write no matter where I am. If I am on my 10 minute break at work I open my Gmail account and email my self a section. This way, I can contribute to it when ever I am in front of a computer with internet access. At home I then copy and paste the excerpts to Word. By emailing it to myself, it always gives me the opportunity to read over it again and again at work or on my Iphone waiting at a restaurant. Some people just carry a journal around and write in it, but I am not fond of having to physically write then go back and type it. It is the law of least effort for me.
5. Have someone read it. Often when you write something, when you read over it you see what you want to see. If you have a friend or family member who loves romance as well by all means have them read it over for errors. Believe it or not, my Mom reads my stories. Hey, it was her Harlequin Romances I snuck that got me started on all this!
My way may not be what the experts suggest, but we are not all the same, everyone has different ways to get to the same end. I hope the article helps those of you who have no time on their hand but dreams of writing that perfect romance. If you would like to read one of my stories, please visit my blog http://www.kimberlyluke.com/. I always have a FREE story running in Webisodes, like a soap opera!
Tags: Romance, Writing Tutorial
