I fell in love with romance novels as a teenager. Connie Mason introduced me to a world of strong, handsome men tortured by the cruelty of life, and strong, beautiful women who loved them and made them whole again. Over time I developed certain criteria of what I was looking for in a story. First of all, they had to be set in the past, preferably in Europe. Men had to be tall, muscular, and dark-haired with some tragedy in their past to haunt them. The women had to be small, beautiful and feisty. Also, I was always looking for stories that involved a child. I think the impact of a child on two lovers is the ultimate in romance. The man who discovers that he is going to be a father, the fragility of life in the distant past that causes the knowledge that his beloved could be lost so easily, I can hardly bear it. Regardless, I found myself spending ours at the bookstore flipping through the last few pages of the novels on the shelf trying to determine if they met my criteria without ruining the story before reading it. To cut a long story short, I decided to write my own stories. What I’d like to do here is give you an idea of how I do this so you can do it too. Who knows, you might be able to make some money from it.
1. Read, read, and read! You should read to get a real idea of how the stories are structured. Many of the well-known authors you enjoy have spent years traveling and researching the places they write about and the times in which their characters live. Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the resources to travel all over the world, nor do I have hours and hours to do detailed research; I have a day job and three children. However, if you read long enough, you will notice similarities. For example, novels in the Regency time frame in England almost always revolve around a set of rules that society followed at the time. A man of the aristocracy could not marry just anyone, nor could a young lady. The stories often go against these rules or two people forced into marriage find love they never dreamed possible. So I’ll say it again, read what you want to write and take note of the threads that run through each story.
2. Develop your plot or story diagram. What is your story about? The daughter of a viscount falls in love with the second son of a baronet, so she seduces him into betrothal knowing that her father would be forced to demand a marriage between them. The young husband feels inferior to his bride, which creates a chasm between them. She concocts a plan with an old friend to make him jealous in the hopes that he will return her attention, but it backfires and almost breaks them up. It’s up to you at the time, as to what you like.
3. Research. Yes, I know I said I didn’t have time, but a small amount of period research is essential and not that time consuming. I’m not a fan of 500 page historical romance novels that spend more time on the conflicts going on in society than the conflict going on between the two star-crossed lovers. I tend to find myself skimming through the boring parts. That being said, it’s pretty easy to research the nitty-gritty, like the names of your characters that fit your setting. You can go to most baby naming sites and they have ways to look up what names were popular in years past. Also, if you’re like me and love the Jane Austen era, there’s a wonderful website (http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/) that has links to hundreds of sites with information about the period. Google is your friend. For example, I needed to understand the hierarchy of titles in England (they call it “peerage”), I typed “hierarchy of titles in England” and several sites were listed that gave me exactly what I needed.
4. Start typing. Many books have been written about the entire plot of the story before it was written. I tried it, but for me, it doesn’t work. Apparently I have the attention span of a flea. By the time I got halfway through, I was bored with my pumpkin. I just have to write as I go. I have my general idea of what’s 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’m on my 10-minute break at work, I open my Gmail account and email myself a section. In this way, I can contribute to it every time I am in front of a computer with Internet access. At home I copy and paste the extracts into Word. By emailing it to me, I always get a chance to read it over and over again at work or on my iPhone waiting at a restaurant. Some people just keep a journal and write in it, but I don’t like having to physically write and then go back and write it. It’s the law of least effort for me.
5. Have someone read it. Often when you write something, when you read it, you see what you want to see. If you have a friend or family member who also loves romance, have them read it for errors. Believe it or not, my mom reads my stories. Hey, it was the Harlequin Romances of hers that I snuck in that got me started on all of this!
My path may not be the one the experts suggest, but we are not all the same, we all have different paths to reach the same end. I hope the article helps those of you who don’t have time but dream of writing that perfect romance.
