It's now been almost a hundred years since the birth of the modern romance novel, when British publisher Mills & Boon realized that their hardcover romantic fiction was outselling most of their other publications. From that small start, the industry has exploded – as you learned in your last reading assignment – until it's now one of the few niches in publishing where an author can make a living solely by writing.
Not all romance authors get rich; in fact, only a few of the best-selling authors do. But many romance writers provide a significant supplement to the family income, and a lot of them are the main breadwinners (if they can write multiple books a year). Compared to what the average author of fiction makes, it's good money.
So let's explore some of the secrets that may help you become a published romance writer.
Love the Books
The majority of romance authors started out as romance readers, enjoying and absorbing love stories. Eventually they began to wonder why a story took certain turns, and then they started to wish that the author had done it just a little (or perhaps a lot) differently, and their own stories began to take form in their minds.
This passion for reading romances is important. It's difficult to write a book at all, but it's nearly impossible to write well in a field you don't enjoy. A book that is written to fit a perceived formula is no more likely to make it to bookstore shelves than a paint-by-number kit is likely to land in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
But even within the romance genre, there is a wide range of possibilities - something for everyone. If you especially like reading a particular type of romance, then that's the kind you should be writing.
Today's Romance Nove
The successful writer knows what's being published today, and how it's different from the books that were published last year, or a decade ago. The perception of romance as sweet, sticky, and slightly behind the times was never accurate. Romances have always been on society's cutting edge. And that means the stories editors are interested in buying need to be up to date.
That doesn't rule out using the long-time themes that were discussed in the last reading assignment. Cinderella stories, marriages of convenience, and secret babies will probably always be in style. But the stories must make sense today.
Years ago, Emilie Loring wrote a romance novel in which her hero and heroine were stranded in an isolated cabin for about fifteen minutes. When they were discovered alone together, the fallout from the episode threatened to ruin the hero's political career, so they got married. That worked just fine when Loring wrote it, but it looks pretty quaint in the current climate. Today's marriage of convenience must involve two people who make the choice themselves, not because they're embarrassed by circumstances or because Grandma wants them to marry, but because each of them believes that logically and rationally this is their best course of action.
Even historical romances have changed a good deal in the last few years. For instance, plots of some historical romances published in the early years of the genre involved out-and-out rape. (The term "bodice-ripper," still used as a derogatory description of all romances, originated with the suggestive cover art used on some of those books.) But today's reader finds it much more difficult to believe that a woman could come to love a man who treated her that way, and so even historical romances have acquired some distinctly twenty-first-century touches.
Emotion is the Key
A perky heroine, a sexy and dangerous hero, a "cute meet" (the first encounter of hero and heroine) – yes, those are all good things to have in a romance novel. And we could list a hundred more. But if we simply assembled all those ingredients into a book, what we would end up with is a sort of weird grocery list instead of a romance unless the reader cares about these people and their problems, feels their joys, and suffers their pain.
A wise writer once said, "Show me the pictures in the soldier's pocket before you kill him." Stop and think about that. Any dead soldier on a battlefield is a very sad thing indeed, but it doesn't touch us in the same personal way that it does if we know about his wife waiting at home with the baby boy he's never seen.
Emotion isn't the same as drama, and we're definitely not talking about melodrama here. It's not necessary for every line of the romance to drip tears. But in the words of Howard Ashman, who wrote the book for Disney's Beauty and the Beast, "Every single scene ... should have an umbrella of emotion over it, whether it's warmth or terror or love or drama or even comedy."
In the romance novel, emotion is particularly important. A couple of characters just going through the motions of falling in love might be briefly entertaining, but that story won't stay in the reader's heart. However, when two people risk everything they have and everything they are for the sake of love, the impact of what's happening to them spills over onto the reader. Those are the books that stay on the shelf to be read over and over again.
Romance is Feminist Literature
There's an entire school of thought that condemns romance as degrading to women. The books promote fantasy, these critics say, and they encourage the reader – particularly the very young woman reader – to hover and wring her hands while she waits for a man to rescue her and make her life complete.
But the truth is that romance novels as a literary form are actually feminist in nature. Yes, there is generally a marriage at the end. But it's the heroine who really holds the power in a romance novel. To quote Jayne Ann Krentz (who writes romance under that name and also as Amanda Quick), "... the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence, and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on earth, the human male, to his knees." (Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, University of Pennsylvania Press, © 1992, page 5.) The heroine tames the hero, civilizes him, and helps him to embrace his softer and more vulnerable side.
Far from promoting unrealistic fantasies in a young reader, the modern romance novel tells a young woman that she can be successful, useful, and valuable on her own; that there are men in the world who will respect her and treat her well; and that such men are worth waiting for. The wise writer keeps in mind the underlying message of the books: women can be powerful in their own right, and they can use that power to make good things happen.
Writing Requires Practice
The ability to write well is not an inborn talent. Though some writers are more gifted with native ability than others are, even the best have to practice in order to achieve some level of excellence. Writing is a skill, just like playing the violin, hitting a home run, and riding a bicycle are skills. In order to be good at any of those tasks, we must perform them over and over again. The violin student doesn't pick up the bow on the first day and expect to be featured at Carnegie Hall that night. (On the other hand, you don't have to make it to Carnegie Hall or Wrigley Field or the Tour de France to enjoy music, baseball, or sports. These activities can be appreciated at many levels of skill, and so can writing.)
Your first story idea may fizzle halfway through. Your first characters may turn out to be cardboard, your first plot may be a cliche from start to end, and your first reader may look at you blankly and say, "I don't get it." But your second try will be better. Patience, persistence, and practice are the keys to learning to write well, whether you want to be a poet or a songwriter or even a romance novelist.
Discussion
After reading the lecture, try answering some or all of the following:
1. Can you think of any issues that appear in "today's" romance
that may not have been acceptable in romance twenty, or even ten, years ago?
2. Tell us about something you encountered in a romance that struck an
emotional chord for you.
3. Do you agree or disagree that romance novels are feminist literature?
Why?
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