Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies E-Book

Leslie Wainger

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 732

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In love with romance novels? You're not alone! Romance is today's most popular fiction genre, accounting for more than half of all mass market fiction sold. If you're looking to make a serious effort at writing a romance and getting it published in today's multifaceted markets, you need to learn as much as you can about this highly successful field--especially how to create the perfect heroes and heroines. Now, in this easy, step-by-step guide, a top romance editor gives you the know-how you need to succeed as a romance novelist! Writing A Romance Novel For Dummies is perfect for both beginning and more accomplished writers who are looking to get the leading edge on writing a romance novel and get it published. Leslie Wainger, Executive Editor at Harlequin Books, explains what it takes to become the next Nora Roberts, providing the techniques you need to: * Select a pseudonym * Write a compelling, heartfelt story * Find the right agent and publisher * Submit a manuscript * Market your novel * Join clubs and associations Packed with insider advice, this plain-English guide helps you grasp the building blocks of a great romance, providing practical tips on the craft of writing as well as savvy pointers on how to hook your reader from page one, write with passion, and shape a proposal that will wow agents and editors. You get lots of expert tips on analyzing the marketplace, creating compelling characters, and finding your own voice. Wainger also: * Demystifies the sub-genres of the romance world, from historical, contemporary, and multicultural to paranormal, romantic suspense, and Christian/inspirational * Explains plotting, pacing, and writing those crucial love scenes * Discusses how to conduct research, assign credits, and get permissions * Helps you decide whether it's best to write alone or with a partner Complete with a manuscript preparation checklist, tips for revising your work smoothly and successfully, guidance in understanding and negotiating a contract, and a list of romance writing resources, Writing A Romance Novel For Dummies is your one-stop guide to becoming a published novelist!

Leseprobe

Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies®

by Leslie J. Wainger

Foreword by Linda Howard

Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2004 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2004103028

ISBN: 978-0-7645-2554-4

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Leslie Wainger has been editing romances and general women’s fiction for twenty-five years. She started as the editorial assistant for Silhouette Books and is now an executive editor for Harlequin/Silhouette, where she handles the editorial direction and acquisitions for several romance series. She also edits both series and mainstream novels and works with a roster of authors that includes multiple New York Times and USA TODAY bestsellers. In the course of her career, she’s traveled extensively to speak at conferences, and she’s done both local and national PR in print, on radio, and on TV, including National Public Radio, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News. She’s written articles, been featured in industry guides and how-to books, and currently has a Letters to the Editor bulletin board in the Community/Learning To Write section of the eHarlequin.com Web site.

When she can get away, she enjoys extended travel vacations; recent destinations have included Australia (where she ate a grub on her first visit and held a baby wombat on her second), New Zealand (where she wisely refrained from swimming in a lake of acid), Peru (where she ate a local delicacy called cuy, aka guinea pig, and — more enjoyably — visited Macchu Pichu), Bolivia (where she tasted alpaca), and Spain (where she fell in love with Gaudi’s architecture). Next trip? With any luck, somewhere where she can see monkeys in the wild.

That she’s an admitted bookaholic goes without saying, but she’s also an all-too-avid collector of CDs and DVDs, with a bent toward popular films (especially romance in any form) and TV series she’s known and loved. Additional collections include tacky salt and pepper shakers and (of course) monkeys.

She’s also been a fangrrrrl her entire life, and that shows no signs of stopping. Davy Jones was the first great love of her life (and she still insists they would have been perfect for each other, if only he could have waited for her to get from twelve to twenty-two). Current obsessions include everything related to “The Lord of the Rings” (especially Viggo Mortensen, with a note to include the fact that she’s been a fan since “Ruby Cairo”), “Farscape” (if you want to see an amazing romance, check out Ben “John Crichton” Browder and Claudia “Aeryn Sun” Black), and James “Spike” Marsters, formerly of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel.”

Additional useless trivia: She has three cats and the commute from hell.

Dedication

To all my authors, past and present: Thank you for making me look good.

Author’s Acknowledgments

As the dedication says, I have to thank all the authors I’ve worked with. Every single one of them has made me a better editor, and many of them have also become some of my best friends. Special thanks to Linda Howard for the intro and Patricia Gardner Evans for the tech read. For additional technical help, special thanks also to Nancy Yost, who had the (bad?) luck to be scheduled to have lunch with me right when I needed a piece of info and came through in spades, and to Joan L., who answered a library question for me and gets collies in return.

I also want to acknowledge the support I received from everyone at Harlequin/Silhouette/MIRA. Thank you to Donna and Isabel for allowing this to happen, KO for not only jumping on the bandwagon but revving the engine, and especially to Tara, who gave me a push in the “write” direction. And I can’t forget Grayling’s Leslee Borger, for all the additional engine revving.

Family and friends are the backbone of everyone’s life. Mom, Dad, Judi, Polly and your attendant crews . . . thank you. Thanks also to all the friends — real-life and on-line — who’ve supported, pushed, commiserated, laughed, cried, and promised to buy (and even requested autographs). If I start naming names, I’ll either go on for pages or leave out someone crucial, so basically, if you think you should be included . . . trust me, you are. (But special mention has to be made of Melissa, at whose baby shower this book — or at least my participation in it — was also born, Kimm, AZ, Mario, Cheryl, Shelly, Linda K. and Mr. B., all of whom went above and beyond at various points.)

Finally, kudos to my Wiley crew: Tracy Boggier, Joyce Pepple, Holly Gastineau- Grimes, Mike Baker, Michelle Dzurny, Laura Miller, Lesa Grant, and April Fazio.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Mike Baker

Acquisitions Editor: Tracy Boggier

Copy Editors: Michelle Dzurny, Laura K. Miller

Assistant Editor: Holly Gastineau-Grimes

Technical Reviewer: Patricia Gardner Evans

Editorial Manager: Jennifer Ehrlich

Editorial Assistants: Courtney Allen, Elizabeth Rea

Cartoons: Rich Tennant, www.the5thwave.com

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Adrienne L. Martinez

Layout and Graphics: Andrea Dahl, Joyce Haughey, Heather Ryan, Jacque Schneider, Melanee Wolven

Proofreaders: David Faust, Aptara

Indexer: Aptara

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Brice Gosnell, Associate Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Dedication

I admit it: When I wrote my first romance book, I didn’t know what I was doing. Of course, I was only nine years old and didn’t know what I was doing most of the time. What I did know was that I loved writing, and I took great joy in creating these rambling, clichéd stories that swooped in and out of different characters’ points of view as the plot galloped from one country to another — all without a single chapter break. I knew what chapters were; I just didn’t care. All that mattered was telling the story.

My love of writing never faded. I eventually learned to break the tale into chapters (just as I learned the rules of grammar), although I still hate all that wasted white space on a page. Margins are for sissies. Do you know how many words you can get on one sheet of paper when you make your handwriting really, really tiny so you can actually get two lines of prose inside one ruled line of notebook paper, and write from one side of the paper to the other? A lot. And I wrote on both sides of the paper. I think one sheet held close to 1,500 words. Ah, the good old days. Now stories have to be typed and double-spaced on only one side of the paper; not only is a lot of white space wasted, but the challenge of seeing how small I can write and having the words still legible is gone.

But fast-forward a couple of decades, roughly. I was still writing. I had never stopped, and writing was the great private joy of my life. I wrote westerns; I wrote science fiction; I wrote fantasy; and I wrote thrillers — but they all had one thread in common: They all had romances in them. I connected to romances, but I wrote everything by the seat of my pants. I hadn’t researched or studied anything and had no idea of any do’s or don’ts — I just had the stories. Finally, one morning I woke up and decided to see whether I was good enough to be published. Then I did some research. I found out how to prepare a manuscript (margins were required) and how to submit it. Everything else, I did the usual way: by the seat of my pants.

I wrote a book and sent it to Leslie Wainger, my dear friend and editor of over 20 years now, who bought it. That’s how she became my dear friend and editor. I was a newbie in the business; she was fairly new herself. What I knew about writing would have rattled around in a peanut shell, but I loved what I did know. Leslie loves books, and she taught me the publishing lingo, how a manuscript gets into book form, and all the other details that become part of a writer’s life. Her editing — good heavens, how I needed editing — taught me more about the structure of writing than anything else I’d learned since learning the English language.

Little did I know that my chosen genre, romance, was the toughest one to write. It can’t be, you say; so many romance books are out there — it can’t be difficult. Oh, yeah? Try it. Romance readers are probably the most prolific readers on the face of the earth, and they don’t read just romance. They read everything. As a group, they’re frighteningly knowledgeable. They know their genre, they know what they expect, and they like being surprised. How do you give them what they expect and surprise them at the same time? Sheer dumb luck, and a lot of hard work.

Romance is the best discipline for writers. It forces you to learn how to make your characterization so strong that the characters not only live on in the readers’ minds, but the readers also have a personal connection to the books. A romance writer has to learn pacing, how to tell a coherent, cohesive, and engrossing story in 80,000 words or less, depending on the category line. It’s a tough challenge. Any tips are appreciated.

There weren’t any tips when I started writing, back in the dark ages B.C. (Before Computers). No one had analyzed the hearts and parts of numerous romance books and broken them down for me to study so I could polish my craft, tighten my plot, and otherwise get a head start.

I feel cheated. Why wasn’t this book written 25 years ago????

But it’s written now, by an expert in the romance publishing field, for you to enjoy and learn from. Have fun!

I still feel cheated.

— Linda Howard

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Welcome to the World of Romance Writing

Chapter 1: Romance Writing at a Glance

Tuning in to the Market

Practicing Your Craft

Submitting Your Manuscript

Chapter 2: Romancing the Marketplace: Identifying Your Options

Knowing Your Reader

Starting from Square One: Reading

Getting to Know Your Genre

Choosing Your Path

Chapter 3: Setting Up for Stardom

Finding the Perfect Place and Time to Write

Building a Writer’s Tool Kit

Accessing Resources for the Would-Be Writer

Part II : Laying the Foundation: The Building Blocks of a Great Romance

Chapter 4: Creating Compelling Main Characters: Alpha Males and Fiery Females

Depending on Your Characters

The Key to Every Romance Is the Heroine

Creating Your Hero

Keepin’ It Real: Secondary Characters

Laying Concrete Strategies for Creating Characters

Chapter 5: Crucial Ingredients for Every Plot: Conflict, Climax, and Resolution

You Can’t Have a Novel without a Plot

Suspense: Every Story Has It

Making Sense Matters

Emotional Conflict and Tension: The Only Reason to Turn the Page

Handling Conflict Effectively

And They Lived Happily Ever After

Chapter 6: Setting the Scene

Deciding Where Your Story Takes Place

Telling Time

Using Your Setting to the Fullest

Chapter 7: Outlining Your Romance

What’s an Outline?

Mapping Your Way to “The End”

Using Your Outline Effectively: Write, Write, and Then Rewrite (Maybe)

Part III : Putting Pen to Paper

Chapter 8: Finding Your Own Voice

Speaking Up for Yourself

Putting the Show in Show and Tell

Telling It Like It Is

Chapter 9: Hearing Voices: Letting Your Characters Speak

Giving Your Characters Voices

Writing Great Dialogue

Point of View: How to Choose and How to Use

Chapter 10: Pacing: The Secrets of Writing a Page-Turning Romance

Pacing Doesn’t Mean Racing

Pacing and Plotting: Two Halves of a Whole

Avoiding the Dreaded Sagging Middle

Show It, Don’t (Always) Tell It

Prose That Goes and Prose That Slows

Chapter 11: Taking It All Off: Writing Love Scenes

Comparing Sex and Romance

Knowing Where and When

Writing the Scene

Part IV : Putting It All Together: Mechanics Count, Too

Chapter 12: Starting and Stopping

Starting with a Bang: Mastering the Winning Beginning

Putting Theory into Practice

Constructing Can’t-Miss Chapters

Moving from Scene to Scene

Chapter 13: Getting Your Story Straight: Doing Research Right

Getting It Right: Priority Number One

Making Research Work for You

Getting Down to Business

Finding the Facts

Getting Permissions

Chapter 14: Neatness Counts — and So Does Grammar

Minding Your P’s and Q’s

Formatting for Success

Reviewing the Manuscript Preparation Checklist

Part V : Submitting Your Manuscript — and Making the Sale!

Chapter 15: Targeting the Right Publisher (and Editor)

Researching the Market

Submitting Made Simple

Deciding Whether You Need an Agent

Chapter 16: Rejection and Revision: Don’t Let Them Get You Down

What Are They Really Saying?

They Like It, But . . .

One Editor’s Insight into Common Editorial Comments

Does No Always Mean No?

Chapter 17: Closing the Deal

Getting “The Call”

Coming Up with Questions

Sizing Up the Contract

Strategies for a Win-Win Negotiation

Chapter 18: Tracing the Steps from Page to Press — and Beyond

Working with Your Editor

From Manuscript to Bound Book

Living in a Post-publication World

Part VI : The Part of Tens

Chapter 19: Ten Plots Every Editor Knows — and Why They Still Work

Marriage of Convenience

Stranded with a Stranger

Runaway Bride

Secret Baby

Reunion Romance

Back from the Dead

Mistaken Identity

Woman in Jeopardy

The Dad Next Door

Even Sketchier Setups

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Coming Up with a Successful Title

Speaking the Reader’s Language

The Long and the Short of It

A Few Words about Single-Word Titles

Matching Title and Tone Perfectly

Hooking Up

All about Alliteration

Coining a Cliché

Naming Names

Making Connections

Following in Others’ Footsteps

Chapter 21: Ten Common Writing Mistakes Beginners Make

Remember the Reader’s Expectations

Don’t Overwrite

Ya Gotta Love It

Characters Are Key

Effective Conflict Comes from Within

Make Sure You Have Enough Plot

Keep Your Story on Track

The Name of the Game Is Entertainment

Don’t Forget the Details

Keep It Moving

Chapter 22: Ten Reasons Why a Manuscript Gets Rejected

Bad Writing

Arrogant Heroes and Unlovable Heroines: Unsympathetic Characters

Cardboard Cutouts: Unrealistic Characters

B-o-r-i-n-g Spells Boring

A Tsunami in the Alps and Other Lapses in Logic

Outdated Story Line and Characters

Inaccurate (Or No) Research

When Your Romance Isn’t Really a Romance

Wrong Editor/Publishing House

Incorrect Formatting

Chapter 23: Ten Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

Working Your Way Through It

Selecting a Different Scene

Looking at the Last Scene You Wrote

Writing a Scene That You Won’t Use

Viewing the Scene from a Different Angle

Forgetting about Perfection

Looking Forward — Not Back

Analyzing Your Outline

Re-energizing Your Creative Instincts

Starting Another Project — If All Else Fails

Chapter 24: Ten Questions Every Romance Writer Needs to Ask Herself

Should I Write Romance Novels?

Why Can’t I Get Started?

What Can I Do When the Ideas Don’t Come?

How Can I Focus and Stay Positive When Things Go Wrong?

When Is It Research and When Is It a Waste of Time?

When Should I Send My Manuscript into the Big, Scary World?

Do I Need an Agent?

How Do I Handle a Friend’s Manuscript Selling First?

When and How Do I Follow Up on My Book’s Status?

When Do I Let Go of a Book?

Introduction

R omance is far and away the best-selling genre in all of fiction. The specific numbers are constantly changing, but on average, 50 percent of all mass market paperbacks sold are romances. Add to that the growing sales of trade-paperback and (especially) hardcover romances, and the picture is even more impressive. Just take a look at the bestseller lists: They’re filled with romance novels.

Romance is a something-for-everyone genre. Looking for a quick read to keep in your purse and pull out whenever you have a few minutes free? A 55,000-word category romance may give you just what you want. Want a complex story that can keep you turning pages for days as you relax on the beach or the porch of a mountain cabin? Try a 150,000-word mainstream. Whether you like history, the here-and-now, or even the future, whether you’re looking for comedy, suspense, something spooky, or an inspirational read, the romance genre has something for you.

Because romance is so popular with readers, it’s also popular with would-be writers — many of whom started out as readers and then suddenly decided that they had a story to tell, too. If you’re one of these aspiring writers, this book is for you, because there’s always room for one more.

A lot of outsiders have a very clear — and clearly wrong! — image of the typical romance writer. They picture her as someone dressed all in pink (boa included) who taps computer keys with the long, red nails of one hand while picking up bon-bons with the other — unless she’s writing in the tub, artfully camouflaged by bubbles and probably shorting out a computer per day.

The real truth, as insiders know, is that romance writing is hard work, but it’s also extremely rewarding work, allowing successful authors to express their creativity and earn money for it, all the while making thousands — sometimes even millions — of readers happy. Not a bad job if you can get it, and if you’ve read this far, I’m betting it’s a job you want. So welcome to the inside of the romance business. It’s time to start your new career.

About This Book

I’ve been in the romance biz for 25 years (okay, 241/2, as of this writing). I started as an editorial assistant and worked my way up to my current position of executive editor. In that time, I’ve seen the romance industry grow and cycle through all kinds of changes. Gothic romances, one of the staples of my teenage years, were only a memory until recently. Regency romances, as epitomized by Georgette Heyer (whose books I also devoured as a teen), have hung on as possibly the hardiest subgenre of romance novels. Sometimes historical romances have been on top, sometimes contemporary romances. Right now, romantic suspense novels seem to be the way to break into the big-time, but romantic comedy novels are climbing fast, and inspirational romances are showing strength outside religious bookstores.

Some things, though, never change. Readers are always looking for a good story. I’ve heard that phrase more times than I can count, and when I probe a little deeper, it always comes down to the same things. Readers are looking for strong, compelling characters, a story that makes them feel things right along with those characters, and a happy ending that lets them experience the thrill of falling in love all over again with each book.

As a writer, your job is simple: Give the readers what they’re looking for. But the practicalities of that mission are complex. You not only need to know the basics of writing any novel, you also need to know — and master — the specifics of writing a romance. You need to put emotion on the page, and that can be a bit like catching lightning in a bottle.

In this book, I distill everything that I’ve learned as a romance editor into a step-by-step, topic-based guide to help aspiring romance authors take an idea and grow it into a published novel. I’m not big on rules and regulations when it comes to writing a romance novel, because I think too many do’s and don’ts make a writer self-conscious and stifle her creativity. And writing a romance novel is all about finding creative ways to make the reader happy. Instead of dictating to you or using the dreaded F-word, formula, I’m going to do for you what I’ve done for writers throughout my career: I’m going to give you the tools you need to write well, and to understand what a reader needs and how to give it to her. Then I’m going to turn you loose to tell the story of your heart so you can touch your reader’s.

Foolish Assumptions

Every author — whether she’s writing a romance novel or Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies — has to make assumptions about her audience. And I’ve made a few, at least one of which I suspect is true of you:

You’re interested in making a serious effort at writing a romance novel and getting it published.

You’re sitting down to write your first book, and you’re looking for advice on everything from creating a proposal to writing the manuscript to finding the perfect agent or publisher.

You have a stack of unpublished manuscripts under your bed that has yet to grace an editor’s desk.

You’ve met with some success in the romance-publishing world, but, like most authors, you’re always looking for tips, tricks, or advice to help you improve your craft.

If any of these descriptions sound familiar, you’ve come to the right place. You can find something here to help you improve your writing skills and guide you to success in your career.

How This Book Is Organized

I’ve organized Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies into six parts, each one designed to help you with a separate stage of the writing process.

Part I: Welcome to the World of Romance Writing

This part provides rock-solid advice for how to set up your career, in both creative and practical terms. Begin here if you’re looking for an overview of the topics I cover in the book, as well as an in-depth look at the romance marketplace. As a writer, you’re a creative professional, and you have to develop both halves of that description. As you begin (or go on) writing, you need to have a sense of your strengths and goals, and that means knowing what’s out there and where your book can fit in.

This part also focuses on the practicalities of being a writer: how to set up a home office; how to handle the sometimes difficult, even touchy, problem of claiming time as your own so that you can write; and how to take full advantage of all the available resources for writers in general and romance writers in particular. Everything in this part is about getting ready to write, so after you start writing, you can exercise your creativity as uninterruptedly as possible.

Part II: Laying the Foundation: The Building Blocks of a Great Romance

In this part, I talk about the crucial elements you need to have thought out before you begin actually telling your story, starting with your characters (after all, everything depends on them and their relationship). I also talk about coming up with ideas, something many would-be writers worry about, and turning an idea into a full, complex story, complete with conflict and emotional tension. A lot of writers often overlook or under-use setting as a component of a good romance, but I give it plenty of attention here. Finally, I demystify outline writing and show you how to view an outline as a useful tool, rather than something to be afraid of.

Part III: Putting Pen to Paper

This third part focuses on the heart of the writing process — taking everything that you’ve come up with and turning it into an actual story. I concentrate quite a bit on the idea of voice — yours, as the teller of the story, and your characters’ — as the reader’s way into the book. When you combine voice with pacing, another topic I concentrate on in this part, you really have the key components of the writing process. If Part II answered “what,” Part III tackles “how.”

Because the topic is romance, you need to know how to handle one more crucial component — love scenes. Done right, they can completely cement your reader’s identification with the characters and their story.

Part IV: Putting It All Together: Mechanics Count, Too

After you’ve done all the creative work and gotten your first draft down on paper, you need to go back and work on structure to make sure that you’re telling your story as effectively as possible. You need to take care of the things that you (quite rightly) may not have paid much attention to as you wrote in the first burst of creativity.

This part talks about how to make the most of all the book’s transition points — the opening scene and the way that you start and stop each chapter, even each scene — because the movement between scenes and chapters can build your reader’s interest and keep her going.

After you’ve completed the first draft, you also know what facts you still need to check and what additional research you need to do. So, although some of the advice in this section will also prove helpful to you in your pre-writing prep work, you especially need it after you’re done with the main part of the writing process, because that’s when you get your last chance to get everything right before you try to impress an editor.

And you still need to take a few more important last steps to help maximize your chances of selling. Some steps are more mechanical than creative, but they’re no less important. You need to make sure that you’re not messing around with the rules of grammar (unless you’re doing it to make a point about a character, for instance), proof and reproof your spelling, and then, finally, format your manuscript professionally.

Part V: Submitting Your Manuscript — and Making the Sale!

You’ve done it! You’ve finished the book, done your rewrites, and now you’re ready to submit. Or are you? After you have the book ready to go, you need to send it to the right place. In this part, I give you advice on targeting the right publisher — even a specific editor — for your book, looking for an agent, submitting your manuscript (including how to write a query letter and synopsis), and dealing with rejection and revision, which are almost inevitable parts of the process for any writer.

After that, I get into the good stuff: getting the call from an editor to say she wants to buy your book, negotiating a contract, and then dealing with everything that happens as your romance novel goes from manuscript to actual book.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Every For Dummies title contains The Part of Tens. And who am I to break with tradition? These chapters are packed with ten-point lists meant to help you with specific situations you may face. I help you meet such challenges as beating writer’s block, avoiding beginners’ mistakes, deciphering rejection, and coming up with a winning title.

Icons Used in This Book

I’ve scattered some icons throughout the book for easy reference. Here’s a sneak preview along with their descriptions, so that you know what to keep your eyes peeled for in the rest of the book.

This icon clues you in to a bit of romance-writing wisdom, some advice that you may want to consider using. This icon signals something that’s definitely worth checking out — and putting to use.

Text by this icon gives you advice on things to avoid to keep your romance writing on the right track.

You can find this icon next to important bits of information that (what a surprise) I don’t want you to forget. The accompanying advice can really help you in your quest to write the perfect romance — and create the perfect romance-writing career. If you skim through the text, stop and check these points out.

This fine piece of art accompanies text that, while interesting, is a bit more technical in nature. If you want to skip over this info, you’re romance-writing potential will not suffer.

Where to Go from Here

If you’re familiar with the For Dummies books, you already know a bit about how they’re set up. If not, let me clarify the For Dummies experience a little. You can read this book in two ways. The first way is to go cover to cover. I present the topics in the order that a writer’s likely to deal with them, starting with understanding the market and finishing with the stages a manuscript goes through on the way to becoming a bound book. So, you can read it in one front-to-back gulp as an overview to help you get started, or you can read it in order but in pieces, tackling the relevant chapters as you reach that stage in your own writing process.

The other way to read this book is piecemeal and out of order, investigating only the subjects you need, as you need them. If you’ve been a romance reader all your life, you may never need to read Chapter 2, but you may find the chapters on plotting and pacing (Chapters 5 and 10, in case you’re interested) key. You may want to read some chapters in their entirety, and then skim others only to glean the answer to a specific question or concern. Check out the table of contents and index if you want to track down something specific.

Bottom line? The only right way to read this book is the way that works best for you. But in the end, wherever you start in this book, I hope your ultimate destination is the shelves of your local bookstore — as the published author of your own book.

Part I

Welcome to the World of Romance Writing

In this part . . .

After you’ve made the all-important decision to become a romance writer, you have to start thinking like the professional you hope to be. In this part, I give you an overview of what it takes to write, and sell, your romance novel. Then I delve into detail about the multifaceted romance market and help you figure out where you fit in. Finally, I show you how you can organize your life and your surroundings so that after you start writing, you’re free to create without unnecessary interruption.

Chapter 1

Romance Writing at a Glance

In This Chapter

Getting to know the romance market and figuring out your place in it

Perfecting the craft of writing a romance

Submitting your manuscript successfully

Knowing what follows a sale

The world of romance writing and publishing is exciting. Being part of a business that’s all about making people happy is wonderful: The writers get to tell their stories, and the readers get to read them. At the end of the day, it’s great going home knowing that because of my efforts, a lot of people are going to smile. But romance publishing can also be complex — even daunting — especially when you’re approaching it for the first time. So, I’ve taken up the challenge of demystifying this world for you. Whether this book marks your first foray into writing romance novels or you’ve been hard at work honing your skills for years, I’m glad you’re here. As you read, you’ll find lots to interest you and, most of all, help you write a winning romance novel.

In this chapter, I provide you with a snapshot of the romance-writing process and the romance industry as a whole. By extension, the information I present also provides you with a sneak peak at the subjects I cover elsewhere between these yellow and black covers. I start by talking about the market, defining romance novels in general, and then talk briefly about some of the different types of romances you find on the shelves.