Join us as we marry foundational fiction writing principles to the specific romance requirements. Whether your main characters are going through heartbreak or finding their happily ever after, you’ll learn how to write the compelling story readers want to devour.
Creating chemistry between your main characters is vital to the genre. Using dialogue and other techniques can help you generate that electricity and spark.
Create a Strong Protagonist
A strong protagonist is the heart of any romance novel or a steamy medical romance book. If readers don’t connect with your main character, they won’t enjoy your book or recommend it to their friends.
One of the most important things you can do to develop your protagonist is to give them some trouble to overcome. It doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic trouble – it could be anything from getting fired from their job to a medical scare. This will raise the stakes for them and increase the tension in your story.
Your protagonist should also have some emotional wound that makes them closed off and insecure despite their outward confidence. This is a great way to create a believable character that’s not afraid to love.
You can do this by adding backstory details, creating a situation that tests their resolve or escalating tension through your characters’ GMCs to build an organically built-in conflict.
Create a Strong Secondary Character
A strong secondary character is essential in any romance novel. They fill out the world of your story, giving readers someone to root for or against. They might be a best friend, a mentor, or an arch-enemy. The key is to make them believable and relatable to your reader.
A strong main character and a well-crafted secondary character will keep readers engaged with your book and will likely lead them to recommend it to friends and return for more of your work.
Having strong characters will also help you create conflict in your story. It’s important to have a hero and heroine with contrasting personalities to add depth and tension to the romance.
For example, a hero may be swarthy and muscular with chiseled good looks, while a heroine might be frail but have a strong sense of duty or responsibility.
Researching your subgenre is helpful to learn what plot tropes are overused and outdated. This way, you can avoid stale and degrading stereotypes when creating your characters.
Create a Strong Love Interest
While sex might be the driving force of many romance novels, readers are more likely to connect with a story that offers them context and emotion. This is why avoiding cliche language when writing about love is important. “His eyes were like stars” and “her heartbeat in his chest” are just a few overused phrases that have become synonymous with romantic fiction.
A strong love interest should have its agenda and be more than just arm candy for your MC. This means giving them flaws that make them more realistic and likable and adding a bit of conflict to their story so that they have something to work through.
One of the implicit promises of the romance genre is that your main couple will end up together. This doesn’t have to be a traditional “happily ever after,” but it should show that whatever issues they face are resolved.
Create a Strong Ending
As a genre, romance is all about love and a happily-ever-after. That’s why it holds such a special place in the hearts of readers and writers. The key to writing a strong romance novel is to understand the basic elements of fiction and then marry those basics with the specific requirements of this genre.
While certain plot devices are common in romance, it doesn’t mean they have to be overdone or cliche. It just means that the author has a firm grasp of what they want to accomplish, and they have a proven recipe that works.
One of the most important things to remember when writing a romance is that nobody goes through life without struggles or obstacles. Your characters should be believable. Also, don’t leave any loose ends that might confuse your reader.
They need to be fully immersed in your story, and that immersion will suffer if they are left with questions unanswered.