Romance is for Everyone

It's National Read-A-Romance Month.  Yes, an entire month dedicated to reading romance novels.  Who wudda thunk it?  The answer is simple.  Romance writers and readers.

Romance Industry Statistics
(From Romance Writers of America-RWA.org)
POPULARITY OF ROMANCE FICTION

(source: Business of Consumer Book Publishing 2013)

• Romance fiction generated $1.438 billion in sales in 2012.
• Romance was the top-performing category on the best-seller lists in 2012 (across the NYT, USA Today, and PW best-seller lists).
• Romance fiction sales are estimated at $1.350 billion for 2013.
• 74.8 million people read at least one romance novel in 2008. (source: RWA Reader Survey)

Not yet convinced?  Compare the numbers.  Romance generated more revenue in 2012 than the other fiction genres.  Romance outsold Religion/Inspirational Fiction ($1.438 billion to $707.9 million), Mystery (at $728.2 million), Science Fiction/Fantasy (at 590.8 million) and Classic Literary Fiction (at 470.5 million).  (source: Simba Information) estimates

It's true that the majority of romance readers are women.  In fact, it's 91%.  But 9% of men read it, too.  Then there are the men who read it in the more male-type novels.  Stephen King, Dan Brown, and many others often have a thread of romance in their novels.  For the women?  No.  It's there because it's a part of the human experience.  We fall in love, both men and women.

Why do people read romance?  In my very humble opinion, because,  A) It is part of the human experience.  At one time in our lives, we'll fall in love.  We want to love and be loved.   B) We like happily ever afters.  We like to see a character not only win, but grow in the process of winning and become a better person.  C)  It gives us something to wish for, hope for, and experience ourselves.

Not only to other genres contain romance, but romance has its own sub-genres.  Like Mystery?  Try a Romantic Suspense.  Do you enjoy Fantasy or Paranormal stories?  There's Inspirational Romance for those who enjoy a religious slant.  Are you a history buff?  Historical Romance encompasses many periods of history.  There are even stories for the younger set--Young Adult Romance.  Anything you like, any type of characters, you can find them in Romance.

So what are you waiting for?  Find your Happily-Ever-After and read a romance (or a dozen) this month!  August is Read-A-Romance Month.

(Statics from RWA Romance Writers of America)

“Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.” ― Janet Evanovich

Emotions: Mix it Up

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

In romance, we want to see the characters reach their happily-ever-after, just as we want to see the puzzle solved in a mystery.

It's the mix of emotions in a story that keep us reading.  Two people meet.  There's an emotional element to that meeting.  Sometimes it's an attraction, sometimes it's instant dislike, and quite often it's a mix of both of those.

Let's face it.  Nobody wants to read a story of two perfect people, leading perfectly happy lives, where everything goes perfectly well.  Ugh!  What fun would that be?  And just how real is it?

The very best writers know the truth.

 Lysander:

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth;

But either it was different in blood—

~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 1, scene 1

Even Shakespeare knew to mix it up and take the characters through a romp of emotions.  It's the emotions of the characters and how they react to them that makes the story.

The path of romance can be a rollercoaster ride of emotions, starting at a high, low, or even medium, then taking each character up an down emotionally throughout the story, yet ending at that happily ever after.

We each have emotions fighting for recognition within.  Something makes us happy, but when something else happens, we can be sad or angry.  We want our characters to feel the same, thus taking readers through that ride of emotions.  Without those emotions, characters and readers become apathetic.  Who wants to cheer for an emotionless hero or heroine?

But happy, sad, and angry aren't the only emotions humans feel.  Countless studies have been done on emotions.  One in particular, by psychologist Robert Plutchik, gives an excellent view of emotions and the depths of them in his Plutchick's Wheel of Emotion.

Larger image

The wheel shows the progression of simple emotions to deeper emotions and could be used to help set up your characters emotions from beginning to end.  But they won't stay with one emotion, because in the end, they both (hero and heroine) must reach that ecstacy or at least joy stage to be at that happily-ever-after ending.

Simple Example:

• When the heroine first meets the hero, she might be annoyed with him or something about him.  Maybe she becomes or is angry at something he said or did.
• For the hero at first meet, there could be boredom or even disapproval.

Switch those two around, and there are two different characters meeting for the first time.  Change one of the emotions--perhaps annoyance to apprehension, and there's another set.  Or one might have some interest in the other.  Keep them at odds.  Even if both are attracted, there needs to be an opposition to the other, even if only slight.

The characters must grow.  They need to have a wide range of emotions throughout the story.  There can be surprise, sadness, anticipation, fear (of own feelings or of what might come), and more.  They'll need some trust, both in themselves and the other.  There can be opposing emotions within a character--The I want but I can't have element.  They can feel the same emotions at the same time, but each emotion will move into another, different emotion with a different reaction.  Each character can have layered emotions, too.  A character could feel happiness, but there may be a sadness buried beneath it.

Dig deep.  While the wheel above gives us 32 emotions, there are many, many more that we, as humans, have.  Sometimes having a list can help, so below are three lists that might help, when trying to build your characters.

Philosophy 101: List of Emotions

The Work of Byron Katie - Emotions and Reactions

Your Relationship Matters - List of Human Emotions

Emotions work both ways.  Your characters' emotions can help build their GMCs.  Turn that around and discover that GMC can help build emotions.  Emotions from instances in the past are connected to the present and the future.  GOAL is the future.  MOTIVATION is the past.  CONFLICT is the present.

Make your story emotional by giving characters a wide range of emotions.  Your readers will love you!

"All literature shows us the power of emotion, It is emotion, not reason, that motivates characters in literature." ~ Duff Brenna

Tightening That Sagging Middle

WRITING WEDNESDAYS

I'm late, but I have an excuse.  I've spent today working on my own middle.  The middle of the book, that is.  Work on my physical middle has fallen to the wayside, thanks to the hot weather.  Once it cools off, the walking will resume.

Frankly, I'd much rather blog about the middle in the picture on the left.  Who wouldn't?  But lusting over a hunk isn't going to get a book written and, except for being a reminder of tightening those sagging flesh and blood middles, it's only going to make it warmer in here.  Another 105 today was hot enough, thank you.

I'm one of the lucky ones who hasn't had a rejection because of a sagging middle.  (And I'm knocking on wood.  It can strike at any time.)  Believe me, I've had plenty of rejections, but they've been for a variety of other things.  Still, it seems sagging middles are one of the top reasons for rejection.

If you're coming up on the halfway point in your story and your Hero and Heroine are getting along so well that it's almost scary, it may be that you've forgotten about the conflict between that H and H.  It's conflict, not rosy moments, that keeps them from reaching their happily ever after too soon.  This is where a little plotting can go a long way.

A good story that keeps a reader reading will build from that first introduction to the conflict to the end when that conflict--and often new and different ones--are solved.  This is true for all fiction, not only romance.  While it's nice to have interludes where the characters aren't at odds and everything is going fairly smoothly, if it goes too smoothly for too long, readers can easily lose interest.  And so can editors.

To counteract a lull, it helps to focus on what can happen that will increase the conflict between the H/H.  This conflict should be emotional, and therefore internal, but can be brought about by something external.  A kiss...or more...in a romance will increase the stakes of the characters and bring about more intense emotions and...  You guess it.  CONFLICT.  This could happen while discovering something new about the other character that means a re-thinking of the relationship.  Or maybe a romance that's been kept a secret suddenly suffers a leak that could destroy the couple.  Do this mid-way, and you've discovered the main turning point of your story and solved quite a lot of the sagging middle problem.  Keep it connected to the main conflict, and you'll discover that you won't be going off in directions that lead nowhere.

It doesn't take heavy, thorough or even complicated plotting to do this.  Simply knowing, either before you begin writing the story or discovering it as you're writing it, that this moment is going to happen will keep you on course and keep the story interesting.

The main turning point isn't the only thing to keep readers hooked, but it is one of the most important ones.  Don't cheat your readers.  Give them a strong shift in the story, then take them to a heart-wrenching black moment, before leaving them with happy sighs over the HEA.

Torturing your characters is fun and much better than torturing your readers. ;)

The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, conflict. ~ James Frey

Accepting the Subjective Truth

MOTIVATION MONDAYS

What does a picture of shelves and shelves of books have to do with accepting the truth?  The answer is: A lot.  Or even more specifically:  A lot of books.

A fellow writer in our local writers group replied to another writer's email about contest scores with a legitimate statement.  "So much of this business is personal taste."

Let me first say that the second writer's scores were very good.  All four of the scores were in the top 25% of the total.  That's nothing to feel bad about, and she should feel very proud.

Now look at that photo on the left and imagine a huge room filled with those shelves.  Some of those books are newer than others, but they're all books.  At some point in time, they're all read by someone.  Some are read more than others.

Which brings us back to the comment about so much of this business being personal taste.  That sentence, that statement, begs the question of how much of any business--or product--is personal taste.  My answer to the question (and it's subjective aka personal opinion aka personal taste) is probably about 99.something%.

Instead of diving into this strange percentage and reason for it, let's take a look at some current publishing stats.  (This information and much, much more on publishing and books can be found at http://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm.  It's definitely worth reading through it all.)

What genres/categories are people buying?

55% Popular fiction
10% Religious nonfiction
9% Cooking/Crafts
--2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group, http://www.bisg.org

It's obvious that popular fiction is currently, well, the most popular.  Don't stop there, though.  Break that down into genres, and things get a little more into popularity, who likes what, and...wait for it...personal taste.

In romance alone, there are enough genres and subgenres to make a readers head spin.  For instance, Romance Writers of America (RWA) lists nine (9) subgenres.  They are:

• Contemporary Series Romance
• Contemporary Single Title Romance
• Historical Romance
• Inspirational Romance
• Novels with Strong Romantic Elements
• Paranormal Romance
• Regency Romance
• Romantic Suspense
• Young Adult Romance

If you're a romance reader or writer, you know that the above is only the tip of the iceberg.  There are mixes of subgenres, such as Young Adult Historical Romance, Inspirational Suspense Romance, and Paranormal Romance, all of which include many sub-subgenres.  There are Time-Travel Romances, Futuristic, Fantasy, Western Historical, Western Contemporary, Medieval, Scottish Historical, English Historical, Chick-Lit, Romantic Comedy...  Yeah, you get the picture.

So why all the genres, subgenres and sub-subgenres?  Personal Taste.  And that personal taste thing goes for writers and readers.

While I've read quite a few of those sub and sub-subs, and considering the fact that I cut my (romance reading) teeth on Regency Romance (Georgette Heyer, to be specific), I wouldn't even begin to try to write it or all of those subs and sub-subs.  Or even half of them.  Anyone who might try to write so many would probably be wasting his/her time, not to mention going slowly insane with all the research and details.  We each have our strengths and our weaknesses.  It's wisest, especially when first starting out, to choose the two that feel the most comfortable.

Apples and oranges and broccoli and cauliflower

Back to accepting the subjective truth.  Fact is, most things in life are subjective.  In other words, most things in life are affected and chosen by personal taste.  We choose the books we read by which genres and subgenres we like, by the authors who write them, and other individual likes and dislikes.  A particular cover might catch our fancy.  Or the blurb on the back.  Or something a friend mentioned about a book.  Or even the fact that it's on sale or free. ;)

Not only do are the books we read chosen by our individual and personal taste, but so are the TV shows we watch, the movies we go to, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear, the things we do in our spare time, and...the food we eat.

I like black.  Two of my daughters like purple.  One likes pink.  Someone out there likes orange.  Or green. Or yellow.

Except for math and most of science, everything is personal taste.  Everything is SUBJECTIVE.  For me, even math and science are subjective, because since sixth grade, I've hated math and science. ☺  And to think that when I was in fifth grade, I wanted to be a research scientist when I grew up.  I even had my own microscope.


SUBJECTIVITY AND MOTIVATION

There are genres of fiction that I would probably never choose to read, much less write.  That doesn't mean they aren't good.  It means they aren't among my personal tastes.

Not everyone who reads or even everyone who reads fiction or this genre or that genre will choose to write.  But if you do choose to write, begin with the old adage of write what you know and especially what you like.  If you're not writing what you enjoy, you're losing out on two things:  (1)The prime motivation for writing aka the reason we all dipped our toe in this crazy business and (2) the joy of doing it.

When it comes to personal taste, a writer chooses what kind of story to write.  In other words, a writer is as subjective as the people who will or won't read that writer's books.

There's more to this subjective thing, such as contest judges, agents, editors, readers and more, so next week we'll focus on those and how they do and don't affect our motivation and what we choose to write.  Stop back next Monday for More Subjective Truth. :)

Most beginning writers (and I was the same) are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they've never tasted themselves. How can you make a great (or even an adequate) bouillabaisse if you've never had any? If you don't really understand why people read mysteries (or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever), then there's no way in the world you're going to write one that anyone wants to publish. (This is the meaning of the well-known expression "Write what you know.") - Daniel Quinn

A Little March Madness for Writers

WRITING WEDNESDAYS

March is in full force and the madness has begun, so it seems like the perfect time to talk about goals.  No, not the kind of goals that we set for ourselves or the goals of sporting games (basketball, football, hockey and the rest), but character goals.

Why do characters need goals?  Because without them, there's either no conflict or the conflict is weak and easily overcome or resolved.  Lack of conflict is often the biggest reason writers get rejections.

Just as in real life, a character's goal is as simple as what the character wants.  It could be a long-term want, such as something he or she has wanted since childhood, or it could be an immediate want that stems from a new circumstance.  There can be times when it's a need.  Whichever, in a good story, the character must be focused on getting it.

The goal should have strong emotional elements for the character.  This could be something she/he has looked forward to doing or having or being.  For instance, Kate Clayborne, the heroine in Bachelor Cowboy,  had vowed to remain unmarried, while keeping her culinary skills a secret from everyone in town.  Or the goal could be from something that has very recently happened or happens when the book opens.  In Bachelor Dad, Garrett Miles learns he has a four-year-old daughter and is suddenly expected to be a daddy, something he's completely unprepared to do.

In a romance, the goals of the two main characters (hero & heroine) should oppose each other.  If she wants a home and family, he should want a career or to build on a career he already has, without the encumbrance of a family.  That's pretty standard fair.  To make it a little more interesting, you could switch the roles.  Either way, each main character--aka the protagonists--have a goal.

A character's goal may change over the course of the book, so don't panic if you discover this has happened.  It can often show character growth.  For instance, the hero in The Maverick's Reward, Tucker O'Brien realized that he wanted to be able to do things with his son, things he hadn't been there to do while the boy was growing up.  That meant he had to take the physical therapy he had avoided for his badly injured leg.

In the end, the characters are able to achieve their goals...or what their goals have become.  Those goals may not resemble the original ones and might even be the opposite of what the character had wanted in the beginning, but that's character growth and very important.  Otherwise, in a romance, how would the at-odds hero and heroine ever get together?

Character goals are often formed by something that has happened to them.  It's the why of the goal. We'll take a look at character motivation--the why--next week.

First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him! - Ray Bradbury

Plotting Tips

It's time to get back to work, and since I'm getting ready to do some plotting on what possibly might become two new Desperation books, plotting seems like a good topic to discuss.

A simple definition of plotting is that it's a road map of your story.  You start at one point--the beginning--and then write your way along a highway of scenes to finally come to the final point--the end.  Many things can happen between that beginning and ending, depending on your characters and where you want to take them.  In romance, we take them from a "first meet" to that "HEA" (happily ever after) that each romance must have.

That "first meet" between the hero and heroine of a romance can be between strangers, adversaries, acquaintances or friends.  Keep in mind that the first sentence and the following paragraphs are what will grab the reader.  The last thing the reader wants to know is either character's life history, so don't worry about telling that now.  Those first few words need to hook the reader into the moment.  It may only be a moment experienced by one character (hero or heroine), so don't be afraid to wait to introduce the other character a few paragraphs or even a couple of pages later.  Just don't let it go on too long.  Those first few pages--that first scene--should contain an "OH, NO!" response between the characters or even within the reader, who sees that there's going to be some trouble up ahead.

My story ideas usually start with one character, then my mind searches for the other character, whose goals will be in direct opposition to him or her.  Somewhere along the line in there, an idea of where the story will start and what the main conflict between those characters may be starts to take root.  It may not remain the same, as ideas start to grow.  Changes sometimes need to be made and will be if needed.

Knowing your characters before starting to plot can be a big help.  When you know them well enough, you'll know how they'll react to each other and situations that might arise.  There are many different ways of getting to know your characters, so stop back in later this week for more.  Until then...

Happy Writing! 

Defining Romance

"There wasn't enough romance."

Romance is all about love.  But what is it that shows or represents the romance?  Do each of us as writers or readers have our own expectations, completely different than those of others?  Are there general things that characters do or say that tells us there is a romantic link between these two people or are those things specific to each of us?


As romance writers and readers, we should be able to easily define romance or give examples.  So speak up and share your thoughts on romance.

As a reader, what, for you, shows romance in the making between two characters?

As a writer, how do you show romance between two characters who are in conflict with each other?