Forever And Ever: Romance Structure and Secrets To Make Your Readers Fall in Love With Your Work

By Anaïs Wilde

You can write romance. Whereas you're just begining as an author or if you've already written some novels, in this book you'll find all the necessary keys to help you shape that idea you've got in mind. Anaïs Wilde and Lola Fortuna share with you their experience as translators of this genre, authors and teachers of creative writing. 

This book will help you create characters, plots, to build sexual tension between your main characters and much more. Finally, when you get to the editing phase you'll learn how to spot and solve those little problems that might be stealing from your novel all the shine it really has.

Everything you need to successfully go from the first spak or an idea to wrapping it up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ediciones Fortuna
• Release date: Jun 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547528448

Book preview

FOREVER AND EVER

Romance Structure and Secrets To Make Your Readers Fall In Love With Your Work

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Anaïs Wilde and Lola Fortuna

Introduction

Love moves the world. It is not just a phrase, but a reality that we all feel at some point in our lives. Those butterflies in the stomach when we see someone special to us are nothing compared to the powerful injection of energy that comes from the feeling of being in love. Who hasn't jumped out of bed despite of having slept only for two hours just to meet whom he wants? And the dedication that we put in getting ready when we know that we can run into the person we like? Nothing gives us more energy, encouragement or joy of living.

Because of all of that love is the theme which we like and we never think of it too much. We don't get bored of it. We like to love and we like to see how others fall in love. We like to see it as it happens, with the people we know and we like to read about it. Yes, read... and write!

If writing itself is already a pleasant task, writing about love is even more enjoyable. Creating worlds, handling the lives of the characters, deciding what they do and what they say, seeing how they come to life on paper, in our mind and in minds of our readers is something very rewarding, but not simple. That's why Anaïs and myself (Lola Fortuna) decided to write this book, to share what we have learned about the genre of romance and its sub-genre through a life professionally dedicated to books. Not that we are only eager readers (we devour tons of books, we can assure you), but also our professional life and, previous to that, our studies in Philology have led us to deal with topics related to the world of literature for many years.

With this book we want to accompany you in your career as a writer, whether you're going to face your first book or you've been already writing for a while. We want to contribute our bit to facilitate the task, so that you do not suffer while writing, but you can fully commit yourself to your work and see your ideas beautifully displayed on a page.

So let's start with presenting ourselves I, Lola Fortuna, have worked for more than fifteen years as a style proofreader and a translator. Anaïs Wilde has also been a style proofreader and taught creative writing in the Anglo-Saxon world for many years before she started to write. We come from a truly academic world in which the classics are read and everything else is scorned, especially the literature called popular. Obviously, romantic literature belongs to what is marked as popular. Pop, if you want. We like this last label, because it alludes to the freshness of the genre, to something vibrant, light, that evolves day by day, reflecting the tastes of the people and their way of thinking.

The romantic genre, despite of what the rigid criteria of the universities can say, is alive. Yes, perhaps it is more vivid than any other literary genre and there lies its beauty. Romance does not accept corsets, they get removed to show it naked and to make readers to enjoy. Though romance has been mainly a feminine genre, both with authors as with readers, more and more men are entering this fascinating world. We find it very enriching, as men will certainly bring a new point of view and give variety. In fact, every day there are new male authors and every day we get more surprised by their work and fall in love with their novels. Equally, since we are at the point to explain that we do not have intention of excluding anyone, we'll say that here we talk about couples man-woman, but of course all the theory you will find in this book is applicable to homosexual couples as well. We do not want to exclude anyone, we simply feel that from our side it is honest to write about what we know well, which is heterosexual romance.

Finally, we have already said that romance, like no other, is a living genre. The novels that are written now have almost nothing in common with those from ten or twenty years ago. If we stop for a moment and think about it, we will realize how short this time period is. In any other genre there are no big differences in a fragment of time that short, but in romance there actually are.

Living genre, why?

Perhaps one of the reasons why romance is modified and branched so much is because, to a large extent, it reflects the female world which is in continuous evolution. This is what hooks us as readers and something that you have to take into account while writing. We like to look at ourselves as in a mirror, to find in the characters features with which we can identify, but also to see the characters living a kind of life that we would like to have. In this sense, romance is highly aspirational, meaning it shows us what we aspire to. This explains why the stories with millionaires or celebrities that fall in love with average girls are so successful.

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Why a book about how to write?

Because anyone who loves books in general and romance in particular would like to observe and develop it in the best possible way. Writing is a profession and like any other profession it has to be learned and practiced until you completely master it. You have to know its secrets, the fabric that builds the novel in general and the romantic view of it in particular. It is not enough to be an eager reader of romance, you also have to learn to read from the point of view of a writer. No, it is not the same, we will decompose it throughout this book and in each section we will particularly invite you to put into practice what you have learned and use it in what you are writing (or you plan to write in the future), as well as to notice it in what you are reading. We will tell you which pieces you should look for in your new readings.

When we approach romance as consumers we just want to know who falls in love, what will happen, what the girl does and what the guy does. We bite our nails as we turn the pages observing how they solve the problem that prevents them from being together. We sigh with every kiss, with every intimate encounter.

When you are a writer you equally enjoy the situations and the emotions of the characters. But you should not only take care of what goes on in the novel, but also how it happens.  As an author you have to know which are the pieces of every good story and see how the author you’re reading has spun them. Let's just say it's similar to what happens to the professional cook. She knows what the ingredients of a lasagna are (to give an example), but when she eats it prepared by someone else, she analyzes the amount of sauce, filling, salsa, spices. If she encounters an ingredient that is not normally used in lasagna, the cook will evaluate whether adding it has been a success or a mistake. In other words, when eating a lasagna, a professional cook will not only tell whether it is good or not, but she will also know why. That's the approach we recommend you to take from now on with romance. Romance, and not only. All the novels that you read from now on you should go through a sieve that tells you about success and mistakes.

No carpenter would throw himself into making a chair just because he sits in one every day. A baker wouldn't even assume that he can make bread just because he eats it daily. In both cases it is necessary to study the trade, learn its techniques and its secrets. That's why if you want to write romance, we invite you to take the task as a professional and devote it the care and attention it deserves. 

Today romance is one of the best-selling genres. Millions of readers all over the world enjoy the stories that make their hearts beat as if they were together with their first love. We like falling in love, we like feeling great passion through the pages, whether digital or printed. We like to dive into wonderful worlds where reigns glamor and gentlemanliness, where the beautiful details are the highlights of the day. And of course, we like to suffer and shed seas of tears because of the vicissitudes of the characters with whom we identify.

Today, more than ever, the romantic genre is alive and healthy, promising to stay active for many, many years. On the other hand, the digital revolution has given entry to new voices, to the authors who want to be heard without asking permission. Some have knocked on the doors of the big publishers, some not. In both cases, they have not allowed anything to get in the way that connects their creativity with their readers. Romance is an especially fertile space for independent authors and, as readers, we are glad of it because this brings freshness and vitality to the genre.

Finally, we hope to offer you with this book the keys which will help you exploit the idea that is wandering through your mind. Maybe it will help you to unlock a story that came to a standstill or give you a clue about why  that novel you've finished does not sound convincing. We hope you will enjoy reading this book and, above all, that you will explore and apply what you learn here. Writing is like playing the piano, you won't be able to play a great symphony if you don't spend hours agonizing your fingers on the keyboard with scales and easy pieces. So everything you write, erase and rewrite is good exercise. Never give up, enjoy what you do, express everything you've got within. Ready? Let's go!

1. From reader to author

Genre literature

The first thing we have to keep in mind is that romance is what can be called genre literature, which assumes a type of narration with obligatory elements included. The thriller, the horror novel, the detective novel, fantasy are other examples of genre literature. We’re talking about a type of novels that respond to a set of very specific conventions. Although at a first glance it may seem that this limits this kind of literature, the effect is rather the opposite. Since its beginnings, genre