Author: Mary Gardner

Categories
Romancing Your Story

Does Setting Matter in a Romance?

The short answer is YES! 

While falling in love can happen anywhere, the choice of your setting sets a tone. 

If you can take your romance and put it in any setting, you need to take a good look at your story. 

A story that takes place in a city can’t be changed to a small town. Nor can a small-town story be moved to the country or on a ranch. The same is true if you need mountains, lakes, or an ocean for your romance setting. Or a story that takes place in a tourist town versus a non-tourist destination. 

There is a distinct difference in the feel of each setting and its impact on your story. 

The setting becomes a minor or major character; therefore, it is essential to have done your research on the place. Go there if you can. Explore the region where your romance takes place. Meet the people because where your story takes place will affect how the other characters react, speak, and what expectations they may have.

In his book Setting, Jack M. Bickham states, “Setting – in real life as well as in fiction – tends to form character in ways you can analyze and use in your work.” It’s true, no matter what period you are writing. In the same book, Bickham suggests after visiting the location and talking to the people, draw up a “setting list” for your desired character. 

No matter whether your setting changes during the story or stays the same, it can cause your character to change their perceptions, feelings, thoughts, motivations, and actions. Your characters live in the physical world of the setting and are subject to impressions that enter their consciousness. 

Mr. Bickham goes on to say that “No mention of setting in fiction can be said to be wholly objective. Selection of viewpoint, as well as selection of the emotional lens through which the described place or event is seen, must be made with constant reference to the desired emotional feel of the story, its present plot situation, and the characters at the time of description.”

It matters where you set your romance so much that you need to carefully consider where you want your story to take place before you begin writing. Some authors will draw a map of a fictional location to keep it accurate within their manuscript. Others use real places and do extensive research to get the names of streets and landmarks correct. 

So, yes, setting matters a great deal and should be treated as another character of your story. 

If you want to learn more about your setting’s impact on your story, I highly recommend Setting by Jack M. Bickham as a resource for your writing library.  

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/ 

Categories
Romancing Your Story

The Romance Promise

Every book written begins with a promise. No matter if it is fiction or nonfiction, there is a promise of what the reader can expect to find in the book.

As a reader, how would you feel if you picked up a diet book expecting tips on losing weight along with recipes for healthy food only to find tips for making candy and recipes for delicious cakes and pies? As the reader, you would be disappointed because it wasn’t what was promised in the description.

The same is true for fiction. Every genre makes a specific promise.

Romance promises the reader a love story. Be it a historical, contemporary, secular, Christian, traditionally or independently published, when a reader buys a book in the romance category, they expect two people to fall in love.

Romance is a broad category in fiction and readers base their expectations of what the book is about on the back cover blurb and publisher. Knowing the market is critical in understanding the promise you are making to the reader.

As the reader begins the first page, she/he is ready to go on the journey with the two main characters. We root for the characters to overcome the obstacles standing in their way and enjoy watching their trust grow and turn to love. When all seems lost, we are eager to cheer for them when their love prevails, and the story ends with the expected happily ever after (HEA).

While attending a secular romance writers group meeting, I listened to some of those attending discuss how the HEA was outdated. Some seemed to think that it should be changed to “happily for now.” I can only speak for myself, but I’d be disappointed if the book I’d invested my time in ended with a “you’ll do until somebody better comes along.”

As a reader, if I’m looking for something clean or Christian, I’m not going to be happy if I stumble into a book with language that I find unacceptable or explicit sex scenes.

With traditionally published books, finding yourself in an unexpected genre isn’t as likely since editors and marketing are careful about the books they publish. Unfortunately, that isn’t necessarily true in independently published romances.

I talked to a local reading group member who told me about a book selection they’d made because the writer was a local Christian romance writer. She shared that she was shocked at some of the language used and the explicit sex scenes written among scripture verses. She said she would never buy a book by that author again. She went on to say she felt cheated.

It was a clear example of a writer having broken her promise to the reader.

Readers need to know they can trust us to deliver a satisfying love story within their chosen romance category. When we break that promise, we disappoint and probably lose a reader. As authors, we don’t want to give readers a reason not to buy our books. When you make the reader a promise, be sure you keep it.

Happy Writing!

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/ 

Categories
Romancing Your Story

The Romance Point of View

Point of view (POV) is essential in all forms of fiction to describe the action as the character experiences it, including emotional responses, thoughts, and reactions. Point of view is especially vital in romance fiction as we build a story around two people falling in love.

The hero and heroine cannot talk about everything they see, feel, want, so the point of view describes what is going on. Without it, your reader will not understand the inner lives of your characters. Their inner lives are especially important when the book is all about emotions. By getting inside the character’s minds, you can give the reader the full story. You can show their attraction, even when they don’t act like they are attracted to each other.

The same is true during action scenes, even when most of the focus is on external events. Point of view interwoven with dialogue and action can keep the romance front and center. Often adding a few lines of into a scene is the easiest way to convey pieces of information the reader needs.

Whose point of view is the right one for the scene? Whose head the writer gets into depends on if the hero or heroine has the most to learn or has the most at stake, at-risk, or the most to tell the reader or have the most interesting take on what is happening around them. If you decide both your hero and heroine are equal, you might choose to split the scene between the two characters. As you switch from one character’s point of view to another, use a scene break to make it easy for your reader.

Use an internal monologue to stay in the hero or heroine’s head longer to convey an important point. The most important use of the internal monologue is during moments of great emotional stress, or when the character realizes they are in love with the other person. That is a huge revelation and a key to everything else that will happen. Your reader needs to know how the hero or heroine feels about this sudden realization. Does it make them happy? Perhaps they are furious because this wasn’t in their plan? Do they think their love interest couldn’t possibly love them back? Maybe there have been so many negative things happening between them that they feel it’s impossible to work out the rocky road of their relationship.

No matter what they feel, those feelings are dramatic, complicated, and fascinating, and you need that extra time inside his/her head to tell the reader all about them. You can also use the internal monologue to convey information like what motivates a character or what the character thinks motivates someone else. These don’t fit well into dialogue.  

Choose the character’s point of view carefully. Ensure there is enough at stake to tell the story from inside the hero or heroine’s head. Make their inner life rich enough, so the story is dramatic and intriguing to your reader.  

As a reference for this article, I used Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies by Leslie Wainger.

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/ 

Categories
Romancing Your Story

When All Seems Lost

The Black Moment. The Crisis. The Breakup. There are many titles for that moment when all seems lost.

No matter what you call it, every novel must have a crisis point, at which time it appears the characters will not or cannot reach their goals. The black moment needs to happen two to three chapters before the end of the story so that the characters have time to examine their open wound, recognize their flaws, and face their greatest fears. Without that time, they will not be able to move through self-evaluation toward the resolution.

The black moment cannot come out of the blue. There need to be hints from the beginning of the story. Often the wound revolves around something the hero or heroine has kept hidden or perhaps believes has healed. The black moment reopens that wound.

In Deborah Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, she writes, “This black moment is brought about by the external event. But it is the internal choice, the compromise, the character growth that keys the resolution.” 

If you are writing multiple viewpoints, each character is on a separate personal journey with different wounds and external events and emotional issues. It needs only to be one character who withdraws to cause the breakup, which will trigger the black moment and cause both of them to believe their love isn’t enough to overcome the external obstacle. Their wound(s) have been ripped open, and they may withdraw to a place in the past where they felt safer. 

The black moment leads to the internal emotional event that allows them to examine their feelings, recognize their flaws, and see how their fears are keeping them from their greatest desire or goal. Whether they are facing the realization alone or are confiding their hurts to a friend, they must come to the pivotal point that allows them to try again.

In How to Write a Brilliant Romance, Susan May Warren writes, “Every Black Moment has two parts. An  event, which is the actual fear coming true, and  effect, which is the following emotional and spiritual crisis.“

The resolution is the big payoff. Readers have been anticipating it from page one. Make it emotional, whether by making the reader laugh, cry, or gasp. The resolution needs to be big enough to count. The reader is expecting a satisfying ending. One in which the character grows and sacrifices. In a romance, the conflict resolution is an emotional choice.

If you reach a point in your romance where the black moment needs to happen, and you haven’t hinted at the wound or flaw, the reader feels cheated. By revealing the wound early in the story, it doesn’t surprise the reader. If it only appears at the black moment the author may have left the reader confused, puzzled, or perhaps worse, disappointed in the story. 

Every story begins with a promise. In romance, that promise is a satisfying ending that makes the reader believe all is right with the hero and heroine’s world. As the reader closes the book, we want them to feel they have experienced their journey to find love. A satisfied reader will return for more of your books.

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/ 

Categories
Romancing Your Story

Tension is Necessary in Romance Fiction.

If you are writing a clean or Christian romance, you still need to build tension in your story. Depending on the story you are telling, the tension may or may not begin with a denial of attraction. Perhaps they will experience an initial dislike for the other person or have accepted that they are “just friends.”

Romances, by their nature, promise a love story with a satisfying happily-ever-after ending. Your characters must find a way past the denial stage and realize there is more to their relationship. This is a critical turning point in the story.

Foundation for growth

The first look or the first physical contact may cause butterflies, but there needs to be more of a foundation for a relationship to grow. For some characters, it will be a wish or a desire for affection. Maybe a dream of having a happily-ever-after, no matter how unlikely it seems with the person they feel attracted to. 

The wishing for a relationship must turn to your characters to wanting to spend time together, even if one or both are still in denial. They need to begin looking forward to seeing each other. Maybe external circumstances draw them together, which results in them becoming more comfortable with each other.

That doesn’t mean they are suddenly emotionally on the same page. They may have intense disagreements about something in the story. Perhaps one wants to sell a ranch, and the other wants to keep it, but neither is willing to walk away. So builds the push and pull of their relationship. 

As they learn more about each other, they learn to coexist in their story world. Your characters develop a daily routine, whether they are sharing the same space, as in the ranch example, or regularly seeing each other over a common situation. 

It’s at this stage, that each partner will begin to accept and even appreciate the strengths in the other person. Appreciation is vital in building a relationship. Without it, one or both have no reason to stay connected to the other person. 

They begin to ask the what-if question and begin to imagine what it might be like to be in a real romantic relationship. Maybe one or both of your characters start to wonder what a kiss feel like, or perhaps experience an encounter that makes them feel accepted and connected in a new way. They begin to toy with the idea that maybe it could work. However, if our characters come together too quickly, there will not be tension.

In Susan May Warren’s book How To Write A Brilliant Romance, she says, “The pull toward each other, is just one half of sexual tension. We also need the push away from each other or the fear of loss.” 

The fear of loss

An internal obstacle causes the fear of loss. The internal wounds of one or both characters may lead them to believe the risk is too high. The fear of losing the other person if their most guarded internal wound is exposed. One character may summon the courage to ask what the other person fears. Or even more powerful to risk rejection and ask them to stay. 

The internal wound cannot remain a secret from the other person if their relationship is to be realized. Each character must feel their love interest will accept the broken parts of them and all. They will be loved for who they are and will be there for them in times of hardship. Only then can they become more intimate with each other, both physically and emotionally, and have their wish for the happily-ever-after become real.

If you want to dive deeper into creating emotional tension, I’d like to suggest the following books:

  • Writing A Romance Novel for Dummies by Leslie Wainger
  • How to Write a Brilliant Romance by Susan May warren
  • The Story Equation by Susan May Warren
  • The Writers Journey by Christopher Vogler
  • The Virgin’s Promise by Kim Hudson
  • The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Mass
  • Troubleshooting Your Novel by Steven James

Rose Gardner’s writing journey has come in two phases. The first was focused on contemporary category romance. After a break, she returned to writing contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing and the power of forgiveness. During the first phase of her writing she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven including a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest in 2008. More recently she won 1st place in the Blue Seal Award for General/ Contemporary/ Romance Novels at OHCWC 2017.