When young real estate agent Sandra Lejeune receives an anonymous letter threatening her family, she leaves her home in Cypress Bend, Louisiana and travels to England, intending to warn her estranged mother. But first she has to find her. Sandra starts her search in the Suffolk coastal village of Eden Cove, untangling memories and mysteries along the way. Who sent the letter? Her father’s shady business partners? The private investigator Sandra previously hired? Or someone else entirely?
She came to warn her estranged mother of danger. But will the cost of unraveling family secrets be too much to bear? If you love domestic suspense with romance, you’ll love The Key Collector’s Promise.
Award-winning author Donna Jo Stone delivers a tale of domestic suspense infused with family drama and a dash of southern charm. You can purchase The Key Collector’s Promise: A 1980s Suspense with Romance on Amazon, which released on September 6, 2024.
The Key Collector’s Promise is part of the Our House on Sycamore Street, a new multi-author, multi-genre series set in quaint and quirky Eden Cove, an English seaside town with plenty of spirit. With stories of redemption and salvation behind every door, you’re sure to find a new tale of romance, intrigue, humor or heart. All you have to do is knock!
Donna Jo Stone writes southern-flavored novels for the inspirational and general market for adults and young adults. Her stories are often about people facing tough times. Not all of her books have romance but when they do, the romances are sweet. No graphic language, sex, or violence, just plenty of heart-tugging emotion with endings that leave readers with a sense of hope.
When she’s not writing or reading, she spends her time hanging out with family and friends, and occasionally visits bookshops and fabric sales.
You can learn more about Donna Jo by visiting her at donnajostone.com.
Readers, particularly romance readers, love stories that feel familiar—shorthand for they use tropes—but also seem new and bring a surprise. As writers, how do we craft novels that deliver on all counts?
There are several strategies to writing fresh stories that still feel as comfortable as a warm sweater on a cold day. Let’s look at just a few:
Twist a Common Trope
Enemies to Lovers is a popular trope that can have several variations. The hero and heroine can dislike each other for their personal points of view, such as in Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have different worldviews and values which lead them to disagree about virtually everything. Or the protagonists can actually be friendly personally, but enemies professionally, such as in Mr. and Mrs. Smith who are in “love” but also rival assassins. Or in Two Weeks Notice, Sandra Bullock’s and Hugh Grant’s characters were different both personally and professionally but finally realized their differences attracted them to each other and made them compatible.
Combine Tropes
Another Sandra Bullock movie, The Proposal, combined Enemies to Lovers and Fake Relationship, with a dash of Forced Proximity. Ryan Reynolds (along with all of Bullock’s other employees) hated her because she was rigid, mean, and cold. She needed a fiancé to avoid deportation. He agreed to her proposal to pretend to be in a relationship because of what she could do for him professionally. One element of that movie I appreciated was the change in Bullock’s appearance. As she grew to care for Reynolds and his family, she softened. She let her hair down (literally), and she dressed more casually.
Another great combination, Forbidden Love (Romeo and Juliet) plus Forced Proximity (Green Card) guarantees sparks on the page.
Unfamiliar Settings
Sticking with Sandra Bullock (and why not?), let’s talk about The Lost City. Set on a tropical island, both Bullock’s and Channing Tatum’s characters are out of their elements and forced to work together to escape the crazed billionaire who’s kidnapped Bullock’s romance novelist character. There’s also a Forced Proximity combination with Loretta (Bullock) and Alan (Tatum) on the run together.
No matter the tropes you choose to combine, there are some things to keep in mind:
Characters. They should always have great backstories and motivations that work with the trope. For a Second Chance story, both protagonists will have shared memories with emotional layers. Use those emotions to help your reader connect with the characters.
Conflict and Resolution. The conflict should be genuine, not something that could be resolved with a discussion. It needs to stem from who the characters are and what they believe. The resolution should be a result of growth and lessons learned.
With the many, many romance tropes available to writers, the combinations for something new and fun yet familiar are nearly endless. To paraphrase a current credit card commercial, “What’s in your Trope Wallet?”
Pull it out and put it to work.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
For writers, opportunities wait behind the doors of the grocery store!
A plethora of plots. Character reveals. Centuries of setting choices.
Plots or sub-plots—romance, thievery, espionage, even murder—hope to be chosen for a writer’s next work. Love blooms on Aisle 4. A desperate mother shoplifts. Dollar bills go missing from the money box. Who poisoned the produce?
Character reveals or characters revealed? There’s a place for both in the grocery store. The helpful or bitter proprietor. The responsible cashier. The jerk of a clerk. Or the unexpected, welcome or dreaded, encounter at the meat counter.
Along with plots and characters, a variety of grocery store settings are available for the picking. From as far back as the infant years of the United States, shops afforded goods to consumers: Trading Posts. General Stores. Mom-and-Pop shops. Full-service grocery stores.
Spanning four centuries, 17th through the early 20th, customers could make purchases at the TRADING POST, GENERAL STORE or a MOM-AND-POP shop. Demographics, architecture and technology might change, but the overall model of these establishments remained during this era.
TRADING POSTS arose and scattered across the United States as adventurous folks moved westward to explore the land. Initially, the trappers who operated the posts traded guns, ammunition, cloth and trims, and cookware to the local Indian tribes in exchange for furs and food. Bartering was common as opposed to a fixed-price system. Extending credit was common, luring customers to return.
Over the decades the face of the Trading Post morphed according to the increase in population and the changing landscape as more people moved west to settle in communities. Farmers, ranchers, travelers by stagecoach or rail, Pony Express riders, along with the Indian tribes might do business at the Trading Post. The proprietor would keep busy stocking shelves, bartering and selling, and cultivating working relationships and friendships with customers.
GENERAL STORES
The locale of the store would determine much of the product offered to the customer. For example, if the General Store is the only shop in a tiny town, though they provide mostly dry goods, at times they might have eggs, fresh fruit or vegetables brought in by a local farmer in exchange for credit or product. They may also stock items that are unique to the needs of those area residents. Specialty items were likely ordered and took a long time to receive. The post office might deliver mail to their facility and the customer would pick it up when they came by.
If the General Store is located in a large town or city where numerous specialty businesses operate, dry goods would be their main stock,
A day in the life of the proprietor might include unloading a shipment of goods or stocking shelves. Customers, both men and women, would hand him a list, or simply tell him what they needed. The requested items would be placed on the counter. After calculating the cost, the owner would load them in the customer’s sack or wagon to take home.
By 1883, proprietors might have set aside their pencil and paper and used a cash register which was invented by James and John Ritter circa 1878.
MOM AND POP shops are distinguished from General Stores in that they are usually family-owned and often a specialty store such as butchers, bakers, pharmacists, or shoemakers, etc.
Mom and Pop stores were likely flanked on either side by other stores in a string of buildings on the main street of town. Owners often lived on the second floor.
Progressing into the20TH CENTURY
In 1916, Piggly Wiggly opened the first self-service establishment. Customers could walk along the aisles and pick out what they wanted to purchase, then take them to check-out for tabulation and bagging. Regional chain stores, as late as the 1920s, continued counter-service for procurement of dry goods.
Shoppers still needed to visit the specialty shops for meat and produce.
Circa 1937, King Kullen opened the first grocery store featuring an onsite baker, butcher and a large produce department.
Shortly after King Kullen’s opening, the shopping cart was introduced. This made shopping easier for the customers, but also, the sale of more merchandise increased profits for the owner.
These early 20th century advancements in grocery services paved the way for the shopping experiences enjoyed by 20th and 21st century consumers. But that’s a story for another day.
As for creative writers, fodder for meaningful and exciting stories waits behind the doors of any Trading Post, General Store, Mom and Pop shop, or Full-service Grocery Store.
One just needs to look to find them.
Jeannine Brummett lives in South Carolina with her husband of nineteen years, Don, who shares his three adult sons and three grandchildren with her. Reading is big on her list of things to do, but she also thrives on TV crime dramas, NBA basketball, and marvels at the critters and fowl life that live at the pond behind their house. She loves to sing praise songs, attend Bible Study, and help at a local food pantry.
The Emotion Thesaurus or 1,000 Character Reactions?
Scrivener or Word? Or Google Docs?
Tropes or archetypes?
There are nearly as many methods, resources, and ideas about writing romance as there are romance novels. New writers are often overwhelmed by the vast—and sometimes conflicting—teaching they hear.
Friend, I see you. I am you.
In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon wrote, “the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.” In other words, there is always a new and shiny technique guaranteed to make writing your novel easier.
But does it really?
Thinking about a story, outlining a story, plotting a story is not the same as writing the story. No matter the method or process, writing a novel requires BIC (Bottom in Chair) time. And fingers on the keyboard, typing.
Writing is what makes us writers, not the number of craft books on our shelves.
Joanna Trollope said, “I have more books than I’ll ever read, and I keep buying more books. It’s the one addiction I have.”
I have bought (and then given away) enough how-to books for a writer to furnish a small library. If someone I like recommends a book, I snap it up, set it on top of my already close-to-toppling TBR (To Be Read) Mountain. And there it sits until I can’t take its reproachful cover glaring at me any longer and I place it on a shelf with its other abandoned siblings.
Then I plant myself in front of my computer, place my fingers on the keyboard, and get to work.
Until my story stalls, yet again, and I run to the newest shiniest craft book on my shelf searching for the secret sauce that will make my story stand out and get noticed above the estimated 2.2 million books published each year.
The answer to how do we make our stories unique:
Be original.
Be familiar.
Contradictory, right?
Not really.
Readers want stories they relate to.
This accounts for the various and popular tropes. All readers have personal preferences, and this extends to tropes. They may like marriage of convenience stories, enemies to friends, friends to more, secret baby, fairy tales retold, and so on. But even with familiar tropes, readers want something new and original and fresh.
I have a friend who used to say she wanted to be the next *insert Big Name in publishing.* Our critique friends kept telling her that was impossible. Not because her writing wasn’t good enough, but because she was shortchanging herself and her readers by not being the best writer she could be, instead of a pale imitation of someone else.
She listened, wrote a book from her heart, and it found a publishing home. Making her writing transparent and vulnerable made the difference.
I still buy craft books. I even read some of them. But I’m far enough along on this writing journey to trust that I can write stories worth reading.
So can you.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
Once upon a time, when I was new to fiction writing, I brought a chapter to my weekly workshop/critique group. I read a selection from a romantic suspense where the heroine receives a package from a stalker. In the padded envelope was a dead bird.
My workshop leader/writing teacher/mentor complimented the writing and plot twist, then asked me a question.
“What kind of bird was in the package?”
(I had no idea.) “Hmmm. A little brown bird. A sparrow?”
“Why not say sparrow instead of bird?”
“I don’t know.” (This shows how much I needed to learn.)
“Authenticating details are part of what takes good writing to great writing.”
It took me a long time to understand what my mentor was saying: specificity makes the scene come alive for the reader. “Bird” could mean anything from penguin to turkey and your reader pause to wonder just how big that package was. A sparrow evokes a specific image.
What are some ways to add depth and details to our story worlds?
Choose the specific over the general, such as buzzard rather than bird, rose instead of flower. But don’t go so far into specifics (unless it’s vital to the plot), that the reader must pause and research what a long-wattled umbrella bird looks like (black, short-tailed, with a head crest. The males have long wattles).
Weather can help set the mood. It’s hard to describe a suspenseful scene if it’s a bright and sunny day. Are the clouds dark and menacing, full of rain? Or white and puffy, moving gracefully across the sky?
Food. Is your character eating fries out of a bag while driving their Mini Cooper or leaning over a sink, eating a ham on rye sandwich? Or sitting alone at a long table in an ornate dining room with candles and green cloth napkins to eat a bucket of chicken?
Music. What’s playing in the car or in the café? Does a song evoke an emotion in your character?
Smells. A steak sizzling on the grill elicits a different expression than driving by a dairy farm. (Trust me, it’s not pleasant.)
Clothes and fashion. In the movie Grease, when Sandy’s attire changes from Peter Pan collar blouses and skirts to black leather and off-the-shoulder tops, the viewer knew instantly she was telling Danny she was willing to change to fit into his world.
Accessories. Does he wear pearl stud cufflinks and a matching tie pin? Does she wear an armful of bracelets or a colorful necklace?
Props. If they scribble a note to say they’re meeting a friend for coffee, do they use a fountain pen, a broken crayon, or a highlighter?
Anything that adds visual detail to your scene will help your readers know and “see” your characters. An engaged reader is one who keeps turning the page. Exactly what we want.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
Making your hero and heroine relatable is key to creating characters your readers will care about, will laugh with, and will cry over. Your protagonists must also care about each other. They must have enough in common so that their attraction makes sense, but they also must have enough differences to create conflict.
How do we create characters who leap off the page and into our readers’ hearts?
Characters need to have:
Relatability. Make them human, not perfect. Give them flaws, real character flaws, not just physical imperfections. I once edited a book by a man whose heroine was perfect. I told him she needed to have a flaw. “She does,” he assured me. “She has a limp.” A limp is not a flaw, it’s an imperfection. Being quick to judge is a flaw. Lying about inconsequential matters is a flaw. An inability to apologize is a flaw.
Strong personalities. I’m a fairly passive introvert and my first drafts heroines are very much like me. In other words: boring. It’s in the rewrite that I figure out their personality and give them some sass and spunk. I’m in the process of doing that with my work-in-progress’s heroine. She’s still way too passive, but she’s getting there. I’ll often think of something outrageous that I would never do and force my heroine to do that. I’ve had characters go bungee jumping, sing karaoke, and appear on a reality television show.
Conflict. Both within themselves and with each other. In my work-in-progress I’m pairing a hero with a strong sense of justice and honesty with a heroine who is intent on helping someone, but it means not telling the full truth. Instant conflict!
Attraction. They need to have chemistry, which is easy to see, but hard to write and describe. I guess I’m a prude, because physical attraction is the hardest thing for me to write. Kissing scenes about kill me. I’m beyond grateful I don’t write sex scenes. But showing physical attraction between your protagonists is crucial to getting your readers to cheer them on to their happily ever after.
Obstacles. Kind of like Conflict, but bigger, harder, more intense. Always be thinking, What can happen to keep this character from reaching his/her goal? What can I throw at them or put in their way? It can be anything from weather to mechanical to physical/geographical distance to family or work responsibilities to employer policies to those pesky personality differences.
Authenticity. Nothing makes a reader lose interest in a book quicker than a character who does something unrealistic. I once read a “romance” where the hero gave the heroine not one clue that he was interested in a relationship. I was convinced that at the end, he’d give her an incredulous look and say, “Where did you get the idea I liked you, much less that we were dating?” and she would realize she’d made up the whole relationship in her head. Alas, he apologized for all the ways he’d failed her and promised to be a better boyfriend in the future. I instantly apologized to my heart for making it pump all the hours I’d wasted reading a book with zero plausibility.
Writing realistic and relatable characters is a skill worth learning. It’s the secret sauce that will turn your stories from good to can’t-put-down-able.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
I recently attended a conference where one of the speakers talked about how, because of cultural and societal shifts, different generations may converse using the same words, but not realize that the definitions of the words have changed. Basically, we’re using the same vocabulary, but different dictionaries.
Imagine anyone from our current world saying, “My mouse needs a battery and my streaming service has been freezing.” We know exactly what they mean. Someone from a hundred (or even fifty) years ago would likely ask, “What kind of rodent did you train to eat batteries and how could a river/creek/stream freeze?”
To narrow the historical divide a bit, a Boomer or Gen-Xer probably has a different definition of words such as marriage, gender, or furry than a Millennial or Gen-Zer. I know we’ve run into this when talking to our grandkids. We’ve had to ask lots of questions and have them define terms to be sure we’re talking about the same thing. Even emojis may have meanings ascribed to them that are not what you think. 😉
What does this have to do with writing romance?
Everything. Because words matter.
As writers, we need to remember dialogue comes from inside the character. This means that character’s past experiences, their hurts, talents, flaws, everything in them will color how they view life, what they think about things, and what they say.
A man who grew up on a Wyoming cattle ranch will think about a grilled steak differently than a guy from Manhattan’s Upper East Side. But what a fun twist would it be if the cowboy really knew about wine, too? If he had an amazing palate and could pair any food with the perfect wine it could be his super-power.
A woman whose father walked out on her and her mother may be slower to trust men than the gal who grew up with a bunch of brothers and a dad who took her out for donuts every Saturday. For the first woman, it would be a huge step to agree to a second date with a man who accidentally stood her up the first time (due to a misunderstanding). Her agreement would probably be timid, an “Okay, maybe, I guess.” While the second woman would be more able to shrug off the unintended rejection and accept with more enthusiasm. “Sure, let’s try again.”
Dialogue should sound organic and natural to the character.
But don’t fall into the trap of having a character from the South drop their g’s or use exaggerated accents on the page. It be distractin’. Doncha know? Instead, use speech patterns and idioms to create the conversational style you want.
When I wrote a novel set in Tennessee, I consulted several websites listing Southern expressions. Some I used, and some I tweaked for my purposes. One of my favorites, and one that’s often cited as making a reader laugh out loud was, “Well, butter my backside and call me a biscuit.” The actual saying I found was, “Butter my butt and call me a biscuit.” I thought my character would rather refer to her backside, and it kept the alliteration of the b’s, so I changed it to suit my character and my story.
Used wisely, dialogue and word choice can deepen your story and create characters who come alive in the mind of the reader.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
I’m sure you’re aware of all the Christmas romance movies that Hallmark airs on television before Thanksgiving into the New Year. Christmas romance novellas and novels also show up on bookstore shelves and on social media sites and can easily been found on Goodreads and Amazon between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, what is it about romance stories that take place during the Christmas holiday that glues people to the television set or to the pages of a book?
I believe there are three reasons people, and particularly women, can’t get enough romance stories set during the Christmas holiday, and we’ll look at these one at a time:
1) The Magic of Christmas
This is a secular concept where you can make a wish upon a star or send a letter to Santa to get what you’re looking for. Christmas has been touted as a time when dreams and wishes come true, if you just believe in Santa Claus delivering your much wanted item to your door while you sleep on Christmas Eve, or believe in wishes coming true simply because Christmas is advertised and promoted to be magical. I already mentioned the Hallmark movies, but there are classic movies that include Christmas romance as well, such as White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street. All you have to do is believe in the Magic of Christmas and you’ll find love.
2) The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
When people are generally happy and will give you a cheerful greeting on the street. When people are feeling more generous and are more willing to lend a helping hand or provide something for someone in need. Nonprofit organizations send out flyers or have tables in store foyers seeking donations to help the needy. Christmas music is played over store loudspeakers or via church bells in the local town, and on the radio. Most people think of a chill in the air and the beauty of a freshly fallen sparkling white snow on the ground, and snuggling by the fire in the fireplace drinking hot chocolate. So many wonderful happy pictures are painted in her minds through the music, movies, books, and advertisements of the Christmas holiday, when even the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge find room to be generous, loving, and happy.
3) Jesus Christ, the Savior
To those who know and believe the Word of God, this is the best and most important reason to celebrate Christmas. We believe that God sent His one and only Son to earth around the time that Christmas is celebrated. Why? Because God saw that people needed a Savior – a way to be reconciled from their miserable sinfulness to God, the one who is the only source of true love. Jesus Christ – the true meaning of Christmas, the one who not only brought and offered love, but who is the very embodiment and example of real, true love. He came to live among us and show us how to love one another and how to live with the hope of one day spending eternity with Him, Jesus, the one who laid down his life for each and every one of us; the one who showed us that real love is sacrificial and priceless, and this is the kind of love we all hope and long for.
As a believer in Jesus Christ, I have found The Nativity Story movie, written by Mike Rich, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and released in 2006, from which I used a picture above, to be my absolute favorite Christmas movie of all time. Though it does not include a typical romance, I think the way Mr. Rich depicted the relationship between Mary and Joseph was so perfect and touching. So, if you’re looking for inspiration for writing a romance story, you might want to consider watching this movie and paying attention to the interaction between the characters of Mary and Joseph.
No matter which of these reasons is your reason to seek and enjoy Christmas romance, they all have a “feel good” sentiment, which is what romance readers want. That’s what I believe makes Christmas romance stories so popular—all people want to be accepted, loved, and happy. So no matter which of the reasons above is your reason for watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas music, or reading Christmas romance novels, you will find the magic of Christmas is love.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
I’m sure you’re aware of all the Christmas romance movies that Hallmark airs on television before Thanksgiving into the New Year. Christmas romance novellas and novels also show up on bookstore shelves and on social media sites and can easily been found on Goodreads and Amazon between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, what is it about romance stories that take place during the Christmas holiday that glues people to the television set or to the pages of a book?
I believe there are three reasons people, and particularly women, can’t get enough romance stories set during the Christmas holiday, and we’ll look at these one at a time:
1 The Magic of Christmas
This is a secular concept where you can make a wish upon a star or send a letter to Santa to get what you’re looking for. Christmas has been touted as a time when dreams and wishes come true, if you just believe in Santa Claus delivering your much wanted item to your door while you sleep on Christmas Eve, or believe in wishes coming true simply because Christmas is advertised and promoted to be magical. I already mentioned the Hallmark movies, but there are classic movies that include Christmas romance as well, such as White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street. All you have to do is believe in the Magic of Christmas and you’ll find love.
2 The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
When people are generally happy and will give you a cheerful greeting on the street. When people are feeling more generous and are more willing to lend a helping hand or provide something for someone in need. Nonprofit organizations send out flyers or have tables in store foyers seeking donations to help the needy. Christmas music is played over store loudspeakers or via church bells in the local town, and on the radio. Most people think of a chill in the air and the beauty of a freshly fallen sparkling white snow on the ground, and snuggling by the fire in the fireplace drinking hot chocolate. So many wonderful happy pictures are painted in her minds through the music, movies, books, and advertisements of the Christmas holiday, when even the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge find room to be generous, loving, and happy.
3 Jesus Christ, the Savior
To those who know and believe the Word of God, this is the best and most important reason to celebrate Christmas. We believe that God sent His one and only Son to earth around the time that Christmas is celebrated. Why? Because God saw that people needed a Savior – a way to be reconciled from their miserable sinfulness to God, the one who is the only source of true love. Jesus Christ – the true meaning of Christmas, the one who not only brought and offered love, but who is the very embodiment and example of real, true love. He came to live among us and show us how to love one another and how to live with the hope of one day spending eternity with Him, Jesus, the one who laid down his life for each and every one of us; the one who showed us that real love is sacrificial and priceless, and this is the kind of love we all hope and long for.
As a believer in Jesus Christ, I have found The Nativity Story movie, written by Mike Rich, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and released in 2006, from which I used a picture above, to be my absolute favorite Christmas movie of all time. Though it does not include a typical romance, I think the way Mr. Rich depicted the relationship between Mary and Joseph was so perfect and touching. So, if you’re looking for inspiration for writing a romance story, you might want to consider watching this movie and paying attention to the interaction between the characters of Mary and Joseph.
No matter which of these reasons is your reason to seek and enjoy Christmas romance, they all have a “feel good” sentiment, which is what romance readers want. That’s what I believe makes Christmas romance stories so popular—all people want to be accepted, loved, and happy.
So no matter which of the reasons above is your reason for watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas music, or reading Christmas romance novels, you will find the magic of Christmas is love.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
Upon doing a search for romance novels that include a masquerade, I found that many romance novels include the word “masquerade” in their title, and Goodreads has a list of 1,147 books that include a masquerade in the story, but not all of the 1,147 have the word “masquerade” in their title. Many of them do not look like something I would read as I only read clean and/or Christian fiction, but I just wanted to point out how often masquerades are used in romance novels.
I remember reading only one book that included a masquerade, but I was very caught up in the masquerade and found it intriguing that the gentleman revealed his name to the woman from the start. However, she did not know him, but knew a bit about him as he was from a royal family. In addition, another man comes and interrupts their conversation to ask her for a dance. This man only reveals his first name to her, and so begins a battle for the female character’s heart.
I have heard of other romance stories where the romance begins at a masquerade as well, but neither character reveals their identity and each is left wondering who it is they have found an interest in, as they have no knowledge of the person’s name or what they look like. This begins the romantic plot of the story.
After finding so many romance books that include a masquerade, I have reached the conclusion that a masquerade is a popular romance trope. Because the masquerade often includes anonymity on the part of one character or the other, it brings to mind another popular romance trope—when one character or other has amnesia, usually temporary.
There is also a very famous romance story, the original being released in installments in a Paris newspaper over the course of five months, from September 23, 1909 through January 1910, before being published as a novel just two months after the last installment appeared in the Le Gaulois. This story also included anonymity because of a mask—Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera) by Gaston Leroux first published as a novel in March 1910, later made extremely popular by Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Broadway musical.
Another popular story that includes a type of anonymity between the male and female characters is Beauty and the Beast, where the man has become a beast because of an evil spell cast upon him. Most of us are most familiar with the Disney version of this story. However, there is speculation that it originated in 2nd Century CE in an ancient Roman tale. Other claims say that the original Beauty and the Beast was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve in 1740, and the most popular Beauty and the Beast story is said to have been written by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont in 1756. All three of these stories are different from each other and different from the Disney one we all know and love.
Tropes are very popular in romance novels and these are just some examples of how you can take a popular trope, such as a masquerade, and tweak or twist it a bit to still create a romance trope that begins with initial anonymity.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
How do you know if you’ve written a young adult novel or an adult coming of age? What about books that have dual timelines with both a teen point of view and an adult point of view? Finding your genre can be a difficult task. Here’s a few things to look at that might help an author determine what genre their work lands in.
Age of the Protagonist
The age of the protagonist does not determine whether or not a book is young adult, but the age of the protagonist can eliminate some books from the young adult market. If the main storyline is not about how a teen character is dealing with their story world, than it’s not young adult.
The protagonist in a book written for adults can be of any age.
Topics Explored
All young adult fiction is coming of age, but not all coming of age is young adult fiction.
Coming of age written for the adult market tends to be grittier. In these books, the protagonist may be young, but is dealing with adult issues.
In young adult fiction, the teenage protagonist could be dealing with unusual circumstances, but the material is typically less graphic than fiction written for adults.
Word Count
A young adult generally sticks to a prescribed word count, whereas a coming-of-age written for the adult market with a teenage protagonist can have a wide range of word count and can be literary, upmarket, or commercial.
Point of View
Young Adult fiction can be in one point of view or more, in either first person or third person, as can an adult coming of age. The current trend is to write YA in first person, but it’s not a defining rule.
Voice and Tone
Deep point of view is common in YA, as is an angsty bent. Teenagers are going through a myriad of changes and are focused on their feelings, more inward looking, and young adult is inclined to be written that way.
In adult fiction featuring a younger protagonist, the person is often operating as an adult, dealing with adult issues.
Vocabulary and Style
Novels written for the young adult market may use different vocabulary and language style than novels written for the adult market. Even if it’s historical young adult, the language would be slightly different to make it accessible to the targeted reader.
Romance
In most YA Historicals I’ve read, romance is often a secondary storyline. Love triangles seem to abound, and I think readers accept that more in YA because young people are experiencing a lot of those first love emotions for the first time. Young people are often still discovering the contrasts between between a crush, an infatuation, or a possible real love, which may lead to developing feelings in two different directions.
Setting for Historical YA
The historical era is a backdrop for the issues that the mc is working through. Description and historical details will be a natural part of how the character interacts with it.
Historical for adults allows for a few short historical tidbits to be inserted into the narrative to give understanding.
In YA, this tends to only matter if it directly affects the main character in some way. Even though there will be history inserted, it only goes as far as to how the main character has to use this information to forward her own story.
Hopefully, examining these different elements of a story will help authors decide what genre their historical fiction with a teen protagonist belongs in.
Can you think of any other differences between historical YA and historical coming of age for adults?
Leave a comment below.
Stephanie Daniels writes Christian historical fiction for young adults and the young at heart. Her debut novel, The Uncertainty of Fire, first appeared on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform where it was a top faved Christian story. It is now available in paperback and kindle format online at Amazon and Barnes&Noble.
The Uncertainty of Fire
Sixteen-year-old Whimsy Greathart would rather fight against Chicago’s child labor practices than attend her privileged family’s high society events. On the night of the Great Chicago Fire, her world turned to ash, she must rely on the mercy of poor relations to rebuild her future and is forced into the very labor system she wished to fight against.
Donna Jo Stone writes YA contemporary novels about tough issues but always ends the stories with a note of hope. She blogs at donnajostone.com.
The current writing trend is to have strong, independent female characters. These female characters can run a business and a household, AND fight the bad guys, so do they really need a man in their lives? The romance genre has added more types of romance and characters to cater to all the different lifestyles in the current world.
However, God is still the Creator and His Word is still true and still says a true marital relationship consists of one man and one woman. I believe there is a need for both Christian Romance and Clean Romance. I know that the romance genre sales have exploded since 2020. Why? Because romance readers need “happy endings”.
I also believe that plenty of women in the real world, like the career women and the single moms, get tired of being strong and independent. They get tired of “doing it all” and would truly appreciate a strong, yet gentle, loving man to rescue them and give them a break, to allow them to have time to rest.
Maybe the only place they can find such a man or a break and rest in their life, is through reading a romance novel where there is a male character who offers his strong shoulder to the female character to lean on, cry on, or simply rest on. A male character who will make some of the decisions for a while or take the kids to the park for a while, maybe even cook dinner occasionally. A Christian Romance novel can give them a taste of this type of relationship. It can offer them something to consider, to possibly make a change in their lives—to make better choices or to just know they have options and don’t have to “do it all”, or maybe our stories will simply give them the break they need and help them find their hope and strength in the Lord.
More importantly, we know that God made women more emotional then men, so even the strongest female CEO needs to release her emotions and appreciates a man with a good listening ear who can encourage her and who will hold her in his strong arms.
We may see lots of crazy in the world right now and wonder if there is a place for our romance novels. The good news is “yes”, there is a need for strong male heroes in romance as well as a need for good Christian themes running through our romance novels. There are hungry readers out their looking for, not just a happy ending, but also for hope, and we, as Christian Romance authors can give them what they need and are looking for.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
What is it about candlelight that makes a candlelight dinner so romantic?
First of all, did you know that when someone finds another person attractive, their pupils dilate and the other person finds that attractive as well. Studies have shown that men who viewed a photo of a woman with larger than normal pupils didn’t later recall her dilated pupils, but described her as “more feminine,” “soft,” and “pretty,” whereas, they described the woman with small pupils as “hard,” “selfish,” and “cold.” However, women who preferred “nice guys” were drawn to men with medium sized pupils and women who preferred “bad boys” were attracted to the men with larger pupils. No matter what size pupils you’re subconsciously attracted to, candlelight can help because low lighting, like candlelight, causes pupils to dilate and can duplicate those attraction signals.
Candlelight also reduces stress and helps us relax, making it easier to drop into a romantic mood because you aren’t feeling tense or rushed. Candlelight casts a glow in a small area, so even in a restaurant, if you are seated in a room lit only by candles on the tables, you feel as though you are in your own little private space.
The man in your romance novel can create a perfect romantic scene, whether it’s a candlelit dinner, picnic, or movie night.
Long, slender, taper candles on the dinner table between him and his leading lady. Placing scented candles around the living room and choosing a romantic movie for the two of them to watch as they snuggle up to each other on the sofa, or if you’re writing about a married couple having problems and he’s trying to rekindle the romantic feelings they had for each other in the past, he could fill a couple crystal bowls with water and add a floating candle to each and set them in the bathroom near the tub and run a bubble bath for her, then he can prepare dinner that will be eaten by candlelight in the dining room. He could follow the candlelight dinner with a couple scented candles burning in a room with open floor space, play their favorite love songs, and ask her to dance.
Scented candles can also add something to the scene as we are all sensitive to smells, and certain smells can trigger memories, like an ocean breeze scented candle reminding her of that romantic evening walk along the beach on their honeymoon.
The next time you need to add a romantic scene to your romance novel, or your fantasy or other genre novel needs a little something, remember all the things that candles can add to a scene or to a romance through their light or their scent.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
Have you ever wondered why a guy gives the girl he’s romantically interested in a box of chocolates?
Or maybe you’ve seen the main character and his love interest in a restaurant in your favorite movie sitting side by side, and when the food comes, they feed each other and you’ve wondered why is this supposed to be romantic?
Some people and some scientists have actually done research on the connection between food and romance, as well as why feeding your date is considered romantic. Would it come as a surprise to you that what they found is that it’s all in our heads?
That’s right – food and love both produce hormones, like dopamine, norepinephrine, which make us feel good, and our bodies produce a chemical stimulant, phenylethylamine (PEA). The combination of these hormones and the chemical stimulant make our bodies excited and alive.
Can you guess what one of the main foods associated with love and romance is?
Well, here’s a hint: Americans annually purchase almost 60 million pounds of this stuff in just one week, and February 13th is the biggest day of the year for sales of this food.
Need another hint? Look at the picture above. That’s right – chocolate!
Christian romance writers aren’t interested in taking our leading man and lady beyond the bedroom door, so knowing that chocolate and some of the other foods I’ll mention in this article are considered aphrodisiacs doesn’t matter to us. However, using some of these foods in our romance scenes can help build the romantic interest our leading man and lady have for each other.
There are differences between chocolates. One important difference between high end and low end chocolates: high end chocolates have an intense flavor and luscious feeling in your mouth. The taste experience of chocolate can be a dreamy, sensuous experience which is why a high end chocolate can make people feel romantic, and a gift of chocolate is a way to show a loved one that you value them.
Other foods known to possibly build romantic feelings are: avocados, tomatoes, oysters, spinach, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, crab, bananas, asparagus, chilies, figs, mangoes, peaces, pistachio nuts, almonds, cheddar cheese and berries with whipped cream.
Now let’s look at food sharing.
Research conducted to determine the levels of food sharing that express to observers how romantic you are with your significant other:
1) Not letting someone have your food at all – no intimacy.
2) Letting someone else eat off your plate shows a deeper connection than one you would have with a stranger.
3) Sharing food that someone else has already touched increases the romantic level from 74 percent to 90 percent.
4) Physically putting food into your partner’s mouth shows the highest level of intimacy and leads observers to assume there is a romantic involvement.
Other research determined that food sharing stems from a parent sharing food with their child. Parents have a natural tendency to feed their child which shows a strong bond between parent and child. It’s natural to share food with blood relatives. However, studies show that sharing food outside your bloodline means the person you are sharing food with has a significant meaning to you.
Now you have foods and food sharing that you can incorporate into your romance stories to build the bond between your leading man and woman. Or if you need to build some conflict, have them share food in a restaurant while the town gossip or the third person looks on.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes
Let’s face it. The majority of romance readers, including me, prefer a happy ending. But does that mean the “fuzzy feelings” last?
Of course, anyone who has fallen in love and had a romantic relationship, whether short term or long term, married or not, knows that … no, the “fuzzy feelings” do not last long term, and … “happily ever after” doesn’t mean there will be no bumps in the road or struggles to overcome.
So, does a happy ending in a romance novel require “happily ever after”?
I don’t think so. But I do think our romance stories are missing an important piece. How does a couple remain “in love” for the long haul? They take their wedding vows – their commitment to each other – seriously, and they don’t give up during the difficult times.
What happened to commitment in our society? Sadly, our world has become a place where we get most of what we want quickly and easily, and this has bred expectations for quick and easy satisfaction in every aspect of life. Also, with the high divorce rate and many churches now accepting divorce, I think too many people go into marriage with the idea that “if it doesn’t work out, there’s always divorce”.
Commitment isn’t really talked about in today’s society or in many marriage ceremonies. Could Christian Romance authors possibly have an effect on today’s society or make them start thinking more about commitment again? I believe we have a responsibility to try.
I believe we need to give commitment more of a spotlight in our fiction.
I’m not saying, “forget the romance”, but let’s show what commitment means. Imagine having your male and female main characters experiencing some conflict in their relationship. Of course, every story has to have some conflict.
But what would happen if we showed our hero thinking about how much he really loves this woman, in the midst of the conflict, and show his willingness to do the hard work—to find a way to work out the conflict and show he’s in this relationship for the long haul. Or, you can do the same through the female character or, better yet, through both characters.
I know every woman loves a warm, fuzzy, feel-good romance story, but I think there is a place for romance stories to include some of those fuzzy feelings while being more realistic. I believe showing how a relationship can actually last for many years because of the commitment of one or both people can add something to the story – something that will not only surprise the reader, but also give them inspiration, encouragement, and hope in their own relationship.
If you’ve seen the 2008 movie, “Fireproof” starring Kirk Cameron, you know what I’m talking about.
That movie, and Kirk’s insistence to have his real life wife be the one he kissed in the movie, instead of the actress playing that role, was a powerful example of commitment. There must be a need for such stories as that movie grossed $6,836,036 in its opening weekend and went on to gross over $33 million dollars in the box office and over an estimated $50 million in DVD sales. It also inspired couples to try the “Love Dare” to save their own marriages.
This doesn’t mean that if you write a good love story emphasizing commitment, you’re guaranteed a best seller, but your story may inspire some woman or some couple to value the importance of commitment in their relationship.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
I recently watched Hudson Hawk, a (deservedly) lesser-known Bruce Willis movie. It was released three years after his smash hit, Die Hard.
Bruce gave his all to the wise-cracking and charming title character. But the movie just didn’t spark the same laughs or tension or empathy as I’d felt for his Die Hard character, John McClane. Why?
I spent some time analyzing why Die Hard worked and Hudson Hawk didn’t and realized this was a lesson I needed to remember for my own writing.
Die Hard devotes the opening minutes giving us reasons why we should like John.
He’s a New York Police Department detective who arrives in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve.
He and his wife are separated, and he wants to try and reconcile. We like him because he’s humbled himself to make this trip and he cares about his family.
Hudson Hawk opens with Eddie Hawkins (Hudson Hawk) being released from prison. He’s a cat burglar and he just wants a nice cappuccino. But he’s immediately blackmailed by various people to do more jobs, stealing artworks.
We don’t know why Hawk was imprisoned. If he was justly accused, tried, and incarcerated, then why would I care about him? If he was unjustly imprisoned, or took the fall for someone else, I might be more sympathetic towards him, but that’s not hinted at.
Take away: Set up my character as someone the reader will care about.
In Die Hard, the stakes are clear, and the hero has a goal.
John McClane is a well-defined good guy who willingly steps into the arena (Nakatomi Towers) to fight the evil Hans Gruber.
Hudson Hawk is coerced into fighting the couple wanting to replicate a design by Leonardo DaVinci and begin turning lead into gold and take over the world. He keeps insisting he just wants that cappuccino.
Take away: Give my character a noble goal, something of value. Then put obstacles in her way.
The antagonist is clear and formidable.
McClane’s antagonists, Hans and his band of pseudo-terrorists, are serious about their own goal: breaking into the building’s vault and stealing multi-millions of dollars’ worth of bearer bonds. They are professional and cold and believe the ends justifies the means. They murder randomly and are after McClane to stop him interfering with their plans.
Hudson Hawk’s bad guys are played so over the top and are so comical, it’s impossible to believe they could achieve their goal of building an alchemy device. Hawk’s buddy and co-burglar walks away from an accident in which the vehicle he was in went over a cliff and burst into flames.
Take away: characters need to be believable, rooted in reality. A little over-the-top goes a long way
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
Writing teachers often talk about the story arc and character arc, meaning how the story is constructed or how the character grows and changes. As I write this, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was recently wrapped in fabric, an artistic event envisioned and designed by the late artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Much like wrapping the iconic landmark in layers of fabric and rope, adding layers of character arc and growth will make your stories deeper and more nuanced.
Growth
One facet of growth an author can layer in is the character’s ability to do something at the end of the story they couldn’t do at the beginning. Or they see the truth of something they first believed to be a lie.
In the movie You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly believes her life only has meaning as long as she keeps her dead mother’s bookshop alive. By the end of the movie, the shop has died, but Kathleen has been able to not just envision a different life for herself but takes steps to build that life. She can do something she couldn’t before, because she’s moved from a lie to the truth.
Character Arcs
Another facet of character arcs that can be particularly effective is an ending that mirrors the beginning.
While You Were Sleeping begins with Lucy talking about her dreams of travel, the stamps she planned to collect in her passport, but how that didn’t happen because of her father’s illness and death. Later, she shares that dream with the hero, Jack, who gives her a snow globe with a scene of Florence, Italy, a foreshadowing of the end. The movie ends with the two of them traveling and Lucy gets that passport stamp for real.
Rachel Hauck’s book To Save a King begins with a prologue in ten-year-old Prince John’s point of view about his love for the fairy tale, The Swan’s Feather. The book ends with grown-up Prince John’s wedding to his real-life love, Gemma, and the convergence of three white swan feathers.
How does an author find the arc to the ending? Or the moment to mirror?
Figure out what is the lie your character believes at the beginning and how they will move to truth (like Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail).
Decide if there’s a poignant moment you can mirror at the beginning and end (like Lucy’s empty passport in While You Were Sleeping).
Find a prop you can highlight in both the beginning and ending scenes (like the swan feathers in Rachel Hauck’s To Save a King).
Well-layered character arcs leave the reader satisfied and happy and leaving five-star reviews. They may not know why or how, but they know they’ve been taken on a ride of beauty and vision by an artist.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
The man and woman who will fall in love in your romance story are your most important characters. Therefore, it is imperative that you know them inside and out and develop them throughout the story in a way that shows why they are drawn to each other, what makes them move from being drawn to one another to falling in love, and how do they know this will last.
How do you get to know your characters well enough to build a good love story between them?
First, you need to develop their back stories. What is his view on love and on the world. What is her view on love and on the world. How and why are each of them going to make the decisions they will make throughout your novel. These things are a part of their back stories—what happened to them, in the past, that makes them think, react, and make the decisions they do?
Romance relies on strong main characters and your reader engagement will depend on the chemistry between your leading man and his lady. Therefore, you need to make your protagonists convincing.
Building a character
Start by asking yourself the following questions:
Who is he or she?
What is his or her flaw(s)?
What is his or her lie or burden? This is the thing they carry around with them that influences and determines their view of the world.
These things have all come from their back story—things that happened to them in the past: hurt, rejection, abandonment, etc.
Every character needs a GOAL, MOTIVATION, and CONFLICT. Their GOAL is what he or she wants. Their MOTIVATION is why he or she wants that thing, whether it is tangible or intangible. Their CONFLICT is why they can’t get it—what is keeping them from getting what they want?
When it comes to conflict, there needs to be outside forces that add to the conflict, not just internal conflict. Otherwise, you may fall into the trap where they have a very simple misunderstanding. This will not last long enough or be strong enough to sustain the conflict necessary for a novel. External conflict can produce and intensify the internal conflict within the character and between the man and woman.
Character growth
You also need to develop your characters throughout the story—they have to have some kind of change from the beginning of the novel til the end. Use the interactions between the male and female to show their character development. Have them challenge each other and bring about change in each other through the conflict and bonding.
Changes from the beginning to the ending of your story will include growth in their relationship as they move from mutual interest and physical attraction to a deeper love. Physical attraction is not enough to sustain a relationship for the long haul. Use some of each character’s attributes or quirks to deepen their love; things like intelligence, wit, charm, humor, social status, etc.
Character development is necessary for a successful romance.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
One of my favorite movies is You’ve Got Mail. When Joe Fox attempts to apologize to Kathleen Kelly for forcing her out of business, he says, “It wasn’t … personal.”
She replies, “What is that supposed to mean? … All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me … Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.”
The same is true of great fiction. It begins by being personal, meaning your story should embrace universal themes that people will relate to.
The Count of Monte Cristo poses the question, does getting even—revenge and retribution—make one happy and satisfied?
Kristan Higgins’ new release, Pack Up the Moon, is about a grieving widower who receives a letter a month from his late wife for the first year after her death. In spite of the downer premise, the theme is that “life’s greatest joys are often hiding in plain sight.”
A Christmas Carol and Les Miserables pose the question, is redemption possible?
I love stories with themes of perseverance, of never giving up, despite terrible odds. This is why I enjoy Susan May Warren’s adventure thrillers, like her Global Search and Rescue, Montana Marshalls, and Montana Rescue series. The stories are full of danger and intrigue and impossible predicaments, but the protagonists survive. I also like movies like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and R.E.D. The heroes. Never. Give. Up.
Another book with a theme of perseverance would be A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L′Engle.
The theme of You’ve Got Mail is summed up nicely in its tagline: Someone you pass on the street may already be the love of your life.
That’s intriguing. Even if you’re with the love of your life, there are occasions you may wonder what (or who) might be out there. What if you’d walked to work the day you met your significant other, instead of taking the bus?
The movie Sliding Doors shows this “path not taken,” plot with a lot of heart and creativity. Helen is fired from her job and takes a train home in the middle of the day to find her boyfriend with another woman. Or did she miss the train and arrived home after the other woman left, and stayed in a relationship with the cheater?
I think Sliding Doors’ theme is, will true love always find a way?
The heroine of my work in progress is a young widow. I’ve never lost a spouse, but I’ve lost a parent and other close loved ones. I know the stages of grief (anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). The hero has his own loss that he’s dealing with, so their journeys are each echoed in the other. I’m attempting to show a theme that life and love can be rich again, after loss.
Grief and joy. Regret and eagerness. Doubt and excitement.
Our job is put those emotions on the page in a way the reader relates to and (hopefully) feels them as much as our characters do. Personally.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
What hole is in his heart? What hole is in her heart? This is where your romance story begins. Both your main male and female characters—the ones that will commit to one another by the end of the book—need to have a hole in their heart they are trying to fill, or are resisting to fill, at the beginning of your romance novel.
Maybe he wants to find a lasting love but comes from a broken home. His parents divorced when he was young after a lot of fighting, and maybe they bounced him back and forth, or maybe one of them completely walked away from him after the divorce. These things cause him to believe that he isn’t lovable or that all marriages are destined for divorce.
Maybe she longs for a lasting love but has been hurt by more than one man she thought was “the one”. Maybe several men who seemed interested, loving, and kind turned into workaholics with no time for her, or verbally, emotionally, or physically abused her. Now she’s afraid to give another man a chance; unsure she could survive another bad relationship, leaving her with a bigger hole in her heart.
These two characters obviously struggle with an internal conflict.
When they are thrown together in your story, in whatever situation you choose, they may feel a physical attraction. They may think “this might be the one”, but their internal conflict is still raw, so an external conflict results. Each of them resist the relationship in some way, trying to protect themselves.
As time progresses and you continue to put them together through the setting or their circumstances, eventually one of them softens and warms up to the idea that this relationship might really work out.
The other one may still resist for a while, but sooner or later, they both soften and their love for one another builds to where they both believe this relationship isn’t like the one his parents had or like the previous relationships she had.
The hole in each of their hearts heals and they commit to one another.
This is one possible basic plot line for a romance story. Every romance novel needs a boy and a girl who want and need love. Maybe the hole in one of their hearts is something that causes them to believe they don’t have time for love and romance. But whatever the hole is will affect the relationship between them.
The romance plot also needs an external struggle because romance stories need conflict. Conflict is the driving force behind a romance story, and maybe the external conflict is the one I mentioned above, or maybe one of the men who hurt your female character comes back seeking another chance just when she thinks she may have some real feelings for the man you’ve recently placed in her life. There are many external conflicts you can use.
But in the end two characters who began hole-hearted, become whole-hearted.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
I always say that a book that can make me laugh and cry is an outstanding book that will remain in my memory. I believe this is because a book like this evokes strong emotions within me – emotions that create two of the strongest emotional reactions.
As a romance writer, I think it’s easier to make readers cry than laugh in a romance story. Maybe that’s because I don’t consider myself to be a very funny person and so I don’t make an effort to put humor in my romance stories. However, as I have been working on my future novel, I found a touch of humor flowing naturally in one scene and later, through one character.
Therefore, I decided to explore how to write humor in a novel. I wanted to be sure these little humorous aspects in my romance novel would be written properly and well received by my readers. Of course, one of the first things I found was advice on reading romance novels that include humor.
Though I am not well-read in romance stories that include humor, I found one romance novelist that made me laugh and thoroughly enjoy her romance stories. Her name is Jen Turano, and she uses humor through her characters, whether it’s built into their quirky personality or things that they do. These seem to be two of the most suggested and, possibly, the easiest to write.
Other humor writing options include juxtaposition, hyperbole, alliteration, or an exaggeration from your own life experience. As writers, we often use metaphors, and one idea was to create a list of metaphors for something then use the most ridiculous one. However, this example was also issued with a warning not to use this trick too often or your readers may think you aren’t good at using metaphors. There was also mention of simply playing with your words.
When writing humor into your novel, think about your sentence construction. Stand-up comics generally use longer more descriptive sentences at first, while painting the picture. Then as they approach the punchline, their sentences become shorter and punchier.
The most important thing when attempting to add humor into your romance is to read what you write out loud, which can help you determine whether what you wrote is really funny or not.
Adding a little humor to your romance can add a sense of fun to your story, make an intense scene more bearable, lighten the mood, or allow your characters or readers a moment to breathe. Humor is a great way to connect with your readers or add a spark of fun to your romance.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
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/
Alexis A. Goring got her writing start as a very young girl. For a few years, her mother required Alexis and her younger brother to write about their school day in those old-fashioned composition notebooks. They really aren’t that old-fashioned since children still use them today! Alexis talks about finding one of her old notebooks and shares one of her journal entries.
That was only the beginning of her writing journey. She earned a degree in print journalism and also a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Full Sail University. She’s written a collection of three novellas, two novels, and a fifty-two-week devotional called Stories and Songs of Faith. Alexis shares the dreams of her different characters with us. We also talk about her ability to write light-hearted romance while also addressing what one reviewer referred to as “hard topics.”
The next Novelists Unwind Giveaway will be announced on Saturday, January 2, 2020 at http://www.johnnie-alexander.com/. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an inspirational novel.
What drives your character? What is his or her motivation for pursuing their goals, whether it’s defusing an atomic bomb and saving the world or decorating cookies for a bridal shower?
There are lots of books and articles and blog posts about how to make character sketches and how to know your characters. Some writers advocate filling out spreadsheets with lots of details, including physical descriptions and where they lived in the fourth grade. Others journal in their character’s voices for pages and pages, getting to know them. Some take their characters for a metaphorical cup of coffee and chat with them.
I use a system that asks a series of “Whys” to drill down to a dark moment in their past that’s shaped who they are now.
For example, we’d start with: Who are you? The answer starts with a noun plus an adjective. For this example, “I’m a prodigal fisherman.”
Why? “Commercial fishing was a job I could get. Prodigal because I can’t go home.”
Why can’t you go home? “I messed up.”
How did you mess up? “I got into a fight at my sister’s wedding.”
Why did you fight someone at your sister’s wedding?
And so on.
We’d continue until we learn he felt rejected by his family as a teenager when they allowed him to leave home to play ice hockey at an elite boarding school.
This system of noun plus adjective and “Why?” questions is from The Story Equation by Susan May Warren and this character profile is Owen Christiansen from You’re the One I Want also by Ms. Warren.
There are often two sets of goals, internal and external, but the motivation is the same for both. The internal want drives the external goal.
Owen Christiansen wants to go home and feel welcomed by his family. That’s his internal desire. The internal meets the external when his brother finds him and brings him home. Of course, there’s a lot more to the story.
This next example is from my own work in progress. The heroine is Chloe:
Who are you? “I’m a driven widow.”
Why? “I have to open my bakery next month to honor my dead husband on the second anniversary of his death.”
Why? “He died in his sleep of an undiagnosed heart condition.”
Why? “I drove him to his death, nagging and pushing him to work harder.”
Chloe is determined to not fall in love again. Because her father also died at a fairly young age, after working extra hours to pay for a family vacation, she feels she’s toxic to men. (Of course, since this is a romance, she’s going to fail at her plan to not fall in love and will finally get her happily ever after.)
In The Story Equation, Susan May Warren outlines a method for diving into your character’s motivation. It involves digging deep and getting to what she calls their Dark Moment Story or DMS. This is a moment in their past that shaped them into the person they are at the beginning of the novel. For Chloe, it’s her husband’s death. The DMS also contributes to the Flaw, a Lie they believe, and several other factors. I highly recommend The Story Equation if this method of getting to know your characters appeals to you.
Carrie Padgett lives in Central California, close to Yosemite, but far from Hollywood, the beach, and the Golden Gate Bridge. She believes in faith, families, fun, and happily ever afters. She writes contemporary fiction with romance. She recently signed a contract with Sunrise Publishing to co-write a romance novel with New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck that will be published in 2022. Carrie and her husband live in the country with their high-maintenance cat and laid-back dog, within driving distance of their six grandchildren.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the word trope, let’s define it. A trope is a character trait or plot line that has become commonplace. If you read romance, you’ve seen quite a few romance tropes. Some of the most common are: the love triangle – two men competing for the love of the same woman; forbidden love – (this one goes all the way back to William Shakespeare and his classic Romeo and Juliet), where the boy and girl are forbidden to love one another due to parental stipulations, or differences in status (he’s rich, maybe in line for the throne, and she is a commoner or comes from a family with no wealth); Mail-Order Bride; marriage of convenience; and the list goes on.
Now that you know what tropes are maybe you have a favorite romance trope or maybe you don’t like tropes because you prefer a unique romance story. No matter what you think of them, tropes are popular. Recently tropes have been getting a lot of attention. Therefore, including a trope in your book could be helpful in obtaining readership. That doesn’t mean your trope has to be predictable and “just like all the rest”.
If you’ve submitted any queries or studied what agents and publishers look for in a query, you’re aware that one of the questions an agent or publisher wants answered is: how is your story different from those already published in the same genre?
So, if tropes are so popular and used so often, how can you use a trope and still have an original story?
There are several ways, but the first thing you should do is become familiar with the popular tropes. For instance, a current popular genre is fairy tale Retellings. If you haven’t read any, this may be a good place to start to see how an author takes a popular trope and puts their own spin on it. I recently read The Rose Princess by Ivy Hollins, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, and Ivy had several unique plot points that made her retelling distinctive, such as the Prince and the beauty having a unique link years before they first meet. This story was just as enjoyable as the original fairy tale.
When you consider which trope to use in your story, consider your purpose for using the trope. Are you using it because you know it’s popular and has been successfully used in lots of other romance stories? If this is your reason, you should reconsider.
Instead, start by considering how you want to present your story or what you want your character’s values or point of view to be. Then consider how to use the trope by putting your own spin on it. Think about how the trope will best serve your story. Use your own voice and your own plot. You can also use a bit of the expected before surprising them with your own unique details to create fresh characters and an unexpected twist to the plot.
Kelly F. Barr lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She is married and has three sons. She writes historical romance. She has also been a blogger for ten years, and every Friday, you can find her Flash Fiction stories posted for your reading pleasure. She loves her family, including the family dog, books, walks, and chai lattes.
