What distinguishes a romance novel from all others? The basis for writing a novel is always the unbridled passion that arises between the two main characters. Remove it from the plot, and the book disappears.
Every romance novel strives to inspire readers to dream beautiful dreams in which they love and are loved.
Romance novels are usually published in series with a common style. Sometimes publishers create a series in such a way that all the books in it have the same number of pages. This significantly reduces publishing costs. The series brings together works that have common features, such as mysticism, detective stories, office romances, erotica, and others. But the main theme is love.
A typical romance novel plot looks something like this:
- The main characters meet and fall in love with each other.
- Suddenly, a serious problem arises that prevents them from being together.
- Their feelings grow, and the characters realize that this is love for life.
- The problem is resolved, the characters confess their love, exchange kisses, etc.
Key features of creating a romance novel
- The characters in a romance novel must be appealing to the reader. When reading a good novel, women easily imagine themselves as the main character and fall in love with the Prince. Clearly, in this case, a complete bitch and an elderly alcoholic with lice in his ragged beard are definitely out of the question. But creating a plot based on the hackneyed template “he is as handsome as a god and as clever as a snake” is also pointless. The main character must have a strong charisma to stand out from the crowd of bookish machos.
- Young authors diligently describe the heroines of their novels as young beauties with high IQs and the CEO’s chair under their beautiful behinds. Unfortunately, this usually does not happen. The point is not that intelligence and beauty are incompatible, but that a talented leader has invaluable experience, multiple connections, and a wealth of knowledge that is not taught in schools. Therefore, either add 15 years to your beauty’s age or choose a simpler position for her, such as secretary or assistant accountant.
- Another extreme is creating the image of an impenetrable lady. No beauty will calmly collect evidence after finding a corpse under her bed. And if she does, she urgently needs an ambulance, not a handsome groom. Ladies who believe any lie, love complete idiots selflessly, and deliberately put themselves in danger look completely implausible.
- The same can be said about princes. If your bookish macho man has a lot of money, an extraordinary mind, and unearthly beauty, it is doubtful that he spent his entire life waiting alone for true love. Smart people don’t have time to wait and suffer — they are busy with their work. Especially if their finances allow it.
- Throughout the plot, the main characters have to solve at least two problems: one that brought them together, and another that prevents them from being together.
- It is necessary to create circumstances for them to interact: shared work, war, shared living quarters, etc.
- If the characters hate each other at the beginning of the novel, there must be reasons for this hatred. The same can be said about love. Describe what draws the main characters to each other.
- Unbridled passion at first sight and sexual attraction cannot be love. If we are talking about real feelings, then it is necessary to describe in detail the communication between the characters, to show why exactly they respect each other, what their love passion is based on.
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Any genre novel should be as simple and understandable as possible. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully choose the place and time of the action. Works that contain familiar culture, well-known historical events, and are tied to specific geographical locations are actively sold. Readers are unlikely to be interested in the sufferings of the indigenous people of a tribe living on the Limpopo River.