On Writing Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

outlook on life, their perspective on the situation, and often the contrast between them.
    Silliness is not humor, and adding jokes does not make a story a romantic comedy. Puns don't work well on paper because they're auditory in nature and easy to overlook on the page. The most hysterically funny joke tends to fall flat when written as if a character is telling it. Slapstick is hilarious in film but difficult to evoke in the reader's mind with only the printed word.
    In effective romantic comedy, the humor occurs in a way that doesn't diminish or humiliate the characters. Humor is best when it invites the reader to identify with the heroine, not laugh at her. Effective humor comes about because the characters have a lighthearted outlook on life, so even their biggest troubles are not treated as tragedy.
    Since humor works best on a small scale, romantic comedies are usually shorter, smaller books, but humorous single titles are often longer.
    Word count: 50,000 to 80,000
    Romantic Suspense: A story that includes mystery, suspense, or threatening situations in which both the heroine and hero are directly involved. The heroine of a romantic suspense isn't standing off to the side letting the hero protect her or investigate the mystery — she's right in there pulling her weight. Unlike a mystery or suspense novel that includes a romantic subplot, a romantic suspense novel features the romance as the primary focus. However, the romance usually comes about because of the threat to the characters. The problem is solved and the bad guy defeated by the hero and heroine, preferably while acting together. (Though assistance from the authorities isn't forbidden, it's unsatisfying if the SWAT team swoops in from nowhere and wipes out the bad guys while the hero and heroine are drinking coffee and holding hands.)
    The biggest challenge in writing romantic suspense is keeping the story in proportion. If the suspense plot overshadows the relationship between the hero and heroine, the book veers across the line from romance into mainstream.
    Word count: 75,000 to 100,000
    Saga: A long, mainstream novel that follows a female protagonist from early life to old age, often including two generations of her descendants, though she remains the dominant character throughout the story. Romance may be present, but it is not vital. Often the heroine is involved in more than one love affair during her lifetime, and frequently she is shaped by the death or loss of her husband and/or the man she loves. An important element of most sagas is the heroine's drive to succeed in a business she herself establishes and nourishes.
    Word count: 100,000 or more
    Science Fiction. See also Futuristic, Paranormal, Time Travel
    Short Contemporary: The most sensual of the category romance lines, though not as sexy as erotic romance. Though these books include consummated sexual relationships between hero and heroine, their emphasis is still on love rather than sex. These books are shorter and focus intensely on the hero and heroine, so there is little room for extra characters or dramatic, complicated plots. Still, it's necessary to have a believable conflict, since one difficulty in creating a very sensual romance is to maintain legitimate suspense about the possibility of a long-term relationship while allowing the characters to indulge in sex.
    Word count: 55,000 to 70,000
    Single Title: Stand-alone books published and promoted individually rather than as part of a category or themed group of books. They remain on the market and in print longer than category books.
    Single title allows the author more leeway in almost every direction. The hero and heroine can be a great deal more like real humans, with bad habits and dark pasts. The bad guys can be more evil in their intent and their actions. The events of the book can be darker, more violent, more intense. The romance or love interest can play a smaller part in the story. The story may be even more of a glitzy