We’ve taken a little hiatus from our How to Write a Romance blogs over the past two months – but it’s time to get back to work!
As we got this year started, we had a chat about the 10 beats or points in standard romance. Over the next two weeks, we’re going to recap just a bit before we continue on and dive into how to create these points.
Every genre book out there has key elements—things that we expect from that genre novel.
A suspense has a ticking time bomb, and a deadline.
A mystery has a dead body, and red herrings.
A romance has elements too that we expect.
Now, people might say that because of this, a romance if predictable. But the author has license to change up these elements—put them in a different order.
And of course, they are bringing their own voice to the romance—telling it in a way only they know how. That is why we can handle remakes of old films—because even though it is the same story, it has a different take, and we love that—and frankly, we love seeing the new voice on the old structure!
Every romance, regardless of the order these components fall in, has the same 10 components. I talked about these on my blog last week, and we’re going to go one by one over them tonight, and then see where they fit into popular movies.
The thing is, identifying these 10 components makes writing your synopsis SOOOOOOO easy…well, at least, it makes writing the framework easy…because you know the basic elements that craft the romance.
Most of all, it ensures that your romance has all the appropriate beats to make it satisfying.
Let’s start with the first component:
Beat 1: Boy Meets Girl: In this component, there is an event, goal or circumstance that occurs to bring our hero and heroine together—Usually this happens in the first chapter, but it definitely needs to happen by Chapter 3.
Some classic Boy meets Girl events conjured up by the My Book Therapy Voices:
You’ve got mail—they were both in a chat room and started talking about New York City in the fall.
Sleepless in Seattle—the phone call to the radio show
Harry Met Sally—the car ride
While You Were Sleeping – Christmas at the family’s home.
The Cutting Edge—the hero and heroine bump into each other at the Olympics when he knocks her down. But really later, she needs a skating partner.
Titanic—the Ship!
Chasing Liberty—the heroine runs out and needs a ride to get away from the paparrazi.
Return to Me—the hero is on a bad date in the restaurant.
As you sketch out your novel, you start by defining that Boy Meets Girl moment. Give it a sentence, or even two.
Here’s my Boy Meets Girl moment from my current WIP:
Boy Meets Girl: They’re both there for different weddings at the same location—and they get into the same cab, mistaking each other for people they haven’t met… but are supposed to.
(And since you don’t know what is in my head, here’s some info you might need: He’s undercover, supposed to meet up with another agent, and with her pose as her fiancé and protect the bride. She is supposed to be the maid of honor at her sister’s wedding, and the blind date of one of the groomsmen.)
Once you have your Boy meets Girl moment, you can move on to the next beat:
Beat 2: Interest/Need: Something about their own situation makes their heart vulnerable to romance.
Let’s look at some of the movies mentioned. Titanic…Rose hates her life, feels suffocated and longs for freedom and adventure. Jack is a vagabond, and when he sees this beautiful woman who loves him, he is affirmed. She believes in him!
Sleepless in Seattle—she is marrying a man she doesn’t really love. He’s lost the only woman he thinks he can ever love.
It’s very important for you to figure out what it is about your characters that make them ready or vulnerable to romance. Often this element is revealed though a conversation they have with their friends. Or is a part of inciting incident.
Or is played out via the actions— for example, in my book Nothing But Trouble, PJ breaks up with her beau during the first scene. She wants a man who can see past her tattoos to the real girl.
Here’s mine:
Interest/Need—her sister is marrying the man that she thought liked her—she is tired of living outside the romance novel.
He used to be a wild guy and has changed his ways. Now he’s afraid to be with a woman because he doesn’t know how to date a nice girl. But he wants someone he can love, and trust, and someone who sees him as a hero.
So—what makes your character vulnerable to love?
Right now, you’re just building the components—you can move them around to fit the story.
Which brings us to the next beat…
Beat 3: Why Not: These are the Obstacles between the hero and heroine, the True Love that conspire to separate them.
Now, if you read my blog last week, you’ll know I talked about two different structures—why/why not , and why not/why.
The why not/why is when the obstacles appear first, and the why (they need to be together, which we’ll get to soon) appears second.Or, you may have a why/why not book where they fall in love first…and then realize why they can’t be together.
Again, these are just components you need to have—they can occur in different orders.
So let’s think about some common Why Not’s:
Return to Me: She has his deceased wife’s heart.
Sleepless in Seattle: She lives in Baltimore, he lives in Seattle!
Two Weeks Notice: they value different things.
The Proposal: She’s his boss. (which raises a good point—the why not can be either/both internal and/or external).
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: They’ve bet against each other…her with the article, him with the job advancement. Great conflict – he has to keep her, she has to get rid of him!
The key is, you MUST have why not’s in a romance. Because without the WHY NOT, there is no conflict and the story is… boring. Or not a story.
So—as you’re building your story think about the WHY NOT that you will keep them apart.
Here are the WHY NOT’s for my current WIP:
He needs her to be his date to accomplish the mission he is on. She feels like he tricked her and now trapped her into helping him. They don’t trust each other.
What are your romantic Why Nots?
We’re going to skip over the WHY right now (but we’ll be coming back to it) and move onto the next component:
Beat 4: Wooing: Events or situations to allow the hero and heroine to fall in love. This is the fun stuff—all those “dates” or events they have that make them fall for each others.
We touched on Wooing/Dates earlier this year. As we get deeper into building our romance, we’ll talk about the nature and purpose of each of these wooing dates, but for now, let’s just identify them.
One of my favorite is in While you Were Sleeping—moving the sofa!
Notting Hill—Hugh Grant wearing the goggles in the movie. And, when they read lines together, too in Notting Hill.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days—learning to ride the motorcycle, playing cards with his family.
The Wedding Planner-when they go to the movies and eat M&M’s.
How about 50 First Dates—there’s a million in that! Meeting the sea creatures, waffle dates…
It’s also important to pick scenes that will engage the reader—something sweet and things the reader would like to do. You really can be creative wooing moment—I’ve had motorcycle rides, trips to the dump to watch the bears, hockey, a car ride, a trip to the library, a snowmobile ride… think outside the box. Think of where YOU would like to go!
For every romance, I try and plot at least ONE great date scene, and a couple smaller scenes.
Here’s a glimpse of mine: She learns to jet ski, he takes her snorkeling, they go on a dolphin ride together (really) (the story takes place in Cancun)
Ask: Do you have any wooing scenes?
These are the first four beats of a great romance. But they are just the beginning – tomorrow, we’ll talk about that element that makes a romance great: SPARKS!
If you have questions about how to build a great romance, check out the romance discussion at www.mybooktherapy.ning.com
Susie May