by Lisa Jordan, @lisajordan
I’m a sucker for happy endings. I admit it and make no apologies for it.
I’ve heard complaints about romance novels being predictable—they end the same way with the hero and heroine concluding with the realization they’re in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together. But that’s the point of a romance!
So, yes, the ending may be predictable, but getting to that happily ever after moment is the tricky part.
What kind of story would it be if boy meets girl, likes girl, asks girl out, she accepts, they date, get along, and finally, boy and girl get married.
Yawn. Yeah, total bore.
Part of the heart-satisfying ending is the journey through the pages. Boy meets girl and maybe they don’t hit it off. Or maybe they do. They have reasons that draw them together, but they also have reasons for staying apart. Something about the other person fills a gap in their heart or in their lives, but they need to overcome external and internal obstacles. Herein lies the core of the story. Without goals and the motivating factors behind them, there is no conflict. No conflict, no plot. No plot, no story.
As with other genres, every scene in a romance novel needs a character goal, motivation for that goal, and obstacles to keep the character from achieving the goal.
However, in a romance, the author needs to include other essential scenes—date scenes, sizzle scenes, and the grand gesture scenes.
Date scenes are those situations that draw the characters together on the page so they will fall in love.
Sizzle scenes show the romantic tension and physical spark between the characters. Maybe they share their first kiss. In Christian fiction, sizzle is more focused on the emotional impact than the physical aspect of the attraction. Allow the reader to feel the emotional attraction between the characters.
As the characters near their black moments, the reasons why they shouldn’t be together flare up. These “why not” reasons keep them apart and make them think they’re not good together.
The characters have overcome obstacles and now, they’ve come to their breaking point. This is where the $20,000 question comes in—is it worth it?
With their hearts have been shredded like yesterday’s documents, they’ve hit a turning point in their relationship and need to make a choice. Do they cut their losses and walk away, or is their love worth making necessary sacrifices so they can be together? Now they need to make the grand gesture to prove true love does exist for them. And once they succeed, they can celebrate their love and end the story with their happily ever after moment.
My favorite authors succeed in creating three-dimensional characters that cause me to wrestle with my emotions and keep me turning pages with heart-pounding conflicts as the characters stumble and fail at obtaining their goals. But most of all, they provide a happily ever after ending because in the end, yes, it is worth it.
Just-for-now could become forever…
They agreed to help each other out.
No one mentioned falling in love.
Back home after losing her job, Isabella Bradley plans to stay only long enough to save her father’s diner, but she can’t do it alone. Her childhood friend Tucker Holland has the perfect solution—he will renovate the diner if she’ll be a nanny for his twins. But as Isabella and Tucker reconnect, their arrangement begins to feel a lot less temporary…
Heart, home, and faith have always been important to Lisa Jordan, so writing stories with those elements come naturally. Represented by Rachelle Gardner of Books & Such Literary Management, Lisa is an award-winning author for Love Inspired, writing contemporary Christian romances that promise hope and happily ever after. Her latest book, A Love Redeemed, releases in September 2020. She is the Operations Manager for Novel.Academy, powered by My Book Therapy. Happily married to her own real-life hero for over thirty years, Lisa and her husband have two grown sons. When she isn’t writing, Lisa enjoys family time, kayaking, good books, and being creative with her friends. Visit her at lisajordanbooks.com.