On Writing Romance (17 page)

The shorter the romance novel is, the less room there is to develop the story, and therefore, the earlier the hero and heroine should meet. In short category romances (such as sweet traditionals and short contemporaries) and novellas, the hero and heroine often meet on page one. In single-title books and longer category romances (such as historicals, long contemporaries, and romantic suspense), the author usually develops a more complex story in parallel with the more involved romance. For this reason, the author can show more of one main character's life before the hero and heroine actually meet. Still, since the romance is the focus of the story, the couple's first meeting is too important to delay for long.

The first meeting might be only a few paragraphs — a couple could have a brief encounter and then move on, only to discover later that their problems will draw them back together. But it's more likely to fill an entire scene, with the couple's awareness and tension intermingled with a conversation about the troubles they're facing and why they have to deal with each other to make the problem go away.

In the thousands of romance novels that have been published, there are many similar first meetings. Some of them have been overused to the point that they've become clichés. Heroes and heroines who meet when their cars collide, or when she smacks into the hard wall of his body, or when she falls off a ladder/wall/step stool/tree and he catches her, or when one of them walks in when the other's wearing only a towel, are among the first-meet scenarios that now make editors flinch and roll their eyes. Unless you can come up with a creative new twist on one of those ideas, it's wiser to find a different route to the hero and heroine's first encounter.

1. Reread the first half-dozen pages of the romance novels you've been studying. In each book, which characters have you met? Have you met the hero, the heroine, or both?
   

2. What do you know about the main characters you've met? What don't you know?
   

3. What do you want to know about the main characters?
   

4. How did the author catch your attention? Did she start her story with action or with description? With ordinary life or a change in the main character's circumstances? With an unusual statement or line?
   

5. If the hero and heroine have met, what was their first reaction to each other?
   

1. Where does the action of your story start?
   

2. What event goes on page one of your story?
   

3. Does your story start with the heroine, the hero, or both of them together?
   

4. How do your heroine and hero meet for the first time?
   

5. How do they react to each other?
   

6. What does your viewpoint character notice about the other main character?
   

7. How does the initial problem — the conflict between the characters — come to the attention of the readers?
   

Starting to write a story is fun. The author who's been thinking for a while about his characters often has the first scene clearly developed in his mind. He knows exactly what happens, exactly who says what, exactly how everybody looks and what each of them does — and so the first part of the story may flow easily onto the page.

But what comes after that first scene often isn't as clear or as easy to write. That's why a lot of writers hit a wall about the time they finish writing the first chapter: They're not sure what comes next, or how to put the events down on paper in a way the readers will appreciate.

Even writers who have done a full outline sometimes encounter this problem. Having the main events of the story in mind is one thing; actually putting those events down on the page is another.

But there are some specific techniques you may find helpful in telling a story. Among them are story-showing (which is different from storytelling); choosing the specific details to create the exact picture you want to form in the readers' minds; and using narrative, flashback, exposition, and summary to effectively share those carefully chosen details with your readers.

These techniques will help you get your story out of your head and onto the paper as you create the individual scenes and chapters that are the building blocks of your book.

The goal of writing a story is to make the readers feel like they're right there, sitting quietly in a corner as the action unfolds — watching, listening, smelling, touching, and tasting right along with the characters. When the readers feel like they're part of the story, they become so involved that they can't put the book down. You can create this feeling in your readers by using a technique known as
story-showing
.

I say
showing
, rather than
telling
, quite deliberately.

Storytelling gives the readers a summary of the events and action and tells them about the characters, as in this made-up example based on Lynn Michaels's single title
Mother of the Bride
:

But what makes a day rotten? Exactly what sort of behavior is involved in making a pass? Without having the details so they can judge for themselves, the readers may be skeptical of the author's definition of rotten.

Story-showing, on the other hand, gives the readers a word picture of the scene and allows them to draw their own conclusions about the characters and the action. Here's the real passage from
Mother of the Bride
,
showing
Cydney's rotten day and the client making a pass:

By giving the details of Cydney's day and showing Wendell right down to his hand on Cydney's rear, Michaels has given the readers all the evidence they need to form their own conclusion. She's also presented Cydney in a positive light — appropriately assertive but not nasty, even though Wendell deserves it.

Summarizing — telling — is an occupational hazard for every novelist. Because you, as the author, can so clearly see the action, hear the words, and smell the scents of the story as you're writing it, it's sometimes easy to forget that the readers don't automatically have the same grasp of the scene.

The readers can only see, hear, and smell the things you put in front of them, and unless you give them the details that will help them experience those sensations, they can't possibly react the same way you do to the story.

Showing the story means giving the readers the same kinds of information they would get if they were sitting in a theater watching a play. In a theater, you don't get ultrafine detail, but you get the big picture that helps you make up your own mind about the setting. You see the characters' actions, props, and costumes, so you can draw your own conclusions about the kind of people they are.

A stage play doesn't give you all the details, just the ones you need in order to understand what's going on and to form a background for the story. You aren't told what the main character ate for breakfast, unless perhaps he's going to suspect in act 2 that his corn flakes were poisoned. You don't see what's beyond the doorways at the edge of the stage; you know there are rooms there, but you don't need the details.

In the same way, you don't need to give your readers every detail of your characters' lives and actions. Skip over the less important details and concentrate on the facts that help the readers picture the scene. If your heroine is driving to work, you don't need to describe every gear change or list every intersection. You might, however, note the fact that the heavy traffic frays her nerves, or comment that she's already so stressed by the hero that she doesn't even notice the traffic — because those things tell the readers important things about the heroine.

Details are most effective when they build on what the readers already know. If the setting is a living room, the readers don't need to see a dozen other rooms in order to assume the one in front of them is attached to a regular house. On the other hand, if the setting is another planet, the readers will need considerably more information in order to form a mental picture.

The tricky part of including detail is sorting out the significant details from the mass of information inside your mind. As you write a scene, you know what everyone looks like, what they're wearing, and what color the upholstery is. Most of that information isn't critically important because the readers know about people and clothes and furnishings and can provide that picture for themselves. Yet it's important to give the readers enough information to be able to picture
your
room and
your
character.

How many details do you need to give, and which ones are important to help the readers form a picture in their minds? You can determine this by considering the following questions:

• How familiar are the readers with this type of location, person, or event? (The more commonplace the location, person, or event, the fewer descriptive details the readers need to form a picture.)
  

• What makes this place, these people, or this event different from the ordinary? What makes them stand out from similar places, people, or events?
  

• What do the readers need to know in order to understand why these characters react as they do?
  

Think about what you as a reader would like to know about this story, these characters, and this situation. What do you need to know in order to understand what's going on? Then share those facts — and no more — with your audience. Let the readers have the fun of imagining the rest.

And when you want to describe a room or a person, give your point-of-view character a reason to stop and take a good look. Is this the first time he's ever been in this location or seen this person? Is the room different from what he expected? Has the character he's looking at changed since he last saw him?

In her paranormal single title
Undead and Unwed
, MaryJanice Davidson shows us her heroine, a brand-new vampire, as she begins to realize what's happened to her:

Davidson's heroine has a great reason for looking around carefully and noting details, since her surroundings are like nothing she's ever experienced. And although the author employs an overused device — the heroine catching sight of herself in a mirror — as an excuse to describe her, Davidson has added some wicked twists. Her heroine literally being caught dead in a suit, shoes, and makeup that she would normally never have worn makes the cliché fresh and new.

How do you share the details of your all-important story with the readers? There are five main ways:

1. Narrative:
   describing what happens in more-or-less sequential order.
   

2. Exposition and Summary:
   telling about or recapping the action rather than showing it.
   

3. Flashback:
   showing a character reliving an event that happened before the current story.
   

4. Introspection:
   detailing what the characters think.
   

5. Dialogue:
   sharing what the characters say.
   

We'll look at dialogue and introspection in chapter twelve, but let's take a closer look at narrative, exposition and summary, and flashback techniques.

Straightforward narrative involves presenting events to the readers in the same order in which they occurred. In its simplest form, narrative is almost a list. Narrative is what the Red King from
Alice in Wonderland
wanted when he said, “Begin at the beginning, go on till you come to the end, and then stop.” It's the technique a first-grader uses to tell you what he did at the zoo: “First I saw the giraffes, then I rode on the elephant, and then I petted a goat and he tried to eat my sleeve.”

The action is much more complex in romantic fiction, of course, but the principle for presenting it is the same. Close your eyes and watch the scene in your mind as it unfolds. What happens next? What do your readers need to know in order to understand the scene? What details will help them picture the location, characters, and events?

Have you ever struggled to make sense of a story told by a scatterbrained individual who started the tale in the middle, left out the most important facts, forgot the punch line, and kept saying, “Oh, I forgot to tell you …” or “I guess I should have said …”?