Make A Living Writing Romance

By Kimber Chin

There are two main schools of romance writing.

There are those writers that outline or plot the entire book before sitting down to write. There are very detailed plotters. They sketch out everything from character builds to action points. They knew exactly where the book is going.

At the other side of the spectrum are the pantsers. These writers write by the seat of their pants. They simply sit down at the keyboard and start typing. They don’t know what happens next in the story until they write it.

 
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By Kimber Chin

The black moment is the place in a romance novel where all appears to be lost. There is no hope for the hero and heroine. Their relationship is doomed.

Romance readers expect this black moment. It is the peak of tension. A good black moment will make them cry. A bad black moment will make them groan.

The big misunderstanding is an example of a bad black moment. Dashing hero visits beautiful, yet secret sister. The heroine sees them, and assumes they are having an affair. Without any discussion, the heroine breaks off their engagement. All appears lost yet all would have been easily explained with a very simple discussion.

Another bad black moment is the unrelated black moment. Hero and heroine are happily living their lives. Heroine hits her head on a cabinet and falls into a coma. What did the coma have to do with the rest of the story? Absolutely nothing.

 
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By Eric M Head

Have you ever wandered into a book store and looked at all the books wondering how they go there? Maybe you are an up and coming author who sees those books on the shelves and you want to know how to get your book right there along side them.

In order to get your book published, it’s important to have an overview of the submission process. After you understand the basics, you will know which course of action to take.

For a book to get published, the author of the book will typically submit a letter to the publisher. This letter is called the ‘query letter’ and it is specifically submitted according to the submission guidelines of that particular publishing company.

When an author submits this unsolicited query letter, it is called an unsolicited submission. A large amount of these unsolicited submissions are from authors who have never had a book published before.

What happens after you send your unsolicited submission is that it goes into a large pile of other unsolicited submissions. The acquisitions editor will then take the manuscripts from this pile to review. If the editor likes your manuscript, he will hand it off to the editorial staff.

 
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By Eric M Head

So you finally finished writing your masterpiece novel. It took a long time, but you managed to get the story right and you are excited see it as a book on the shelves of your local bookstore. You feel confident that once people read it, they are going to love it.

Before you get into self-publishing, you should know what it is and what is involved.

Book publishing is most often used in association with the large publishing houses that have the necessary equipment to mass produce books; however, technically it means any development, printing, and distribution of a literary work. The main purpose that a book is published is because it is intended to be made available to the general public for reading.

There are many authors who publish their own work. It is not uncommon for an author to sit down, write out an entire book and then financially back their book by putting their own money into publishing it.

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By Patty Apostolides

Before you even begin writing your novel, you need to know who your characters will be. Minimally, you would want two major characters, the hero and the heroine. They will interact mostly with each other throughout the novel. How they interact with each other will determine the outcome of the story. Will they resist each other in the beginning of the story and by the end, fall in love? Or will they fall in love in the beginning of the story and then be driven apart by conflict? Once you’ve chosen them, then you need to decide what age they are, their personality traits, and their names.

AGE

Age-appropriate actions are paramount to development of the character. If the heroine is in her teens, she will react differently to situations than if she is in her late twenties. The same goes with the hero. In a romance novel, the typical heroine is in her early twenties, while the hero is older. If he is in his twenties, he shouldn’t be shown as a tycoon, unless of course, he inherited the wealth. If he is in his thirties, he shouldn’t be shown doing activities that are immature for his age.

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