The idea of becoming a Romance author may sound appealing because you think you could write a really great novel. You may have been in love, you know what heartbreak feels like, and you've had feelings before – including butterflies in your tummy. But the reality is that a romance novel is about so much more than just those feelings. You cannot write 500 pages about butterflies in someone's tummy or the feelings of a heartbreak. There has to be more substance to a romance novel and this is where people get confused. In other words, a romance novel should not be all about someone's feelings and you definitely shouldn't dwell on the emotional aspect too much.
While emotions are important in the romance, it's not something that you need to focus too much of your energy on. Believe it or not, as you start writing about your characters, their emotions and feelings will start to develop organically. This is because you want to spend some time getting to know your characters and develop them slowly as they start exploring different options in their lives. For example, you may find that one of your female characters is experiencing butterflies whenever she's with a certain male and you may find that you are slowly revealing her feelings without even trying. Don't start a romance novel by talking about all these feelings and emotions. And don't think that your novel is bad because you haven't focused too much on feelings.
Make sure there's action
The reality is that people don't read romance novels to learn about their own feelings. They probably have plenty of emotional experiences, including the first kiss, heartbreak, and all the other fun stuff that comes with being in a relationship. Readers are reading romance because they want to hear a story that's different from their own.
That's why you need to focus on creating a story that has plenty of movement and action.
In this regard, I don't mean action as an action movie where cars are blowing up and there's car chases happening. I simply mean that you cannot spend several chapters dwelling inside one of your character's head - a person who is constantly going back and forth about his or her feelings.
It is boring to read and it may not add anything significant your novel. Instead, keep the action going by developing your story so new things are happening all the time. Remember, a well-written story has a beginning, a middle climax, and an ending, and you need to slowly move the storyline along because your readers are expecting a major climax at some point.
Avoid the filler
As you start writing your novel, you may find yourself adding scenes that aren't important and you are talking about feelings in a way that just seems to add filler to your novel. Just because you need to move your story along doesn't mean you need to add a bunch of filler to work your way up to the climax. Readers will pick up on this and they will quickly put it down because they don't want to read anything that has no significance to the overall storyline.
You can have a story where there isn't too much action in terms of dramatic events. People don't need to be dying to create suspense, and you don't need to add a crime to move characters. You need to make sure that your characters are staying active in some regard, including having conversations, going out with friends, exploring how they are at work, and possibly even facing conflicts with their feelings or in a relationship. It's all about developing your characters to be as realistic as your readers are in their own lives.
What do you think about feelings not playing too big of a role in romance literature? Are you surprised that emotion often takes a backseat to a great story?
