If you're planning on exploring a career as a Romance author there are certain things that you have to take into consideration. There are some conventional – and perhaps unwritten – rules that many romance novels follow. Some romance authors would argue that these rules cannot be broken, no matter how much determination you put into your story. The reality is that a romance novel must focus on the love relationship. Romance is all about finding that happy ending with somebody, so you cannot write a love story where they don't end up together in the end.
While you may have written a love story, it doesn't have the happy ending that's required for something to be a romance. People read romances because they want a positive story. There may be hardships and obstacles in your story but the ultimate message is that love is possible in the end and the people end up together because they love one another.
Paranormal and historical romances
If you're writing a story that doesn't take place in modern-day time, you may want to spend some time building up some context. If you're writing a historical romance, you may want to spend some time building up the context surrounding your romance story. What year is this taking place? What are the circumstances of this particular time?
And what does this have to do with a couple you're trying to center the story around?
The same thing goes for paranormal stories. Not everyone knows paranormal literature and you may need to spend some time explaining what universe you have chosen to write an and why this is significant to your love story. In addition, you have a lot more freedom in paranormal romance because you can decide whether people are creatures who are not allowed to feel love and if there is been some kind of mind-altering influence on them.
You can essentially make your own rule, which is why it is very important that you set the tone and explain the context to your readers.
Keep the relationship
No matter what you decide to focus on in terms the background context, it's important that your story is focusing on the love relationship. This means that you cannot remove a character from your story for long periods of time.
If your hero of the story only appears for a few chapters, make sure that the other person in the story thinks about the hero or dreams about the hero so he or she stays top of mind.
Remember, you're not writing a mystery novel where you are presenting options as to whether they're going to be together in the end. We know they're going to be together in the end, and you readers know the same thing. You're writing about the journey that they're taking to get to that happy ending. Have you ever written a romance novel where you didn't keep love relationship at the forefront?
