The Keys to Writing Your First Romance Novel

Romance novels have always been popular among the reading public. Romance is considered as one of the largest selling genres of literary fiction, which is primarily patronized by women. For this reason, writing romance novels might be the best thing to do for budding authors who want to earn big in the literary industry. However, even though romance may seem like an easy genre to write, it is actually difficult to come up with a romance novel that will sell. Generally, romance readers are smart, discerning, and not easily impressed, so it is important for romance novels to be that good and interesting.

The Other Side of Love by Attilio Guardo is a great example of a romance novel that knows how to pique the interest of the picky readers of romance. Its story revolves around the character of Conrad Arlington Hill whose heartbreak from his girlfriend, Abigail McCloud, suddenly turns him into a vengeful person who goes into ‘the other side of love’ and embarks on an emotional roller coaster ride toward finding love again. In general, The Other Side of Love by Attilio Guardo can be considered a good romance novel because it offers something fresh and fascinating to the readers of the genre.

If you are a budding author who wants to write a good romance novel like Attilio Guardo’s The Other Side of Love, then this article is especially for you! Here are some of the keys to writing your first romance novel:

Understand your target audience

Before writing your first romance novel, you first need to determine your target audience. A target audience essentially refers to a person or a group of people whom a work of literature is intended to reach. In other words, your target audience consists of people who will be reading your book.

Determining and understanding your target audience is necessary in marketing your book, especially if you are a budding author. Doing so can help you create content that appeals directly to your specified audience. This is also called “writing to market”. Writing to market simply means that you are writing certain types of books that you know are going to sell well and be patronized by your target audience. In writing your first romance novel, try as much as possible to write for your target readers. Identify their interests, preferences, and expectations for a romance novel. Then, work your novel around these interests, preferences, and expectations.

Follow a familiar plot device, but introduce twists to it

To make sure that your first romance novel is a good and marketable one, write according to the tried and tested formula for writing a romance novel: two protagonists meet each other, they fall in love, they lose each other, then they reconcile. If you are new to writing a romance novel, then it is greatly recommended that you follow this formula as much as possible.

In your romance novel, follow a familiar plot device that has proven to be effective already. For example, some of the most popular romance plot devices include friends becoming lovers, strangers finding their soulmates, and old flames reuniting. Work your novel around one of these popular plot devices. However, make sure to introduce twists to your chosen plot in order for your story to gain a sense of uniqueness. As a budding romance author, you need to be in when it comes to what you write, but this does not mean that you should not be distinctive.

Craft romantic chemistry between your characters

Generally, the readers of this genre read romance novels for the romance itself. What they usually look for is the romantic chemistry between the characters of a story. Because of this, as a romance author, it is important that you craft a believable romantic chemistry between your protagonists. To do this, you first need to determine and define what a romantic chemistry is.

Romantic chemistry does not necessarily mean physical attraction nor intimacy between two characters. In essence, romantic chemistry is the ‘spark’ between two people. It is the energetic exchange between these two people that indicates that romance may exist between them. As an author of romance, it is your job to determine how you can formulate such spark between your characters. Their romantic chemistry does not necessarily have to be complex, but it has to be believable.

Ultimately, writing a romance novel can be taxing and time-consuming, especially for first time authors. The process is not as easy as it seems. You need to do a lot of rethinking and research on your audience, story, characters, and overall content to make sure that you create a romance novel that will sell. Nonetheless, there are several proven and tested pieces of advice that you can follow to help you in such endeavor, and the ones explained in this article are some of the most important of them.