Customer Reviews

The Everything Guide to Writing a Romance Novel: From writing the perfect love scene to finding the right publisher--All you need to fulfill your dreams

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How does an author get from the bottom to the top of the agent/publisher slush pile? There are many answers and most of them are included in The Everything Guide to Writing a Romance Novel.

Some multi-published authors may find that this guide includes information that they already know. But I'd bet that there are nuggets that they will find new and interesting. The novice author (and that is who this book is directed toward) will find it a comprehensive book filled with useful information.

Authors Craig and Hughes start with the history of the romance novel and then head straight into an in-depth discussion of the genre and the various subgenres. I found this section fascinating and clarified many of my thoughts on the subject.

The meat of the writing of a Romance novel is in the Basic Structure chapter and includes story arcs, plot points, hooks, setting, etc. The important question answered in this chapter is calculating word count. There isn't an author living (I suspect) who didn't start their career wondering how to do the word count.

The information is vast and the authors discuss most things in a concise but in-depth manner. They will help the reader through the subjects of critique groups, brainstorming ideas, targeting markets, grammar, sentence structure, openings, dialogue and narrative, character sketches, pacing, writing drafts and so much more.

This 305-page book, including appendix and index, is a reference book the Romance writer MUST have in their library. It will save you time. And time saved is time spent writing that Romance novel.

Armchair Interviews says: A must-read, must-have reference book.

For an "Everything Guide" this book seems awfully light on information. Much of what is here is covered in more depth (and covered better) in other romance writing guides. And the authors commit some pretty glaring errors. For instance, on page 116 they claim that the sentence "Jane was listening at the door" is passive voice. That's just plain wrong. No wonder so many writers are confused about verb choice with "expert" advice like this floating around.

This is a must have if you want to write not only romance, but any genre. I have a whole shelf of books about the craft of writing, but this is the one I turn to for everything. It is for the beginner and for those of us who have been writing for years.
If you can buy just one book this year, this is the one.