Welcome back to the Writers Secret Weapon, where I help you write your story. It’s been a hot minute since I wrote something, and I am sorry - I cluttered up my schedule and writing fell through the cracks. But I’m back today with something I think will help a lot of you.
Today I want to talk you through the map I make for romance authors who are looking to shape and frame their stories. This is normally something I do in coaching sessions verbally, and I’ve gone through part of this in a few podcasts and YouTube videos, but having it in one long-form text isn’t something I’ve done before.
I want to make clear that this isn’t a mandate as to how you should write your novel, this isn’t about the best plot to pick or what kind of description you should give someone. I’m leaving all that stuff up to you. What I’ve got here is a list, in order, of all the beats that form the spine and skeleton of a romance novel.
This is going to work for both hetero and LGBTQ+ romance, and this will be true for all the subdivisions of Romance like romantasy, modern romance, paranormal romance, etc.
Up front you need to know that I never set out to work on romance novels, it was just something I kind of stumbled into, collecting early clients who happened to be writing romance and over time acquiring more and more exposure to romance as one author told another author about what I do until my first few years of coaching were either romance novels or science fiction exclusively. Even in the lean years where I only had one or two clients over 12 months, there’s always been a romance writer or at least one romance novel getting edited ever year for the last 26 years. I’ve come to really like romance novels and their authors, something I never thought I’d find out about myself.
And one more note before we hit the paywall and jump in - I’m going to draw examples from all across romance as a genre, and throw in some audio where I think it’s appropriate. Call this one a test balloon: if this goes well, yes I will do one for every other genre I’ve ever worked in.
Ready, romance authors? Let’s do this.