Why Write Romance Fiction?

Do you remember Dell Publishing's Candlelight Ecstasy Supreme? The Berkely Publishing Group came out with Second Chance at Love and Bantam did Loveswept. Harlequin Romances are in on this trend with Temptation and Superromance, Harlequin Intrigue, plus their ethnic lines Kimani, just to name a very few of their extensive lines. Now imagine for a moment: if you wrote for Harlequin where your books would go. Harlequin books are published in Toronto, New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Sydney, Hamburg, Stockholm, Athens, Tokyo, Milan, Madrid, Warsaw, Budapest, Auckland and, of course, distributed even more widely, now that there is Internet and their television division.

What does all of this mean to you? You ask. It means that it's a world-wide market, easily accessible because the readers have voracious appetites for new approaches to the same old love story.

Two of the most important changes romances have undergone are probably: One, the baby boomers growing into middle age, and, Two, the advent of the belated interest in ethnic romances. Publishing houses are trying to reach today's reader with contemporary settings and heroines. The heroine in most of today's romances is not a nineteen-year old blonde virgin. She is older, wiser, more experienced. She is any race, and, she has a good job. She cares about something other than getting married. Although, when she meets the hero, this comes to mind. He is, of course, the one she's been waiting for and who is much more suitable for her than the one she left behind.

Although the hero is magnetic, he doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, most publishing houses like a flaw or two, both in physical make-up and in his personality. All flaws are done away with before the book ends though. The hero is gentle, always a perfect lover and an expert in his career, very successful on all levels. And, of course, he is madly in love with the heroine.

Contemporary romance fiction, sometimes known as category fiction, is much easier for the new writer and they have erotic scenes. They are written with a formula, if you like. One reader has written, "I took a dozen of them, folded the corners down on the hot pages and found they occurred at a similar frequency and were of similar duration in the various novels of each lone." But don't forget that each line is different, so you'll have to do some homework before you set to work. You can also write to the publisher whose line you are interested in writing for asking for a"Tip Sheet," with your Self Addressed Stamped Envelope. A "Tip Sheet" is the publisher's guidelines. These are also now on the Internet. So, consult the publisher's website and guidelines.

Berkeley and Harlequin's Superromance tips sheets state that it's OK for the hero and heroine to make love before they get married, and that you can describe each scene sensuously. Make it poetic and exciting. They also ask for a steady build-up in sexual tension throughout the book.

Publisher's tip sheets or guidelines are often so meticulously detailed that they almost write the story for you. If you can write a story at all, you should be able to make a play for this very lucrative market. But if you are queasy about writing erotica, you might want to gingerly ease yourself into it by reading "Writing Romance Fiction for Love and Money" by Helene Barnhart. It has a chapter devoted to sensuality and how to achieve it on the page. In some romance novels, the romance comes first, then the characters, the story, and finally the sex. Others are character driven.

In romance writing you will need a whole new list of sensual adjectives because these scenes call for some clever avoidance of clinical terminology. Each publishing house has a different degree of evasiveness, and the writers within those lines also differ in their approach. Some are so vague it's difficult to tell if the writer is talking about the ocean or the heroine when he or she writes of, for instance: "waves cresting."

Keep in mind that the heroine is always thinking about the hero in a sexual way, even when she's trying not to. But she requires seduction because romance heroines are still "good girls." They don't have sex in between loves, like normal people do. They wait until they fall in love with Mr. Right.

Passion takes a whole different course, because we have over two hundred pages to follow it, our heroine takes her time with each tender moment.

How to write about sex without mentioning it? How about luminous with desire, mind-drugging kisses, languorous strokes or frenzy of need? You get the idea.