Coming in July… Romance Subgenres

June 24, 2018June 24, 2018Leave a comment

We’re devoting the month of July to chatting about the myriad of subgenres in the romance genre. We don’t have enough weeks for all of them, but here are the ones we’re going to chat about this month:

July 1st Paranormal

July 8th Contemporary

July 15th Suspense

July 22st Historical

July 29th Science Fiction & Fantasy

Come let us know about your experiences writing different subgenres, whether you’ve written in that subgenre, have thought about writing in that subgenre or would never write in that subgenre ever… join us Sundays at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST.

Coming April 1st… Favorite Things

March 25, 2018March 30, 2018Leave a comment

romance writers chat topic favorite things

Cinnamon roll heroes and page sizzling sex.

Trope-busting heroines and “who’s pairing up next?”

Handsome, kind strangers who are secretly kings.

These are a few of our Favorite Things!

Julie Andrews Favorite Things

…That’s all the rhyming I’ve got in me, but you get the idea. We’re shaking off Marketing March with a light hearted topic about everything we love about the romance genre. Come talk about all the favorite things that make you swoon on #RWChat, Sunday, April 1st at 7pm ET | 4pm PT.

What’s in a Name?

June 20, 2017June 20, 20175 Comments

This week on #RWchat, we’re talking about heroes and heroines, and today’s guest post comes to us from LaQuette. We asked her to talk about the thoughtful and meaningful names in her Queens of Kings series. Take it away, LaQuette!

Hello, I’m LaQuette, your friendly erotic romance author, embracing my crazy…one character at a time. Speaking of crazy and characters, I’m here to talk to you about my process of name selection for the crazy folks running around in my head.

I was attending a reader/writer event last year when a reader by the name of Shona asked me a thoughtful question about my characters. She’d read my romantic suspense series, The Queens of Kings, and asked, “You named the Amare family members, Hunter, Law, Free, Justice, True, and Heart. How did you come up with such unusual names, and what if any significance did the selection of those names have?” If I didn’t mention that I have smart and perceptive readers, let me tell you now, my readers are the business.

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Balancing the External Plot: Take the Lead

June 13, 2017June 14, 2017Leave a comment

This week on #RWchat, we’re discussing the non-romance plots in our romance novels. In other words, what do the characters do other than kiss? Yesterday we heard from C.L. Polk about Witchmark. Today, Alexis Daria talks about the external plot in her upcoming debut, Take the Lead.

How did you come up with the non-romance plot?

I’m a huge fan of Dancing with the Stars, and I was originally inspired by some of the stories they tell through their dances. I made a list of routines like the one in the video below, with the intention of using them as writing prompts.

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Balancing the External Plot: Witchmark

June 12, 2017June 14, 20171 Comment

This week on #RWchat, we’re discussing the non-romance plots in our romance novels. In other words, what do the characters do other than kiss? Author C.L. Polk talks about balancing a mystery plot, a fantasy world, and romance in her upcoming novel, Witchmark.

How did you come up with the non-romance plot?

I knew I wanted to write a romance plot, but I really wanted them to have an adventure while they fell in love even though Tristan and Miles are from very different worlds. It took a long time trying to put the pieces of the story together because it’s a mystery that reveals terrible secrets at the end. I had some images firmly in my mind, like Miles’ tiny office at work and Tristan’s townhouse full of mirrors. The story didn’t come together until I had a vision of Miles being horrified, watching his fellow soldiers marching in their victory parade. When I figured out why, all the pieces fell into place, and I was ready.

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ICYMI: Romance Stereotypes Storify

June 6, 2017June 12, 2017Leave a comment

If you weren’t able to catch last Sunday’s chat on Romance Stereotypes, RWchat co-host C.L. Polk created a Storify highlight reel.

Which romance stereotypes would you pay money to have people stop saying to you?

Coming June 4th . . . Romance Stereotypes

May 28, 2017May 29, 2017Leave a comment

romance writer chat RWchat romance stereotypes june 4

Graphic by Alexis Daria

Let’s face it, romance, in our culture, has a lot of stereotypes around it. People think they know what our genre is about, but in reality, most of them don’t. People assume they know what being a writer involves, but yeah, no.

What kinds of judgments and assumptions have you encountered from others as a romance writer? How have you responded?

Join us to chat about the genre we love on Sunday at 4pm PST / 7pm EST!

~Robin Lovett

Coming Oct. 2nd… Procrastination

September 30, 2016October 9, 2016Leave a comment

rwchat-oct-2 It took us till Friday to come up with this Sunday’s topic cuz, yeah, we were procraaaastinating. Every writer does it. It gets in our way. We all lose large amounts of writing time to it. How do you cope with procrastination? What effect does it have on your process and how do you overcome it?

Come with ideas, come with questions. See you Sunday on #rwchat at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST.

~Robin Lovett

Graphic courtesy of Alexis Daria.

Our Point of View on POV

September 17, 2016September 17, 2016Leave a comment

rwchat-sept-18-email

Since everyone has a different POV on POVs, we thought we’d give you the four POVs of our #RWChat hosts.

“I write dual POV in very close third person,” says KIMBERLY BELL. “I choose dual because I like having the perspective of both of the romantic leads in my story. It allows me to play with misunderstandings and have a bit more flexibility in a character’s behavior because the reader understands the why. I write close third because…writing in first person feels weird to me? I need that little bit of distance to feel like an observer rather than like it’s MY story—but I write third very close, because I enjoy playing with the internal thoughts of my characters and using them to really get you into their personalities.”

“I’m flexible,” says C.L. Polk. “I’ve written in first person and third at varying narrative distances, but my most comfortable perspective is third person past, written as close to the skin as possible. I tend to limit the number of POV characters to no more than two, which works well for romance novels. Third person close is vivid and personal, and since I want people to connect to the story and characters, I don’t want to hold them at arm’s length.”

“A close third person POV was how I started writing,” says Robin Lovett. “I wrote three novels that way until I decided to try first person present tense to see if I could. As of now, my two first person POV books are the only ones that have sold. For whatever reason, I’ve had no luck yet with my third person books. I enjoy present tense verbs in the first person because it makes everything feel more immediate and in-the-moment exciting. We each go with our strengths. It takes trial and error to find our voices.”

“Before I admitted to myself that I wanted to write romance,” says Alexis Daria. “I used to write a lot more in first person (past tense). Now, I write exclusively in third person, but that might change in the future. Sometimes I’ll read scenes out loud to myself, converting them to first person present as I read, in order to get a deeper POV.”

Join us Sunday evening at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST and tell us what your POV is on POV.