References for Writing Romance Stories

[kitty_fic]

Originally posted by kitty_fic at References for Writing Romance Stories

I've been reading some meta/articles/thoughts on plotting and therefore angsting over the outline/plot of my paperlegends (or maybe it was the other way around and I was angsting and therefore researching plot)

Then... I realized that the reason none of that was working for me was because they were basically outlining adventure stories or great epic/classic novels and not romances...

Then... I remembered seeing a list of elements for a romance story at one point in time, so I went looking for it:

• 8 Essential Elements of a Romance Novel

1-Society Defined
2-The Meeting
3-The Barrier
4-The Attraction
5-The Declaration
6-Point of Ritual Death
7-The Recognition
8-The Betrothal

I also turned up these references in my search, which seem really helpful also! YAY!

• Plotting a Romance Novel 101 (streamline the elements to 5)


• Plotting The Romance: the Basics (breakdown the story into 3 Acts)


• The Writer's Resource: Plotting A Romance Novel (includes more related links)


• How to Structure A Story: The Eight-Point Arc (Not specifically about romance, but still helpful?)