How Important is the Formula?

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking ever since you all so helpfully answered my question about whether or not I had written a romance.

So my next question is: am I dead in the water if my novel didn't stick to the formula?

I finally started querying my novel as a historical romance and lo and behold, I've received three requests so far (out of ten sent out). Much better than the 19 out of 20 queries that got rejected last year when I claimed the novel as a historical fiction.

But now that I am busy sending out requests, I'm starting to worry about the formula. Yes, the love story is the core and there is a HEA. But I've read a few things on here about certain milestones needing to occur by a specific word count or a certain word count needing to be devoted to the two main characters, etc. That's where it gets a little muddy for me. Not to mention that there is a secondary male MC that the female MC gets engaged to (all the while pining the for the main male MC) in my novel as well. The two main characters are back together by the end, but I'm just wondering if I've set myself up for disappointment because I didn't stick to the rules. Is it something that an agent might take a chance on and allow for revisions?

In any case, I'm just hoping that I will get some feedback if my requests get rejected.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. And thanks in advance.

Thanks veinglory!

I read one of your posts on another thread about the whole "emotional/sexual feelings" needing to be shown before 10,000 words and it got me to thinking. I would have to check, but I don't think my two MCs even meet before 10,000 words. Or maybe they do. But they have that instant connection thing going on, so they get pretty deep very quick.

That makes sense. My total word count is 94,000 so I suspect in the scheme of things, (10,000 or 15,000) is just a drop in the bucket.

Thank you for soothing my fears!

Irysangel said:

I'm going to say that it depends (ha). In a historical romance, frex, you mentioned a second love interest that she's with but eventually moves to the hero. I think that is fine as long as she doesn't have sex with him. Most historical romance readers prefer the hero to be the one and only, if that makes sense. I believe Jennifer Haymore's first historical romance dealt with two heroes though. You might check that one out?

Other than that, if the hero and heroine don't meet until page 100, you're going to have a hard time with that in today's market. Used to be that you could get away with it (I read a lot of older historicals that had them meet around page 75-100 or so) but I think the emphasis is moving towards a quicker meeting.

I'm positive this is brought on by a lot of romance contests, where you enter the first three chapters of the book in the contest, and you pretty much have to show the relationship in those three chapters (but that's neither here nor there).

So there aren't really specific "You must do this by page 20!" sorts of scenarios, but there are expectations set by the market, if that makes sense.

Also, if the writing is there, agents will absolutely ask for revisions if the story is a little slow or has an odd element. Don't worry about that in the slightest.

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Thanks Irysangel! I appreciate the input.

She doesn't have sex with the sub hero. They kiss a few times, but she is always fretting over the fact that it was way better with the hero.