What are the Unwritten Rules of Romance Writing?

ThetProf

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I was reading the "Tell me there's more to romance writing than formulas and Harlequin" thread and someone mentioned that the only "formula" was it had to have a HEA and a story about the relationship at the heart of the book. Are there other unwritten rules? (If there are written ones somewhere how do I get a copy?:)) I'm new to the game and though I've read a lot of romances, I of course tend to read authors I like so there's a lot out there I don't read. For instance, I don't read contemporary or paranormal (Twilight series I do confess to). But from my reading I have ideas about what is allowed and not allowed, just not sure how unconventional you can be in the changing market. Any help with this is greatly appreciated.
 

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The 'rules' are to write what the publisher thinks their readers want to buy. IMHO that's all there is to it.
 

Stacia Kane

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I do think there's a LOT of leeway, yes. But I do also believe that there are some things that some romance readers simply aren't going to accept, or things that more readers will than won't, thus giving you a better chance at success. Frex, the heroine doesn't have to be a virgin but she shouldn't be a slut. She doesn't have to be a healer who loves puppies but she shouldn't be selfish or self-centered and she should like children. She shouldn't think nasty thoughts about other people unless they're horribly nasty first. There are quite a few of these if you check some of the romance blogs etc.

Again, that isn't to say that all romances MUST adhere to those unwritten rules. But you do have a greater chance of success if you adhere to them, IMO. There are some things romance readers simply will not accept; their biases or desire to read a certain type of story is simply too strong, and they have every right to only want to read certain types of stories or characters.
 

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I think the "rules" are also different depending on what genre you're aiming for. I have different expectations from paranormal than other genres.

My advice is to read what you want to write and then do your thing. Don't stray from HEA and decide on a heat level that is appropriate for the genre and confortable for you.
 

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I'll take a stab at some unwritten rules, if you take them with a grain of salt, they're not truly universal.

1. The heroine can't kill anyone. I don't understand the purpose for this rule myself, but I see it in action a lot. Even if the heroine is in the perfect position to kill the main bad guy, she can't. She either has to wait for the hero to do it, or she can knock a bad guy unconscious and run away, or occasionally a convenient accident will take care of the villain so neither the hero or the heroine have to get their hands dirty. This seems to be related to the rule that there is no such thing as a fem dom romance, the hero cannot be a submissive or a follower.

2. The first male character introduced will be assumed to be the hero unless you make it 110% obvious that he isn't.

3. Despite the historical commonness of cousin marriage, you can't make your hero and heroine cousins. If the male cousin of the heroine is pursuing her, he's probably a villain or will end up paired off with a female secondary character. (see tvtropes Pair The Spares) On the other hand if you want to write an incest-themed romance they probably won't cousins either because in that case they're not closely related enough for maximum drama.

4. Generally the violence in a romance novel should not exceed an R or NC-17 rating even if it is a steamy romance where the sex scenes would rate an M. Especially, do not start the book with a graphic rape or gruesome murder. The theme of romance is naturally an optimistic, even bucolic one, and the plot of romance is not typically high-tension/high-stakes, with the possible exception of the climax. Starting with violence and/or horror doesn't create the correct 'contract with the reader' for a romantic story with a HEA.

5. You can't use the same main character for multiple books. You can write a series, but you have to switch main characters to someone single. It is bad form to either not give the main character an HEA in the first book, or to disrupt that happiness to create a new conflict in the second book.


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Jam

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Prof, here's my two cents, for what it's worth. (Do you accept canadian coins?)

Harl and some of the others give you guidelines. Look on their websites.

Everyone always says: read what you like and try to write something that would appeal to the audience of the books you enjoy. You really do have to know the genre to write it and do well.

The relationship should take up a lot, if not much, of the plot or it isn't a romance. Usually the first man you meet is the hero. The h/h meet right away, usually in the first chapter.

Snarky, assertive heroines who are not/do not intend to be primarily wives and mothers are popular. Even in historicals in situations where women like this IRL would be mown down instantly. We modern wimmens want someone we can relate to.

You don't see shy, sly, chaste, polite or any other of that ilk type heroines much. They're harder to write than a snarky one and make people like them. Just a couple lines of sass sets the tone for a snarky one, whereas you have to keep plugging away at a more modest one to make an impression.

(The tidal wave of snarky girls reminds me of the 50's movies - i wondered why everyone spoke alike in that era. The population at large tried to mimic the demeanor of the movie idols in quite an unrealistic way.)

Oh, also, if you want a non-anglo/foreign hero/heroine and you're not writing for african american lines, make him/her a half blood - half english/caucasian american/half whatever else. I suspect a couple of mine still stuck in a drawer went "poop" nowhere because i didn't know that.
 

ThetProf

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sunandshadow - regarding rule #1 Heroine can't kill anyone. Jo Beverly's Devilish has the heroine killing two men, both times to save the hero's butt. Is this one of the rules that can be broken occasionally? One of my heroines thinks she killed someone, but finds out later she didn't (and she's really p*****off that she didn't). BTW--I write historicals, so do these rules apply to those as well?

Jam - Many of the women in historicals start off chaste, though some don't. And most are destined to be wives and mothers. Is it okay to have a story arc in which the heroine starts off low key (some spunky attitude but not too much) and grows to be more assertive? (BTW--I save my canadian coins against a trip to Canada.:))
 

Stacia Kane

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sunandshadow - regarding rule #1 Heroine can't kill anyone. Jo Beverly's Devilish has the heroine killing two men, both times to save the hero's butt. Is this one of the rules that can be broken occasionally? One of my heroines thinks she killed someone, but finds out later she didn't (and she's really p*****off that she didn't). BTW--I write historicals, so do these rules apply to those as well?

As I said above, and as SunandShadow said in her post, these rules aren't fully and completely universal. There are exceptions to every rule; every rule can be broken occasionally. It's just that you have a better chance at success if you follow them.


Jam - Many of the women in historicals start off chaste, though some don't. And most are destined to be wives and mothers. Is it okay to have a story arc in which the heroine starts off low key (some spunky attitude but not too much) and grows to be more assertive? (BTW--I save my canadian coins against a trip to Canada.:))

It's "okay" to write any kind of story, as long as you write it well. We're sharing some of the little "unwritten rules" with you because you asked and because we're familiar with the genre, but that's not to say there is a definite formula or set of rules you MUST follow.

You've read a lot of books in the genre you want to write. You can try reading them again with a more critical/analytical eye, or reading more widely/trying different subgenres, to become more familiar with what's not done and/or what's overdone, what's acceptable and what isn't.

The more you read and really pay attention and absorb, the more you learn, and the more you'll pick up on all the tropes and unwritten rules and exceptions. :)
 
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sunandshadow

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sunandshadow - regarding rule #1 Heroine can't kill anyone. Jo Beverly's Devilish has the heroine killing two men, both times to save the hero's butt. Is this one of the rules that can be broken occasionally? One of my heroines thinks she killed someone, but finds out later she didn't (and she's really p*****off that she didn't). BTW--I write historicals, so do these rules apply to those as well?
All rules can be broken occasionally, that's one of the reasons they are unwritten, because if anyone wrote them down it would start an argument, lol. Historicals make up about half of what I read (fsf the other half) so yes everything I wrote applies to historicals.
 

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It really depends on what genre/area you are focusing on, and publisher. If, for example, you are aiming for the category romances, there are a lot of written and unwritten rules, while there are far less for the "single-title" stuff. Romantic suspense stuff, such as works by Tami Hoag, Catherine Coulter, Kay Hooper, Sandra Brown, the latter works of Linda Howard, etc are "edgier", with more violence that often feature deranged serial and mass murderers in such quantity that it would be frightening if it were even remotely close to that number in real life. :p They do generally follow the "rule" of hero/heroine meeting early, and what not, but beyond that, the heroines are often tougher (but not always), and they can be very high tension. They usually have a happy ending, (though they more frequently have bittersweet ones), and at times the couple that seemed to have a HEA is broken up in another novel in a related series. There are a few who also have series around one character, but with each novel having romances between two others who come to the forefront for that book, while keeping the central series characters visible as well.

Some of my favorite novels, the ones I've read again and again, often break many of the seemingly "unwritten" rules, though, as they are more unique and fresh, rather than the same story with minor variations. If you want to read through a few that I found to be "rule breakers", take a peak at:

* Heart of the Night by Barbara Delinsky - really has three couples stories: the most central one between Savanna and Jarod, a second with Savanna's bored alchoholic sister Susan and Sam the cop, and kidnap and rape victim Susan trying to repair the relationship with her husband Will. It is one of Delinksy's late 80s works, but holds up well.
* Pretty much anything by Suzanne Forster's whose heroines are often only a step above the bad guys, the sex is very gritty and blunt, and both MCs are generally flawed folks who have no qualms about pushing and bending the law; in particular Blush and Shameless, which have some shared characters.
* When I Fall In Love by Iris Dart - the female MC Lily works as a comedy writer for a television series, so lots of interesting elements there; but she is also with someone she loves at the start of the series. After her son is shot by her housekeeper's abusive ex, and left a paraplegic, the female has to help her son recover while also increasingly finding herself town between her fiancee and her abrasive and at times seemingly mean-natured new boss, Charlie, who has cerebral palsy.
 

AngelaA

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I'll take a stab at some unwritten rules, if you take them with a grain of salt, they're not truly universal.

1. The heroine can't kill anyone. I don't understand the purpose for this rule myself, but I see it in action a lot. Even if the heroine is in the perfect position to kill the main bad guy, she can't. She either has to wait for the hero to do it, or she can knock a bad guy unconscious and run away, or occasionally a convenient accident will take care of the villain so neither the hero or the heroine have to get their hands dirty. This seems to be related to the rule that there is no such thing as a fem dom romance, the hero cannot be a submissive or a follower.

4. Generally the violence in a romance novel should not exceed an R or NC-17 rating even if it is a steamy romance where the sex scenes would rate an M. Especially, do not start the book with a graphic rape or gruesome murder. The theme of romance is naturally an optimistic, even bucolic one, and the plot of romance is not typically high-tension/high-stakes, with the possible exception of the climax. Starting with violence and/or horror doesn't create the correct 'contract with the reader' for a romantic story with a HEA.

5. You can't use the same main character for multiple books. You can write a series, but you have to switch main characters to someone single. It is bad form to either not give the main character an HEA in the first book, or to disrupt that happiness to create a new conflict in the second book.


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I beg to differ...

#1 - See Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark Series...
#2 - Same as above as well as Lara Adrian
#3 - Kelley Armstrong's Stolen...book 2 in her otherworld series...although not considered romance now it was packaged as romance when she first started.

This is what I mean but the rules being different for every genre...what may work for one doesn't necessarily hold true for others.
 

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Since POVs were recently discussed in another thread, I would like to add that it's pretty much a rule to have both the hero's and the heroine's POV and rarely any more (except possibly the villain's). There are exceptions to this, of course, but it's pretty much the standard. The ratio between them varies and I know some Harlequin lines states what they want in regards to that. But then Harlequin has pretty strict guidelines on plenty of things.

There's a huge discussion on what behavior is acceptable for a hero or a heroine in the online community with everybody having their standards. Look around a few romance blogs and you'll end up right in the smack of it. A safe bet would be to say you'll never satisfy everyone. :)

Also, it's generally hard(er) to sell stories set outside the US or the UK even if you do have British/American characters.

Personally, I think 'the rules' are broken all the time, but it's good to know when you do it so you know it's worth the hassle. Pick your battles, so to speak.
 
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Since POVs were recently discussed in another thread, I would like to add that it's pretty much a rule to have both the hero's and the heroine's POV and rarely any more (except possibly the villain's). There are exceptions to this, of course, but it's pretty much the standard. The ratio between them varies and I know some Harlequin lines states what they want in regards to that. But then Harlequin has pretty strict guidelines on plenty of things.

There's a huge discussion on what behavior is acceptable for a hero or a heroine in the online community with everybody having their standards. Look around a few romance blogs and you'll end up right in the smack of it. A safe bet would be to say you'll never satisfy everyone. :)

Also, it's generally hard(er) to sell stories set outside the US or the UK even if you do have British/American characters.

Personally, I think 'the rules' are broken all the time, but it's good to know when you do it so you know it's worth the hassle. Pick your battles, so to speak.

In contemporary world I've read tons of books set in Italy, Greece or some Sheik in the mid East. Post 9/11 the sheiks still show up on the shelves in great number. Historicals are a different story. I always say Brits rule romance followed with the tie of Greeks, Italians and Sheiks. American men of course are up there with the British men, but I was talking foreigners.
 

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Since POVs were recently discussed in another thread, I would like to add that it's pretty much a rule to have both the hero's and the heroine's POV and rarely any more (except possibly the villain's). There are exceptions to this, of course, but it's pretty much the standard.

All of my books have had at least 3 POVS. Hero, heroine, and one other significant character.

I don't think I'm an exception. Maybe I am. :Shrug:

Susan G.
 

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Tossing this in, more or less in random order.
And I'm talking about standard mass market Romance genre.

-- unsympathetic heroine?

In Romance, the reader has to like the heroine.
That means snarky is okay. Malicious is not. Materialistic is okay. Greedy is not. Unsure and shy is okay. Cowardly is not. Jealous is okay. Cruel is not.

It's all in the shading.


-- Can the heroine kill?


Yes, if she has a good reason. Killing in defense of somebody else is particularly good reason. While it's not Romance, see Eve Dallas for a precise lesson on when and how killing is done. UF, (also not Romance,) does killer heroines a lot.


-- Can the heroine screw around?


Before the book begins, yes. Afterwards, no.


-- Can you kick the damn puppy? Speaking metaphorically.


Terrible things can happen in Romancelandia.

They are terrible things of two sorts.
There's the suspense/thriller/mystery/action kind of terrible thing where the heroine wades into the crash scene.
Romantic Suspense has a large audience. The book will be clearly marked as what it is.

But 'kicking the puppy' is something else. That's not the crash scene with anonymous dead, it's the heroine's little sister hit by a car. It's her child dying on-stage from leukemia.

That is rare. Possible, but rare.


-- Can you kick the puppy literally?

As to real puppies - -
Can you kill them and cut them up for stew meat and cook them for dinner?

You're going to lose readers right that minute the puppy squeals and dies. Books are going to snap closed.

Readers -- lots of them -- will not buy a book where a child is harmed. Where an animal is hurt. Where serious bad things happen. They check reviews to make sure nothing really bad happens.



-- Rape?

Rape of the, 'he raped me and now I love him' trope, is an automatic, 'put it back on the shelves' for most readers. I wouldn't call it forbidden, but you definitely limit both the editors who will find this acceptable and the reading audience.

The same titillation, without the act itself, will be more marketable.

Rape or being molested as a child, when it is a horrible, past trauma, is not uncommon.


-- Child haters?

The heroine not wanting children and not fond of children is okay.
Truly disliking them will probably come across as unsympathetic. I'd call it not utterly forbidden, but another thing that limits the readership.


-- Sexxing.

I will not begin to list the sexual acts people do not perform in Romance books, but they are many and varied. Also forbidden are most of the words used to describe these acts.

Simple intercourse occurs with great frequency and in some detail. There are some references to oral sex. So, not forbidden.
OTOH, masterbation is so rare I can only think of three or four instances in mainstream m/f Romance. I have no idea why this is off-limits.


-- Not wanting to get married

. . . and not ending up planning to get married.

Not forbidden. It's part of the HFN movement.


-- Serial books with the same protagonists.


Because Romance genre is 'courtship' stories, books that deal with the later development of a relationship tend to ease right over to the edge of Romance genre and out the side into General Fiction or Historial Fiction or some other fool thing.

That said, this serialization has been done again and again. It may get you moved to another shelf in the bookstore if you keep it up.


-- Multiple POVs

In shorter lengths, craft is going to keep you to two or at most three POVs, not some Romance rule. It's technically difficult to develop more than 2, or at most 3, POVs in 60K words.

Longer lengths you can play with more POVs. I think I've used five.


-- Exotic settings?

Exotic works for Contemporary and Historical, Category and Single Title. Nothing is forbidden.

BUT there are expected and familiar settings. If you venture outside the familiar, it'll be more difficult to sell.


-- the first male?


S&S makes an excellent point. The males introduced in the story have to be eliminated as heroes . . . unless they are the hero. They have to be too old, too young, too evil, of the wrong social class, related and so on.

It's sort of a Romance convention. Yes.


-- the providing male

The hero of a Romance is almost always desireable in terms of money, earning potential, power, and status.

In an era where many women out-earn their husbands, I don't see Romances where there's a presumption the woman will be providing economically for the man.
Maybe because I mostly read Historials.

I suspect this is not forbidden, but just seen as removing some of the glam from the HEA
 
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LorelieBrown

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OTOH, masterbation is so rare I can only think of three or four instances in mainstream m/f Romance. I have no idea why this is off-limits.

IMHO, masturbation is off-limits-ish because describing it in detail would likely not serve either the plot or the characterization. A character is unlikely to come to some big revelation about themselves or their fellow characters while wanking. LOL Masturbation *is* recently being obliquely referred to more and more - just last week I read Victoria Dahl's A LITTLE BIT WILD. When the heroine expresses doubt that the hero is really into her, he says something about "taking himself in hand every night" because she drives himself so nuts.

Otherwise I'd agree with everything else you said, JOB. ;)
 

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JOB makes some excellent points.

All of my books have had at least 3 POVS. Hero, heroine, and one other significant character.

I don't think I'm an exception. Maybe I am. :Shrug:

Susan G.

Hmm... No, you're not. I would say 3 POVs are common too. And I've read several 3+ too. Up to 7-8 even. I dunno what I was thinking when I phrased that. Apologies for my dim head.

But I have been told (over and over) that it's a genre convention w 2 POVs. I think the rationale was that it should be primarily the H/h:s story. And no, I, personally, don't see why multiple POVs should necessarily be a problem in that regard (and you can lose focus in any POV). I've just had it repeated to me as a Rule (but one that people regularly break).

But then, if it's OK to break it, it's not really a rule, right? ;)
 

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IMHO, masturbation is off-limits-ish because describing it in detail would likely not serve either the plot or the characterization. A character is unlikely to come to some big revelation about themselves or their fellow characters while wanking. LOL Masturbation *is* recently being obliquely referred to more and more - just last week I read Victoria Dahl's A LITTLE BIT WILD. When the heroine expresses doubt that the hero is really into her, he says something about "taking himself in hand every night" because she drives himself so nuts.

Otherwise I'd agree with everything else you said, JOB. ;)

First two paragraphs of my current book:

Men were unreliable creatures at best. Toxic at worst.

A few—very few—could be delightful and amusing in discrete, small doses. But a woman with an education and career, a well-stocked toolbox and easy-to-follow home repair book, along with a steady supply of batteries for her B.O.B.—battery operated boyfriend—didn't actually need one.

:D

Susan G.
 

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You don't see shy, sly, chaste, polite or any other of that ilk type heroines much. They're harder to write than a snarky one and make people like them. Just a couple lines of sass sets the tone for a snarky one, whereas you have to keep plugging away at a more modest one to make an impression.

In the Christian romance genre, shy, chaste and polite are fine. Bear in mind that there are a lot of other rules and guidelines adhered to by each of the larger C-fic publishers, that I won't go into here. The Christian romance reader does want spunky in terms of heroines, but she can't have a foul mouth or much baggage in her past. A "past" must be just that -- she can't get interested in more than one guy during the course of the book, etc.

Some lines even insist that the last scene be the wedding. Erk. I think I did this maybe once, and that was because the plot demanded it. But a RULE to that effect?
 

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My, my, Susan, you *are* pushing HQN series boundaries. LOL. But still, you also prove my point - it's described in passing, rather than in detail.
 

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In erotic romance I've seen some good masturbation scenes where the hero is fantasizing about the heroine. It's a testament to the strength of his passion for her if he'd rather imagine her than go out and try to have actual sex with some other woman. The reverse, not so much; the hero is typically the pursuer if either character is; heroines mainly lose control in response to the physical proximity of the hero, but they have to be able to more or less control themselves when he's not in arm's reach because otherwise the heroine can't play her part in the plot structure of resisting an attraction which is visceral but probably not wise. But there does seem to be a general lack of masturbation scenes in romances which aren't erotic romance.

One thing that boggles me in terms of sex is why there's so much bdsm content in romances, even ones that are merely steamy instead of erotic. You couldn't go through one bookstore shelf in the romance section without stumbling over a heroine getting spanked or blindfolded or tied up or bodily carried away, and chastised for not being well behaved. My guess is that this is the remodeled face of the bodiceripper; there seem to just be a lot of women who find it sexy to be dominated, even though the concept doesn't interest me. And of course this is connected to the standard of the alpha male, and the vast number of romances where the hero forces or blackmails the heroine into marriage, sex, or some other commitment, plus historicals and futuristics where the hero outright purchases or is given ownership of the heroine.
 

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My, my, Susan, you *are* pushing HQN series boundaries. LOL. But still, you also prove my point - it's described in passing, rather than in detail.


True. I mean, I didn't actually SHOW her on a "date" with B.O.B. <G>

I've got another unwritten rule that I'm breaking with the book that's on my editor's desk right now. (Of course, that could change if said editor freaks out over my execution of the concept she did say yes to. <G>)

Unwritten rule: Thy heroine shalt not be married. If she is married, then hero should be her estranged husband.

Why, yes, I DO like coloring outside the lines. <G> I assured my editor that I think I gave the heroine strong backstory/motivation and that I would portray her in a way that makes her sympathetic to the reader to the point that the reader will root for this heroine and hero.

Like I said, I don't know if the execution, in my ed's H.O., lived up to the promises I made yet. <G>

My editor asked for conflict. I gave her conflict in spades. <G>

I am already a wreck over this book. LOL.

Susan G.
 

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JOB makes some excellent points.



Hmm... No, you're not. I would say 3 POVs are common too. And I've read several 3+ too. Up to 7-8 even. I dunno what I was thinking when I phrased that. Apologies for my dim head.

But I have been told (over and over) that it's a genre convention w 2 POVs. I think the rationale was that it should be primarily the H/h:s story. And no, I, personally, don't see why multiple POVs should necessarily be a problem in that regard (and you can lose focus in any POV). I've just had it repeated to me as a Rule (but one that people regularly break).

But then, if it's OK to break it, it's not really a rule, right? ;)

I think it depends on what you're writing - shorter romance/novellas/category or single title. I remember reading an epubbed book with what must have been five or six povs you hardly saw the h/h - together and interacting and falling in love. There was all this unnecessary stuff going on. Which would have been find if it was 100K but this was 55K.
 

Satori1977

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I'll take a stab at some unwritten rules, if you take them with a grain of salt, they're not truly universal.

1. The heroine can't kill anyone. I don't understand the purpose for this rule myself, but I see it in action a lot. Even if the heroine is in the perfect position to kill the main bad guy, she can't. She either has to wait for the hero to do it, or she can knock a bad guy unconscious and run away, or occasionally a convenient accident will take care of the villain so neither the hero or the heroine have to get their hands dirty. This seems to be related to the rule that there is no such thing as a fem dom romance, the hero cannot be a submissive or a follower.

2. The first male character introduced will be assumed to be the hero unless you make it 110% obvious that he isn't.

3. Despite the historical commonness of cousin marriage, you can't make your hero and heroine cousins. If the male cousin of the heroine is pursuing her, he's probably a villain or will end up paired off with a female secondary character. (see tvtropes Pair The Spares) On the other hand if you want to write an incest-themed romance they probably won't cousins either because in that case they're not closely related enough for maximum drama.

4. Generally the violence in a romance novel should not exceed an R or NC-17 rating even if it is a steamy romance where the sex scenes would rate an M. Especially, do not start the book with a graphic rape or gruesome murder. The theme of romance is naturally an optimistic, even bucolic one, and the plot of romance is not typically high-tension/high-stakes, with the possible exception of the climax. Starting with violence and/or horror doesn't create the correct 'contract with the reader' for a romantic story with a HEA.

5. You can't use the same main character for multiple books. You can write a series, but you have to switch main characters to someone single. It is bad form to either not give the main character an HEA in the first book, or to disrupt that happiness to create a new conflict in the second book.


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I think this works for historicals and a lot of contemporary....neither of which I read a lot of. But it does fit in the ones I have read.

However, I read a lot of Paranormal, sci-fi, and dark fantasy romances, and all of these are actually pretty common. Depends on what you write.

The lines are becoming quite blurred when it comes to romance novels. Many of the old rules are now being broken. Find your niche, and write what you feel comfortable with (heat level and otherwise). Make the story interesting and the characters not only believable, but likable. After that, anything goes....oh, just don't forget that HEA or HFN ending.