Write Your Own Romance Novel

How to Write a Romance Novel?

If you've ever picked up a romance novel and read it, you know you've thought you could write one at least as good. With the help of the trusty Plot-O-Matic, you too can write your own romance novel. You don't have to be the typical romance novel reader to write a good one. You just have to know what every reader of a romance novel wants.

1. Your character must be too smart for the room

The main character or narrator of any romance novel knows something the others don't or has the observation skills of Jane Austen. This distances them from the social immediacy of trying to get married or hook up with a guy. Part of any good romance novel is that the heroine lives in a pocket of her family or country life that is just waiting to be discovered. Only the Hero is smart enough to see this.

2. The Heroine falls for the wrong guy.

Although there is usually the opposite number of the main character or narrator, she always falls for the wrong guy. A romance novel always has a heroine with an unsuitable option who is practically engaged to her. He may be in love with someone else, doesn't know she exists, the scourge of the family, or even dead. The point is, our narrator must be looking the other way when Cupid strikes. This is the fun part of any romance novel.

3. In a mannered society everybody commits nonstop social gaffes

A romance novel takes place in a court, a social setting, elaborate society, or a country villa or estate. The setting is usually Regency London, the Italian wars, France during Bonaparte, or Elizabethan times. People are supposed to have exquisite manners but always put their foot in their mouth. In a romance novel this creates drama.

Action in the plot exists from a specified event where somebody said or did the wrong thing and thousands of the richest and well-born people have nothing else to talk about for the rest of the year (decade, century). Otherwise a romance novel would simply end in life as usual.

4. The foibles of another couple raise questions of love/fidelity