I hope everybody had a nice Easter holiday! I’m ecstatic because I’m off from my day job this entire week, and I’ll be at home, working on a manuscript to submit to an agent. This manuscript is a women’s fiction project with strong romantic elements.
I’m also a judge in ACFW’s (American Christian Fiction Writers) Genesis contest for unpublished writers. As I read through the submissions, I notice the authors are making the same mistakes in each entry, so I thought I’d discuss some things that new writers need to be aware of when submitting to the romance genre.
One of the issues I had with the submissions was that I’m reading the first few chapters of the manuscript, and the hero and heroine have not yet met. In a romance, you’ll need to have the man and woman to meet within the first few PAGES of the manuscript, if you don’t, it’s not a romance. I realize there are books out there advertised as romance where this does NOT happen, however, those are the exceptions to this rule.
Another issue I see is, which is related to the first issue, is that the author will spend the first few chapters focusing on internal thoughts or backstory for the main characters. Usually, the reader is not interested in seeing backstory or internal thoughts for the first twenty pages of a book! They want to see something to happen between the hero and heroine (if it’s a romance). Have them to meet in an exciting way, or in a major conflicting way! Does he appear at her office, trying to steal her job, her major sense of security! You need make something exciting to happen within that first page, that’ll hook the reader as well as the editor!
If your manuscript is not a romance, you don’t have to have the love interests to meet early in the story, but you still need to make those initial scenes exciting, and not bogged down with backstory and internal thoughts. You’ll need to make something exciting to happen that will capture your reader’s interest and hold it throughout the manuscript! All backstory is not bad, though. You’ll want the reader to know some things about your character’s background, however, this knowledge should be sprinkled throughout the manuscript in bits and pieces, not a huge informational dump at the beginning of the book! Believe me, with few exceptions, such dumps prove to be boring, making your reader want to fall asleep or put your book down.
If there is a major event that happens in the past that the reader needs to be aware of, then use a prologue, just be sure the prologue isn’t very long. The same rules apply to the prologue: make it exciting!
Given that a romance novel is about the developing relationship between two characters, I agree that they need to meet early, but what do you consider to be the first few pages of the manuscript? Based on books I have seen, I would typically expect two strangers in a romance to meet no later than page 20 or 25 of a 80,000 word manuscript, though the introduction of the problem that their union will solve should begin on page one. Would you agree or do you have a different opinion?
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hi, Tim. Thanks for commenting.
Usually, most romance publishers want the hero and heroine to meet by the first five or so pages (or first chapter). If it’s much longer than that, then it might not necessarily be a romance. It may be considered more women’s fiction(with romantic elements) than romance. I know that Barbour and Harlequin usually want their characters to meet fairly quickly for their romance lines. I’ve read tons of books where the hero and heroine meet late into the book, but these books aren’t necessarily considered romance. I think 20-25 pages is too late to have the heroine and hero to meet. From my experience, it should happen well before that. Also, my second book, First Mates, was originally a women’s fiction with 3 POV’s and the hero and heroine met in the second or third chapter. I submitted to Steeple Hill for women’s fiction, but they wanted it for their romance line instead. One of the first requirements the editor made me do was cut those initial pages and start with the hero and heroine meeting on page one. She said that’s the way they wanted it for their Love Inspired romance line.