Romance Books

On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells

Leigh Michaels

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In On Writing Romance, award-winning romance novelist Leigh Michaels talks you through each stage of the writing and publishing process. From the origins and evolution of the romance novel to establishing a vital story framework to writing that last line to seeking out appropriate publishers, everything you ever wanted to know about writing a romance novel is here.

In addition to a comprehensive breakdown of more than thirty romance subgenres, including such categories as historical, inspirational, Regency, and sweet traditional, you'll discover how to:

· Steer clear of clichés and stereotypes by studying the genre

· Craft engaging and realistic heroes and heroines readers will adore

· Convincingly develop the central couple's blossoming relationship

· Add conflict by utilizing essential secondary characters like the "other woman"

· Use tension and timing to make your love scenes sizzle with sensuality

· Get your characters to happily-ever-after with an ending readers will always remember

Plus, read a sample query letter, cover letter, and synopsis, and learn how to properly prepare your romance novel for submission to agents and editors. On Writing Romance has everything you need to leave readers swooning!

Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance

Angela Knight

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Well worth the price! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This is an educational and entertaining guide to writing erotic romance by one of the most successful authors in the field. In fact, it's so good that it prompted my first ever Amazon review! Here's why: There are a lot of great books out there on writing, writing romance, even writing erotic romance (Alison Kent's book, which is excellent, comes to mind.) However, for me, this book was worth the purchase price for Ms. Knight's explanation of manuscript formatting and word count alone. Extremely helpful!

Editorial Review:

The forecast is in: the future of romance is hot and steamy. But riding the wave to success takes more than stringing together a couple of sex scenes or opening the bedroom door on your traditional romance. In her brand-new "how-to", USA Today bestselling author Angela Knight shares the down and dirty details on writing erotic romances that will keep your readers coming back for more. Passionate Ink (un)covers the erotic novel from conception to completion. Straight talk, no purple prose. First, Angela will show you her useful writing techniques that have made her a successful author. Then, she'll teach you what's hard (besides that!) about making your erotic romance erotic: action, both in and out of bed, the anatomy of a sex scene, eroticism and 'kink', and good dialogue, or talking dirty without sounding dumb. If you want to enjoy the heat, then strip off your inhibitions and take a dip.into Passionate Ink.

The Romance Writer's Handbook: How to Write Romantic Fiction & Get it Published

Rebecca Vinyard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Would you like some friendly help getting started writing some of America's most popular fiction? Author Rebecca Vinyard has put together a collection of folksy wisdom for aspiring romance writers to help them get published.

Romance fiction makes up more than half of all mass-market novels sold, with over 2,000 new titles released each and every year. And unlike other fields of fiction, romance truly welcomes new writers, as editors search through queries and conference appointments for the next Nora Roberts or Barbara Delinsky. In 49 chapters, The Romance Writer's Handbook takes aspiring writers through a quick course in writing romantic fiction for today's markets. Here is "from-the-ground-up" advice on how to begin to climb romance writing's ladder of success..

The short, readable chapters in The Romance Writer's Handbook provide practical information to help improve any writer's stories. They offer advice on creating new but familiar heroes and heroines; crafting scenes, places and plot complications; and tackling thorny issues that range from point-of-view conundrums to steamy love scenes.

The Romance Writer's Handbook is the helping hand every author needs to get going and write romance stories that satisfy and sell.

It includes:
• Info on the business side (setting goals, finding an agent, formatting manuscripts, submitting winning query letters, and more).
• The lowdown on giving and receiving critiques.
• A paragraph-by-paragraph study of a well-written synopsis (essential to catching an agent's or editor's eye).
• Valuable advice on creating an author website.
• Short interviews with bestselling authors Lorraine Heath, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Connie Flynn, Katherine Sutcliffe, Judy Christenberry, and Suzanne Brockmann.
• Market information on mainstream publishers active in the romance field.
• A useful list of small presses and e-publishers.

Emmanuel's Book II: The Choice for Love (New Age)

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bantam Books, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 129 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Another Opinion 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 28 people found this review helpful.

For what it's worth I have spent most of my life looking for spiritual understanding and experience. And this is one of the best books I have found. I picked it up and was captured by it's wisdom, beauty and Love. For me it was like a letter from home... a very dear home where those who love me, watch and wait for my eventual return.

This book touched my heart and brightened my life. I write this in hopes that it will do the same for you.

I love you, and look forward to our reunion. --FCB

Just try it. 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

All the Emmanuel books are gentle, sweet reminders of who we really are. They will set you free. Just read one...try it and see.

Strip fear of Loves clothing to be naked in truth 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 12 people found this review helpful.

All three of these books have helped me in my life. The choice of love is the one that hit hard in my heart. Emmanual's Books are the only(that I have read) spiritual religious type books that don't contridict with the truth of it all.Any person or spirit talking against these books are just evil and have a blackend heart.I would recommend Emmanual to any troubled soul looking for some truth.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Erotic Romance (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

Alison Kent

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Writing about love & sex 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 16 people found this review helpful.

My understanding of the romance genre is so old that I had no idea that the romance genre had even sprouted an erotic subgenre that allowed for explicit sexual content. I still thought of romance books as teases--something that got you all hot and bothered and then shut you out of the "good stuff". While there's still plenty of romance to be found that follows that set of expectations, now you can find erotic romance as well.

However, lest you think it's about gratuitous sex, it's part of the definition of the genre that the sex has to further the plot and the character arc. It can't be tacked on. Sex is part of how the characters change, fall in love, explore themselves, and so on. But because it's an erotic romance rather than erotica, it's still about falling in love.

Warning: This should be obvious, but I'm going to make it very clear just in case. This book is about writing in a genre that includes explicit sex scenes. That means that this book contains material about writing explicit sex scenes. It isn't meant to be titillating in its own right, but it is frank and blunt and doesn't shy away from necessary detail and discussion.

Alison Kent has a knack for writing; that much is obvious (in fact, I think I'm going to have to get my hands on some of her fiction!). She's thorough, informative, blunt, frank, and above all, entertaining; I never felt that she sacrificed one aspect for another. She's utterly comfortable with her subject matter, which makes her the perfect author to write about such a potentially sensitive topic.

She discusses all sorts of writing topics, applying them to the erotic romance genre quite handily. She also provides thorough coverage of the unique needs of erotic romances with respect to the role of sex in the plot and writing erotic sex scenes.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in writing romance, erotic romance, or erotica--although the focus of the book is definitely erotic romance, writers of the other two types of story will find much of value here as well. It would also make a fascinating read for fans of the genre who want to know more about how it works and what their favorite authors do. The tips and hints are highly useful; the range of topics covered is extensive; and the author makes the book fun to read (not to mention extremely informative). I have a newfound respect for the genre now.

Editorial Review:

The basic rules for turning basic instincts into blockbuster success.

Erotic romance reigns supreme as a big category of women’s fiction—a billion dollar business serviced by a new breed of uninhibited writer. This book is the necessary how-to for first timers and a terrific guide for seasoned professionals as well, who are putting their racy—and lucrative—fantasies to paper. Now, for the first time, a veteran erotic romance author shows exactly what to do—and how.

• The first book to guide writers to succeed in this multi-million dollar genre
• Explores how to set up a plot and write good, steamy sex scenes
• From a best-selling experienced author
• Includes resource section for research tools and further reading
• Interviews with top editors in the field
• Foreword by Kate Duffy, editorial director at Kensington Publishing and founding editor of the genre

Writing the Romantic Comedy

Billy Mernit

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

According to Billy Mernit, all the Hollywood studios--and most major actors--"are actively seeking romantic comedies." But the same studios and actors reject hundreds of romantic comedies a month. Mernit should know. As a story analyst who has read nearly 4,000 screenplays in the last 10 years, Mernit has seen the good, yes, but also too much of the bad and the ugly. With Writing the Romantic Comedy, Mernit presents his UCLA Extension rom-com writing workshop in book form. Believe it or not, it's not enough to have Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks play the leads. You actually have to create characters for them--characters that an audience will believe "absolutely must end up together." Mernit manages to lay down ground rules without seeming rigid: "he can't be in it only for the sex"; "she can't be in it only for the money"; "at least one scene or sequence [should be] laugh-out-loud funny." Mernit offers five ways to bring your characters to life and seven basic romantic comedy "beats." He has chapters on chemistry, humor, dialogue, and sex ("in romantic comedy, there's nothing sexier than sublimated sex"), and he draws generously upon the surprisingly small canon of great romantic comedies to demonstrate his points. Finally, given that the conflicts in romantic comedies are internal, you needn't look far for inspiration when you feel stuck. "Think of one of the most painful, humiliating, embarrassing things that ever happened to you with someone of the opposite sex," he says, and go from there. --Jane Steinberg

You Can Write a Romance (You Can Write)

Rita Clay Estrada

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Professional genre writing 101. 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Not much detailed ground is covered in this slim volume, but Estrada and Gallagher do show the novice romance writer the business ropes and how to best use them without strangling yourself in the process (something I wish more writing classes had done). This is the first book about romance writing I have read (and it will not be the last, of that I am sure), but it showed me that I still have much to learn about both the genre and the industry. Then again, one is always learning. Recommended.

Editorial Review:

Write the romance of your dreams and capture the hearts of readers everywhere. You Can Write a Romance, designed for first-time writers, is the ultimate teaching guide for those interested in writing romance stories. Rita Clay Estrada and Rita Gallagher lend their expertise to show you how to take your story from idea to completed manuscript to signed book deal - even if you have never tried to write a novel before. They explain the writing process in easy to understand terms, and help beginning writer's find there niche in the complex writing market.

They also teach you how to build a strong plot, create compelling characters and sustain a dynamic beginning, middle and ending. You'll also learn what romance editors are looking for, and how stories are accepted. Create a novel your readers won't forget, with You Can Write a Romance.

The Royal Road to Romance: Travelers' Tales Classics

Richard Halliburton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fifty years and this book still sticks with me 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

As a child in Paris in the early 50's it was tough finding English-language books to read. Now and then my Dad would take me to a small library at the American embassy to check out books, and it was there he urged me to read Richard Halliburton. In my mind's eye I can still see that big thick book and the photo of Halliburton in front of the Taj Mahal.

Hardly anyone knows his name today, but in the 1930's Halliburton's name was well-known and his travel/adventure books were best sellers. My dad had read them in the depths of the Depression and they'd engendered in him a thirst for travel, which he fulfilled many times over with a career in the airline industry.

I guess the same thing happened to me when I read "The Royal Road to Romance" around 1952 and was permanently bitten by the travel bug. I was surfing around the net tonight and ran across a story on Richard Halliburton and thought I'd check to see if any of his books were still in print. I was quite surprised to see they are and people are still reading him.

Give this book to a kid with dreams, or read it yourself. Any book that sticks with you for 52 years has got to be very special.

Editorial Review:

When Richard Halliburton graduated from college, he chose adventure over a career, traveling the world with almost no money. The Royal Road to Romance chronicles what happened as a result, from a breakthrough Matterhorn ascent to being jailed for taking forbidden pictures on Gibraltar. "One of the most fascinating books of its kind ever written." - Detroit News

Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Your Romance Published

Julie Beard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Romances account for more than half of all mass-market paperback fiction sold. Two thousand romances are published each year. Ah, a land of opportunity, the writer is prone to think. Not so fast, Swifty. If you aren't already a reader of romances, chances are you'll never write a convincing one yourself. But if you genuinely love happy endings, Julie Beard (My Fair Lord) is here to help you become the next, well, Julie Beard. Embedded within chapters about writing and publishing and promoting your romance are all kinds of juicy tidbits about the romance biz. Beard discusses each romance subgenre in detail, disclosing typical story lines, the appropriate tone to use, and authors whose work is worth checking out. She talks about current trends (the biggest one at publication is the "cowboy-rancher-baby-bride" romance) and how to spot future ones (hint: keep your eye on popular culture). She knows what to include in your book--irresistible heroes and heroines, for starters--and what to avoid: nontraditional locales, rape scenes, sadomasochism, infidelity. She defines such terms as black moment, regency, and clinch ("the passionate embrace that typifies the traditional romance cover"). And yes, Beard says, even men can get their romances published--though it may be the one field in which they can succeed only if they are willing to take on a pseudonym of the feminine variety. --Jane Steinberg

Writing the Christian Romance

Gail Gaymer Martin

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Review of Writing the Christian Romance by Gail Gaymer Martin 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Having read some of her novels, I was looking forward to reading Gail's book and gleaning all the advice she had to give about writing romance. Gail covered most of the essential elements of a good story: characterization, dialogue, tension, POV, and plotting. She leads the reader through the process of developing the hero and heroine as multi-dimensional, believable characters and escalating their romantic interest throughout the story.

Gail does a thorough job of speaking to the specific elements of a Christian romance verses other genre fiction. She gives excellent information on how to handle delicate subjects without offending the Christian publisher or reader. She explains how to develop the spiritual thread of a story.

Her suggestions and tips are backed up by examples from a wide variety of authors. The exercises at the end of each chapter are thought-provoking and geared to teach the writer how to improve in specific areas.

Gail provided an example of a query/cover letter, short synopsis, a one-page synopsis, and a long synopsis. There may be others out there, but this is the first writing craft book I have read that gives a complete example of all four. This will be most helpful to those who struggle with this integral step in making a sale. She also gives sound advice on publication options, choosing a publisher, and searching for an agent.

Thanks for a great book, Gail!

Editorial Review:

Writing the Christian Romance provides readers with detailed instruction for creating a storyline that is reflective of Christian values with authentic well constructed principled characters. This comprehensive book shows writers how to develop an engaging, passionate, conflict-driven romantic storyline without the use profanity, gratuitous violence, or sexually explicit content. Writers will learn to construct stories using the three threads around which Christian romance is centered: the characters' personal growth, the growth of the romance, and the characters' spiritual growth, which is as irrevocably tied to the storyline as the first two threads.