Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Episode 71 – Writing Romance with Alexandra Rowland
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Episode 71 – Writing Romance with Alexandra Rowland
Rekka needed help today! Hard to create a romance-writing Valentine’s Day episode when Rekka is about as unromantic as possible, and squirms at the concept of the slightest peck on the lips. Swanning in to save the day is Alex Rowland, who publishes under Alexandra Rowland.
Alexandra Rowland first appeared on The Hybrid Author in Episode 63 so if you want to hear more after listening to this episode, check that out. Also you will live to regret it if you do not check out Be The Serpent, a story dissection podcast that Alex co-hosts with Jennifer Mace (who spoke with us last week) and Freya Marske (who will appear on HAP in two weeks).
Romance Stories pit the involved characters against some obstacle before they can achieve the romantic involvement they (consciously or unconsciously) seek.
We don’t spend a lot of time on it, but it’s important to mention that in the Romance genre itself, you are committing to Promises That Must Not Be Broken. Happily Ever After (or at least For Now) is not optional. Shakespeare would have failed HARD in the modern romance market.
Finding That Perfect Someone
In romance books, a successful romantic pairing is most satisfying when the characters compliment and balance each other. The romances in books might in fact be horribly codependent and toxic if they were to exist in the real world, but these stories are highly satisfying in fiction.
In romance books, a successful romantic pairing is most satisfying when the characters compliment and balance each other. The romances in books might in fact be horribly codependent and toxic if they were to exist in the real world, but these stories are highly satisfying in fiction.
Enemies / Friends to Friends / Lovers
This trope has plot built into it: Why are they enemies? How does this change? How do they come to respect each other?)
This trope has plot built into it: Why are they enemies? How does this change? How do they come to respect each other?)
The characters begin as rivals or straight-up enemies, and are forced together by circumstance (some very convenient, am I right, Alex? There’s only one bed in the inn!) and have to get over their internal obstacles in order to uncover the ideal love that is glaring them in the face.
If you have obstacles, you have stakes and if you have stakes, then something is interesting and compelling and it creates tension and mystery to pull the reader through the story.
Forbidden Love
Popular examples of this are Romeo & Juliet, X-Men’s Gambit and Rogue, and Pushing Daisies. Often these stories are tragedies, but just as often they come up with ways to be together (see also: full body condoms in the case of Pushing Daisies).
Popular examples of this are Romeo & Juliet, X-Men’s Gambit and Rogue, and Pushing Daisies. Often these stories are tragedies, but just as often they come up with ways to be together (see also: full body condoms in the case of Pushing Daisies).
These plots are pretty straightforward. The lovers will stop at nothing, and risk everything, to be together. If there is a curse of some sort, it will either be enacted (tragedy) or avoided (happily ever after).
Give Your Characters Friends!
Alex would love to see more communities of friends in genre fiction with a romance in the book. Romance should be bracketed by emotional support communities, rather than the potential love being the only relationship in the story. Those friends should be involved in the main characters’ advancement through their relationship and determine how it is framed.
Those friends can also influence the MC’s actions (“Come to this bar with me, I don’t want to go alone!”) and complicate the plot or reveal the undercurrent of emotion and thoughts going on.
Physics and Gravity – Objects in Space
The characters will have a moral core, but the advancement toward the romantic relationship may ch...
View all episodes
Rekka needed help today! Hard to create a romance-writing Valentine’s Day episode when Rekka is about as unromantic as possible, and squirms at the concept of the slightest peck on the lips. Swanning in to save the day is Alex Rowland, who publishes under Alexandra Rowland.
Alexandra Rowland first appeared on The Hybrid Author in Episode 63 so if you want to hear more after listening to this episode, check that out. Also you will live to regret it if you do not check out Be The Serpent, a story dissection podcast that Alex co-hosts with Jennifer Mace (who spoke with us last week) and Freya Marske (who will appear on HAP in two weeks).
Romance Stories pit the involved characters against some obstacle before they can achieve the romantic involvement they (consciously or unconsciously) seek.
We don’t spend a lot of time on it, but it’s important to mention that in the Romance genre itself, you are committing to Promises That Must Not Be Broken. Happily Ever After (or at least For Now) is not optional. Shakespeare would have failed HARD in the modern romance market.
Finding That Perfect Someone
In romance books, a successful romantic pairing is most satisfying when the characters compliment and balance each other. The romances in books might in fact be horribly codependent and toxic if they were to exist in the real world, but these stories are highly satisfying in fiction.
In romance books, a successful romantic pairing is most satisfying when the characters compliment and balance each other. The romances in books might in fact be horribly codependent and toxic if they were to exist in the real world, but these stories are highly satisfying in fiction.
Enemies / Friends to Friends / Lovers
This trope has plot built into it: Why are they enemies? How does this change? How do they come to respect each other?)
This trope has plot built into it: Why are they enemies? How does this change? How do they come to respect each other?)
The characters begin as rivals or straight-up enemies, and are forced together by circumstance (some very convenient, am I right, Alex? There’s only one bed in the inn!) and have to get over their internal obstacles in order to uncover the ideal love that is glaring them in the face.
If you have obstacles, you have stakes and if you have stakes, then something is interesting and compelling and it creates tension and mystery to pull the reader through the story.
Forbidden Love
Popular examples of this are Romeo & Juliet, X-Men’s Gambit and Rogue, and Pushing Daisies. Often these stories are tragedies, but just as often they come up with ways to be together (see also: full body condoms in the case of Pushing Daisies).
Popular examples of this are Romeo & Juliet, X-Men’s Gambit and Rogue, and Pushing Daisies. Often these stories are tragedies, but just as often they come up with ways to be together (see also: full body condoms in the case of Pushing Daisies).
These plots are pretty straightforward. The lovers will stop at nothing, and risk everything, to be together. If there is a curse of some sort, it will either be enacted (tragedy) or avoided (happily ever after).
Give Your Characters Friends!
Alex would love to see more communities of friends in genre fiction with a romance in the book. Romance should be bracketed by emotional support communities, rather than the potential love being the only relationship in the story. Those friends should be involved in the main characters’ advancement through their relationship and determine how it is framed.
Those friends can also influence the MC’s actions (“Come to this bar with me, I don’t want to go alone!”) and complicate the plot or reveal the undercurrent of emotion and thoughts going on.
Physics and Gravity – Objects in Space
The characters will have a moral core, but the advancement toward the romantic relationship may ch...