FESTIVAL OF FICTION MASTERCLASS: WRITING ROMANCE

It was such a delight to talk all things romance writing with such a wonderful crowd. I could definitely have talked for hours more. So, as promised, here are some of the questions and activities we didn't get time for at the festival. 

Activities: 

Q: Think about a character you’ve fallen in love with from a book or movie. Why do you care about them? Is it their backstory, their wounds, or the choices they make?

Q: What’s one reason your favourite fictional couple shouldn’t be together—but you’re desperate for them to work it out anyway?

Q: Have a think about your favourite romance novel or movie. What tropes does it use? Are there two or three you always gravitate toward as a reader?

Q: Can you think of a moment in a book or film where you felt the character’s emotion without being told what they felt? What made that moment so powerful?

And some booking examples...  

Openings: 

Have a think about these two 'starts', and reflect on what they tell you about: 

The tone of the book, the tropes. What's revealed about our characters. And how do the voices differ? 

THE PAYBACK PLAN BY AMY ANDREWS

The following excerpt from Amy Andrews’ THE PAYBACK PLAN is such a great example of a compelling story opening, and characterisation, as well as how a third person narrative can still draw you right into a character’s head: 

Paige Barker had been pissed off for four years.

Getting snowed in at O'Hare with thousands of other disgruntled holiday travellers just before Christmas and on her birthday was the cherry on top of a life so derailed she might as well be the Fat Controller.

Happy freaking twenty-fifth.

She glared at the departure boards all stubbornly flashing delayed - no shit, Sherlock - and then through the large floor-to-ceiling windows festooned with garlands and red holly berries, to the runways. Or what she could see of them through the biblical-ass storm.

The irony of Dean Martin crooning 'Let It Snow' through the PA system right now almost made her laugh. But she was too damn mad for that. She was stuck here for who knew how long with the roads too hazardous to check into a nearby hotel and no taxis to be had anyway. Also, she wanted to be on site the second the runways opened to make sure she was on the first flight to London.

BETRAYED BY THE BILLIONAIRE BY CLARE CONNELLY

Even tough Maddie had known what to expect, nothing could really have prepared her for the sight of Rocco Damned Santoro in the flesh. She'd known he'd be selfish, rude, self-obsessed, shallow—she'd googled the hell out of him the moment her grandfather had mentioned his offer to buy their home—but in person, he exuded all of those traits and more. There was such a confidence to him, an absolute arro-gance, that set her teeth on edge and made her want to take him down a peg or two.

She watched from across the hotel bar, biding her time, as he flirted effortlessly with a stunning supermodel type, all long legs and flossy blonde hair pulled into an 'I just got out of bed' bun. As Maddie watched, Rocco reached over and wiped the corner of the blonde's mouth, then lifted his thumb to his own lips and sucked on it. The blonde purred loudly enough for the bar to shake; Maddie rolled her eyes.

What a piece of work.

Just because he belonged to the Santoro family, he clearly thought he could swoop into their dull little part of the Hamptons and buy out the whole goddamned street. The plan? To demolish the row of old, slightly unkempt beach houses and replace them with a ubi-quitous, lacking-in-character line of shops and luxury condominiums. The kind of thing that would suck the charm out of the area and make it indiscernible from any other seaside, monied part of the world.

Well, not if she had anything to say about it.

This opening does a lot of heavy lifting. Firstly, it brings us right into the action. My two main characters are about to come face to face for the first time, and we can tell that she loathes him. We quickly come to understand why: his GMC is at odds with hers. And we’re shown that Rocco is a flirt, something our heroine takes a dim view of.