I'm reading "Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies" (WRND) by Victorine Lieske, and wanted to bring you my thoughts as I go through it.
Victorine Lieske is a self-pub writer of romance who capitalized on the indie boom of 2010, so she represents roughly the same generation of success as Theodora Taylor whose book "Seven Figure Fiction" gives you the skinny on the world of online romance writing without hiding anything.
Today I'm finishing on the points Lieske makes that doesn't ring true for me as a Wattpad Dummy.
To summarize the previous chat, my core disagreement with Lieske was that she believes that the readers expect only HEA, and not HFN as a romance novel's ending.
Thus, Lieske mentions two giant romantic set-ups/subgenres as adjacent genres, giving them one paragraph each, instead of seeing them as a huge part of the romance portfolio. Young Adult and what she calls Erotica (actually, all multiple lovers stories).
I don't object to this because I think it's petty or because I think classification is important.
No, no.
What I am saying is that on Wattpad readers actually come to Wattpad specifically to read these subgenres, and they are perfectly happy with them being HFN, and they expect it.
I am, of course, talking about Young Adult romances and romances that involve multiple lovers, be it Reverse Harem or switch to a different love interest in subsequent books of the series. I don't write YA, but I write multiple lovers romances, and HFN makes them as satisfying as any HEA romance between one man and one woman.
Readers' expectations are not in any way thwarted if you don't have an epilogue covering years 18 through 98 for your teen lovers, with a mortgage, professional career highlights and birthdays of all five grandkids. That's not why we love reading about teenage experiences with love.
Neither are readers looking for all smut and no heart when they open multiple lovers' stories.
Lieske equates all multiple lovers stories with sexual wish-fulfillment in erotic format. However, Why Choose and (Reverse) Harem can have the same solid romantic core as a romance between one man and one woman.
Which brings us neatly to my last point. Lieske also--in my humble view--misses the boat when she squeezes LGBTQ romances into another paragraph of niche, romance-adjacent content, then proceeds describing a romance novel as a relationship between a female Heroine and a male Love Interest.
I think that everyone who is on board with Wattpad's drive toward diversity, inclusion and representation can see why this is hogwash.
What I want to focus on is that this approach is also wrong from craft perspective, because it suggests that a writer starts their main characters' creation one step too late.
By now classic 'Romancing the Beat' and 'Seven Figure Fiction' demonstrate how to do it better as far as Wattpad is concerned. Building on their viewpoint, I suggest that instead of:
Heroine Male Love Interest HEA=Romance Novel
of indie publishing Lieske is familiar with, on Wattpad the categories are broader.
Thus, a Heroine levels up conceptually to become a Conduit for the reader.
This Conduit is basically what the person who clicks on the romance is going to want to role-play, consciously or subconsciously.
Then, all the traits that Lieske associates exclusively with a Female Heroine are transferable.
A single Male Love Interest becomes...well, one or multiple Love Interests. The qualities the readers want in an LI are not reserved for males. They are just desirable qualities in a hot Love Interest.
So, the format of a romance on Wattpad is going to be:
Conduit Hot Love Interest 1 ... Happy Resolution = Romance
This alteration is necessary, because it moves me to the conceptually higher level, instead of taking away the important creative decision out of the writer's hands.
The writer has to decide who the lovers are, including their number, biodata, personality, goals, motivations and love conundrum.
By doing so, I'm pretty sure that I move with Wattpad readers' expectations, not against them. Readers come to Wattpad in search of FM romances, yes, but they also have expectations of finding more than just that in the romance section.
Next, l would love to take a look at what Lieske says readers look for in the romance novel's lovers.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
