How NOT to Write A Romance Part Two

Okay, here are some more painfully common mistakes that I've found in so many of the scripts that I've read -

Perhaps I should have titled these posts 'Things I wish I would never ever have to read again in a would-be-published romance.'


8. Non-Sex scenes – or How Wasn’t It for You?
Lovemaking scenes that mean nothing but are there because ‘They always have a sex scene in a Presents/Modern Extra etc romance - don't they’
Don’t have sex scenes that:
Go nowhere – sex always changes things – the build up to a sex scene is important but so is the vital ‘afterwards’ – when your characters see each other in a totally different way because they have been so intimate
Fade to black – if you can’t bring yourself to write one that don’t just cop out with ‘and then everything became hazy .. .’ Write what you are comfortable with and don’t try and dodge the issue
Have no emotion
Change nothing – I repeat - sex always changes things between two people- it’s not the sex it’s the before and after that matters
‘She just couldn’t help herself’ – please make your heroine a realistic woman with realistic feelings and a sense of self-preservation and her own worth.
Sex scenes in impossible places – on a beach? In the back of a car? Are these erotic or just plain uncomfortable – and what if someone else was to appear?
Ecstatic sex – again make it likely that it would be that way – not just instant ecstasy with no real feeling.
Don’t put in too many sighs and groans in one go – vary the language


9. Unsafe Sex and Secret Babies
This is the 21st century and you are writing about adults so don’t make them behave like children
Don’t have:
Heroes who never take responsibility
Heroines who don’t protest at the above
Heroines who never take responsibility
Heroes who never protest at the above
Heroes and heroines who take risks no one with any sense would ever take
The instant baby – virgin/one sexual experience/one baby scenario

And yes, this does mean that that tried and true plot device the 'Secret Baby' becomes much more difficult - as it should do in a time when not taking sexual responsibility for yourself and your partner can almost get you up on a charge of attempted murder . But this is one where you have to get deep inside yuor characters' heads and really think out the reasons why.

It's another reason why the before and after matter so very much.


10. Dialogue that says nothing
Make the dialogue say something - make it further the relationship/the conflict/ the resolution – not just talking that goes nowhere
Not just talking heads – have your characters doing something so that the reader can ‘see’ them as well as ‘hear’ their dialogue.
Avoid circular arguments that always come back to ‘I don’t believe you’!! If she/he doesn't believe then nothing is ever going to change - and do we (the reader) believe them when later they say they're madly in love?


11.Scenes that ‘are always in a romance’ aren’t they?
The angry meeting
Being ‘undressed by his eyes’
The other woman in his life - who turns out to be his sister or his cousin . . .
The manipulative, vindictive 'ex' - do you really want your readers to think your hero was stupid enough to marry a woman who everyone can see is a total bitch?
The forced seduction
The humiliation at some social gathering
The belittling boss

Readers know that romances are all similar – but they don’t want to keep reading the same scene over and over again