I’ve never been a fan of romance stories. I don’t read them unless I’m required and I rarely watch romantic movies, even romantic comedies. Thus, I never thought I’d ever be the author of romance-themed stories. Nope, not me.
Over the last seven years, in addition to all the non-fiction writing I do, I’ve penned five paranormal stories. I’m a fan of most facets of this genre and have read quite a few strange, weird, and mysterious short stories, many of which I have judged in contests. Last summer I quickly reviewed my five paranormal stories again and came away feeling pretty good about them. They range from 6,000 to 9,000 words apiece and I’ve edited each of them a dozen times.
Last spring, I wrote the nub of a sixth story for this genre, which fostered thoughts of writing a few more stories like these so I could publish them all together as a paranormal anthology. I liked the idea, so I wracked my brain to come up with a Theme. Except for similar paranormal factors, what did these stories have in common? I considered each story from a distance and then as a group when low and behold, to my surprise, I realized they all circled around the theme of intense, resilient, long-lasting love.
No, that couldn’t be. Romance?
But it was. I had written five stories about love. How could I, a longstanding cynic, write about love and romance? Okay, since I like the stories as they are, now what? How do I continue doing something that I didn’t realize I was doing in the first place?
The first five stories just fell onto the pages for me—I don’t know how else to describe it. The characters, motivations, actions, and paranormal figures popped into my mind and I kept slowly writing until I had a nice, long story. But if I’m to write more of these stories, I could use a more substantial approach than just “sitting and opening a vein.” That unstructured process can take a long, long time. Well, it often does for me.
So for the first time I yearned to know what others had to say about writing romance stories. My library doesn’t have any books about writing romance, so I turned to a website with lots of training about all types of writing: UDEMY. I quickly found an instructor who has posted three short courses designed to give students the requisite tools for outlining and writing romance short stories. Great, just what I asked for.
Yet… yeah, I know, there’s always a Yet.
In the first minute he started talking about Story Structure and how it’s the “steel frame of our skyscraper.” Sigh. I wrote the previous stories in this collection the same way I write most stories: with no predetermined plot and certainly no defined story structure. Yes, I totally pantsed them. No setting creation process, no character sketches, no Act 1, 2, or 3 outlines. My process involves sitting down, reading what I’ve written before, and going from there. But that’s often a hit or miss process, and it’s always time-consuming.
I’m willing to learn a better way of developing at least three more of these stories, so I’ll watch the eight hours of his training, hoping his romance story structure tips can streamline my former story-writing process.
I’ll know if his system works for me when I return to the few lines I’ve penned for the sixth story. ?
Cheers!
Writing is always a new adventure in learning, isn’t it? Good luck!
Thanks, Kelley!