How to Write Romance Novels: A Beginner’s Guide

Writing romance stories can be a thrilling experience, if you know how, but that’s the problem now, isn’t it? Most people want to become published authors on Amazon, Gumroad, or even have their books up on popular bookstores, and when you think of the most popular genre in fiction, only romance comes to mind. But that begs the question: how do I write romance stories that sells?

Well, you’re in luck, because at Let’s Write For You, we’ve written over 100+ romance novels for authors just like you on Fiverr and probably too many to count outside of Fiverr and right now, we’ve decided to put out that knowledge for all those who want to write their romance stories themselves.

In this post, I’ll show you two ways to author a best selling romance novel

How to Write Romance Stories for Beginners: The DIY Method

Romance is just like any other genre of stories, it needs to captivate the audience, the stakes need to be high, but for romance, the stakes are different, it’s all about the emotions with actions pushing the characters into more conflicts. Let me break it down for you.

Choose Your Tropes

Among romance readers, there are tropes that are bound to sell more. From Billionaire romance tropes to mafia romance, and even Dark romance with more BDSM themes, you need to find out which of these tropes are currently selling among romance readers. Some all time popular tropes are; secret child, second chance, age gap, reverse harem, kidnapped, and forced marriage.

So, if you can’t decide on which trope to use them, these are some guaranteed tropes that always sell.

Map out your Characters

Next thing you want to do is map out your characters, or at least, the main characters for pantsers who don’t know how to plan out their stories from the beginning. The reason for this is because romance stories aren’t like mystery stories where there’s a detective trying to find a killer and all you have to do is hunt them down with clues, or fantasy stories where supernatural powers can be released at any point and save you.

Romance is all about the emotions and focusing on that is what increases most of the stake. Think of a mafia boss who has to be ruthless and now, must punish the person they love, because they have been betrayed or even just the idea of having a weakness can bring about their downfall.

Or a werewolf romance where the scorned off omega turns out to be the descendant of the long lost alpha and now, mate to the alpha whose lineage is responsible for the death of most of her ancestors.

It’s not always about the action for romance novels, but about the feelings, and with that in mind, map out a character.

Simple trick: in cases where you’re out of ideas, choose a misunderstood male protagonist. A man who’s naturally loving and thoughtful but born into a world of crime, he must be ruthless to survive and yet, there’s an innocent bird he can’t get out of his mind.

And for female protagonists, you can go with innocent girl who only wants to clear off the debt owed by a loved one and now, must pay the ultimate price of being with someone she absolutely hates.

Combining this, I’m sure you already see the conflict brewing up.

Come Up With a Plot

Plots are secondary to characterization but necessary in romance novels, or readers can tell you’re just throwing in things and searching for what would stick together. So, come up with a plot, particularly using the three act structure to get a general idea of what you’re trying to say.

What’s your inciting incident that leads to the first plot point and get your main characters diving into the chain of events without knowing it.

Note the Major Conflicts

While almost every decision can be conflicting while writing a romance story, it’s important to identify what the major conflicts are so you can create events leading to them. For instance, your MMC is wondering if they should buy a gift for FMC, to the general appearance of things, it seems like a simple decision, but what if the main conflict at the time is that they are unwilling to admit their feelings for FMC and by buying that gift, it betrays their stand?

What if the conflict is about two people who are opposite sides of a coin and have refused to admit they have feelings for each other because God forbid they were the first to cave?

Now, you see how a major conflict not only connects to the characters, but also pushes the story forward.

Start With A Hook

This applies to every story you’re writing- not just romance. When you choose to start your story, it’s best to start with a hook, because while we all scream, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover, the truth is that we all judge books by their covers even when it isn’t just books. So, your book might have a good cover, and a bad opening line, which is where everybody chooses not to buy it.

Amazon, along with any toprated digital product brand, allows readers to preview your book before buying and by doing so, they allow your book to be judged by the first couple of sentences and its cover.

Increase the Stakes Progressively

It’s not enough to have an amazing cover, intriguing incidents, and conflicts, you need to know when to introduce each of the conflict, and each of them should decidedly increase the stakes of the story, that way, your readers keep on reading, trying to see what the characters will decide.

Decide on Your Ending

There are many ways to end a romance novel. You can choose to be the writer who lets the character’s main gambit pay off, or the one that punishes the characters, or even an open ending-although most readers hate that.

So, deciding on your ending is crucial, although you might think that if your readers are already at the end of your book, then it doesn’t really matter how you end it, right? Wrong!

Readers care. Because how you end your story will determine if they want to continue reading other books by you, or hold a grudge until the day they die.

How to Write Romance Novels: Hiring a Ghostwriter

While we’ve provided you with the necessary guides for writing romance novels, it can also be a hassle especially if you’re writing your first book, or you have a full time job.

So, we’ve come up with a solution that benefits everyone, including you and your readers, and that’s letting Let’s Write For You, do the writing.

This website was built with the sole purpose of helping authors write the book they’ve dreamed of owning most their lives. So, if you’re struggling to get your romance novel idea to make sense, we are here to do it for you. All you have to do is contact us.