Writing the Romance Novel

By Leigh Michaels

"The one book no serious romance author should be without" — Dubuque Telegraph-Herald

Award-winning romance novelist Leigh Michaels walks you through each stage of the writing and publishing process. From the origins and evolution of the romance novel, to establishing a vital story framework, to writing that last line, to seeking out appropriate publishers, everything you ever wanted to know about writing a romance novel is here – in "the definitive guide to writing the romance novel."

Take this step-by-step journey, guided by the author of 100 books — including Regency-period historical romance, contemporary romance novels, and non-fiction books about writing. A six-time finalist in the Romance Writers of America RITA contest for best traditional romance of the year, Michaels has won two Reviewers' Choice awards from Romantic Times (RT Book Review) magazine. More than 35 million copies of her books have been published in 25 languages and 120 countries around the world. She has been published by Harlequin, Mills & Boon, Sourcebooks, Montlake Romance, and Arcadia Publishing, and has independently published her own work. She teaches romance writing online at Gotham Writers Workshop.

Includes a new chapter on independent publishing.

A previous version of this book was published by Writers Digest Books under the title On Writing Romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PBL Limited
• Release date: Jul 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201776206

Leigh Michaels

Leigh Michaels (https://leighmichaels.com) is the author of more than 100 books, including contemporary romance novels, historical romance novels, and non-fiction books including local history and books about writing. She is the author of Writing the Romance Novel, which has been called the definitive guide to writing romances. Six of her books have been finalists in the Romance Writers of America RITA contest for best traditional romance of the year, and she has won two Reviewers' Choice awards from Romantic Times (RT Book Review) magazine. More than 35 million copies of her books have been published in 25 languages and 120 countries around the world. She teaches romance writing online at Gotham Writers Workshop.

Book preview

Part One:

Getting Ready to Write

CHAPTER ONE

SURVEYING THE ROMANCE NOVEL

FALLING IN LOVE IS a theme that has been prominent in literature since the dawn of recorded stories. Romantic love—whether fated, doomed, or happy—has drawn the interest of uncounted generations around the world. The romance novel, however, is a more modern concept. A romance novel is much more than just a story in which two people fall in love. It’s a very specific form of genre fiction.

Not every story with a horse and a ranch in it is a Western; not every story with a murder in it is a mystery. And not every book that includes a love story can be classified as a romance novel.

WHAT IS THE ROMANCE NOVEL?

Distinguishing a true romance novel from a novel that includes a love story can be difficult, because both kinds of books tell the story of two people falling in love, and they do so against a background of other action. The difference lies in two areas: which part of the story is emphasized, and how the story ends.

In a romance novel, the core story is the developing relationship between a man and a woman. The other events in the storyline, though they’re very important, are secondary to that relationship. If you take out the love story, the rest of the book will be reduced in significance and interest to the point that it really isn’t a story anymore at all.

In contrast, in many books that contain romantic elements, the love story isn’t the main focus. The other action is the most important part of the story, and even if the love story was removed, the book would function almost as well. It might not be as interesting, but it would still be a full story.

So let’s say we’re writing a story about a woman who’s being chased by the bad guys, and she falls in love with the bodyguard who’s protecting her. Is this a romance novel? Or is it general fiction? That depends on which elements of the story are emphasized. If the main focus of the story is the chase, what the bad guys are actually up to, and why they’re after her, then it’s general fiction. If the main focus of the story is the couple falling in love while they’re hiding out, then it’s a romance novel.

The second element distinguishing a romance from other books is the ending. Romance always has an upbeat, resolved, and happy ending. That doesn’t necessarily mean a wedding, but it does mean that the lovers who have struggled through conflicts and risks and often danger are rewarded with unconditional love.

The modern romance novel

Though love and romance have long been a part of the literary world, the romance novel as we know it today originated in the early twentieth century in England. The publishing firm of Mills & Boon, established in 1908, brought out the work of such authors as Agatha Christie and Jack London—and also published romantic fiction.

Soon the firm realized that its hardcover romances, sold mostly to libraries, were in more demand than many of its regular titles were. As the years passed, romantic fiction outstripped other sales by even greater margins, and eventually the firm dropped other types of books in order to concentrate on publishing romance novels.

In the late 1950s the success of Mills & Boon romances was noted by a Canadian publishing company, Harlequin Books, which began publishing Mills & Boon books in North America as Harlequin Romances. The two firms merged in the early 1970s, with Mills & Boon becoming a branch office of Harlequin. Soon Harlequin began setting up independent publishing offices around the world and started to publish romances in translation.

For a number of years Mills & Boon continued to be the sole acquiring editorial office, buying books mostly from British authors. Though they began publishing American author Janet Dailey in the 1970s, it wasn’t until the early 1980s that Mills & Boon truly opened up to other Americans.

For many years there was only one brand of romance novel, known almost generically in the United Kingdom as a Mills & Boon and in North America as a Harlequin. Despite the lack of brand-name variety, however, the stories were already widely divergent. Contemporary, medical, and historical romances were all published under the same imprint.

But readers who gobbled up those original romances wanted even more variety, and authors wanted to stretch their wings with different kinds of stories—longer, spicier, more sensual, more confrontational, and including elements that just didn’t fit in the short, sweet, traditional package.

Various types of romances began to split off from the long-established core. Harlequin editorial offices in New York City and Toronto began acquiring new kinds of stories, written by new authors. Radically different cover designs and distinctive brand names made the various styles of stories more easily distinguished at the point of purchase.

Some of those changes were made in response to other publishers, who had picked up on the success of the Harlequin/Mills & Boon machine and started bringing out their own romance novels. Not long after those books began to appear in the marketplace, some of the lines and types of stories disappeared again, as publishers discovered that a commercially successful romance novel required more than a simple handsome-male-meets-cute-female formula.

Since then the romance market has been an ever-changing kaleidoscope, including both category romances (like Harlequin Presents) and single-title romances.

Category romance

At any given time there are at least twenty lines or series or categories of romance novels. The three terms are roughly synonymous, though series can also refer to a set of more closely related books (a trilogy, for instance, in which each of three books features a different family member). In this book, however, we’ll refer to this branch of the market as category romances.

Category romances are groupings of books that have certain elements in common (for instance, romances in a specific category might all involve a mystery as well as the romance, or they all are romantic comedy). Category books are published in sets—a pre-determined number of titles every month. Though the characters and storylines (and authors) are different with each book, romances within each category are packaged with similar covers, and they’re marketed as a group rather than individually. Most often they are published in mass-market paperback and e-book formats. Paper versions of category romances stay on the shelf for a month, sometimes less, before being replaced with the next group of titles.

Single-title romance

In addition to category romances, however, each month brings a bookcase full of new single-title romances as well. Single titles are books that stand alone. They are designed and marketed individually, and hard-copy versions stay on the bookstore rack as long as they continue to sell well. Single-title books are generally longer, though the word count can vary widely from one title to the next. They are usually presented in a more upscale package, often in trade paper or mass-market paperback sizes, or in hardcover, as well as in e-book formats.

Focus on love

The one thing all of those books—category or single title, suspense or comedy, erotic or sweet—have in common is that no matter what else is going on in the story, the main focus is on the hero and heroine and their growing love for each other.

Beyond that, almost anything goes. Romances come in as many types as there are kinds of readers—everything from erotic fantasies to inspirational faith-based stories, from historical to contemporary, from dark suspense to light humor, from girl-next-door looking for Mr. Right to twenty-something-city-chick looking for Mr. Right-Now. In all cases, however, the love story—not the mystery or the sexual details or the social issues—is the most important part of the book.

STUDYING THE ROMANCE GENRE:

GETTING THE FACTS STRAIGHT

Romance novels are the best-selling segment of the paperback book market in North America. According to statistics compiled by the Romance Writers of America (RWA), more than a third of all popular fiction books sold in the United States (including mass market paper, trade paper, hardcover, and e-books) are romance fiction. Romance sells more copies than mysteries and many more copies than literary fiction, science fiction, or Westerns. Since the advent of electronic readers, nearly two-thirds of romances sold are in e-book formats.

More than 2,000 romance titles are published annually, making romance a billion-dollar business year after year.

Who reads romance – and why?

Why are romances so popular? There are as many answers as there are readers. And there are a lot of readers. A study compiled for Romance Writers of America (RWA) showed that 64.6 million Americans had read at least one romance in the previous year. (www.rwa.org)

Women between the ages of 30 and 54 are the largest share of the romance-reading audience, but readers range in age from pre-teenagers to over 75. A good many men read romances, too—16 percent of all romance readers are male, according to RWA—but not many are willing to talk about it. (Some even subscribe to by-mail book clubs in their wives’ names, to keep their secret from the mail carrier.)

Romance is just as popular in other countries as in North America. Harlequin Books publishes in 25 languages and in 120 nations, and counts its readership at more than 200 million individuals world-wide.

The main attraction of romance novels to readers worldwide seems to be that the books provide hope, strength, and the assurance that happy endings are possible. Romance makes the promise that no matter how bleak and threatening things look sometimes, in the long run everything will come out right, and true love will triumph. In an uncertain world, that’s a very comforting fantasy and escape.

FALSE PERCEPTIONS AND THE REALITY OF ROMANCE

The detractors of romance novels—usually people who haven’t read any—often say the stories are simplistic and childish, and they contain no big words and very little plot, just a lot of sex scenes separated by filler and fluff. A common view of romance is that there’s really only one story, so all the authors do is change the names and the hair color and crank out another book.

Critics of romance also accuse the books and their authors of presenting an unreal world in which women are helpless. Romance, they say, encourages young readers to fantasize about Prince Charming riding to their rescue, making girls think that the only important goal is to find a man to take care of them. The books are accused of limiting women by emphasizing romantic relationships over real life and making women unable to relate to real men because they’re holding out for an unrealistically wonderful Harlequin hero.

But in fact, rather than trailing behind the times, romance novels have actually been on the cutting edge of society from their beginning. Long before divorce was common, for instance, romance novels were exploring the circumstances in which a marriage might be better ended than continued. According to Mills & Boon historian jay (sic) Dixon, the books have always argued, along with some feminists and often against prevailing ideology, for no-fault divorce. (The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon, UCL Press, 1999)

Even very early romances often featured working women and emphasized the importance of economic independence for women.

While some heroines are indeed young, inexperienced, and in need of assistance, the usual romance heroine is perfectly competent. Finding her ideal man isn’t a necessity; it’s a bonus. Modern romance novels tell a young woman she can be successful, useful, and valuable on her own; there are men who will respect her and treat her well, and such men are worth waiting for.

Rather than presenting women as weak and helpless, romance novels show women as holding the ultimate power. The heroine tames the hero, civilizes him, and helps him to embrace his softer and more vulnerable side. As Jane Ann Krentz, a romance novelist herself, put it in her study of romance novels: ... the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence, and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on earth, the human male, to his knees. (Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992)

Marketing methods

Some of the marketing methods used in selling romance novels have unfortunately added to the stereotypical view that all the books are alike. Each category romance published in a specific division, such as Harlequin Presents or Love Inspired Suspense, will have a similar cover design, and all the books in a particular category will have exactly the same number of pages. So how, the skeptic asks, can the stories possibly be different?

In fact, covers are similar for the same reason that a vegetable manufacturer uses the same colors and designs on every label—to catch the consumer’s eye and assure her that she’s getting Del Monte quality whether she’s buying beans or corn or tomatoes. The specific theme of the cover design tells the reader that this story will be the same type she enjoyed last month.

Books in a particular category will all have the same number of pages to allow for economy in printing, packing and shipping. Because the publisher doesn’t have to readjust the press for each new title, or buy different-sized boxes to ship different books, costs can more easily be kept in check and savings passed on to the consumer with lower retail prices. But those restrictions don’t mean that the stories have the same number of words, because margins, type size, line spacing, and the number of introductory or ad pages can be adjusted to accommodate a longer or a shorter story.

SO IS THERE REALLY A FORMULA?

Romance novels, especially category romances, are usually small—they’re shorter than many other kinds of novels. They’re also light—they focus on an entertaining story with an upbeat ending rather than on such things as the evils of modern society. (Though they certainly don’t ignore reality, they don’t dwell on violence.) They’re also easy to read—the story is told in a way that is effortless for the reader to comprehend.

Because the books are small, light, and easy to read, some critics and even some readers think that the books are easy to write. Nearly every romance reader has said, at one time or another, I could write one of these. Almost every romance author has been asked to provide the simple magic formula for writing a successful book.

It’s true that all romance novels have certain elements in common. (All mysteries have certain elements in common, too—a crime, a perpetrator, an investigator, and an ending where the crime is logically and clearly solved—but just as mysteries aren’t all alike, neither are all romances the same.)

What romance novels have in common is this: A romance novel is the story of a man and a woman who, while they’re solving a problem which threatens to keep them apart, discover that the love they feel for each other is the sort that comes along only once in a lifetime—leading to a permanent commitment and a happy ending.

That’s it. That’s the formula.

And even then, there are exceptions. There are LGBT romances, there are ménage romances with three main characters in the relationship, and there are romances which may not include a permanent commitment as part of the ending.

Today’s romance novel allows wider latitude for the author than ever before.

Romance readers—and writers—have their favorite types of books. Just as a reader of mystery expects when she picks up a new Janet Evanovich or Sue Grafton novel that she will not be getting an Agatha Christie puzzle, the romance reader knows that Nora Roberts, Julia Quinn, and Jennifer Crusie aren’t all going to produce the same kind of stories.

So let’s start with a good look at the most popular types of romances and their guidelines.

KINDS OF ROMANCE NOVELS

Entire volumes—how-to books as well as reference books—could be written about the many sub-genres of romance novels. The list that follows is not intended to take the place of in-depth study. Its aim is simply to introduce you to the wide variety of romances that are available in the industry today and to share some of the basics about the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges involved in writing specific sub-genres of romance.

As the romance industry has grown and matured, various sorts of romances have waxed and waned in popularity. Trends come and go – though at any given time it’s possible to find an industry figure who says that historical (or paranormal, or gothic, or inspirational) is dying, while another insists that same sub-genre is on the upswing.

With the advent of e-books, niche-market romance has flourished like never before. Though commercial publishers may feel that a particular type of romance doesn’t sell well enough to be profitable, smaller publishers or authors who publish independently often find success with those books.

The following list includes the main types and sub-genres of romance, as well as some of the terms used in and about the industry.

Anthology: Made up of three or more novellas with a common thread or theme, usually each by a different author. Some anthologies are based on holidays (Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day) while others are based on a theme (stories about the same dress or necklace or quilt as it’s passed down through a family; stories about the bridesmaids at a big wedding; stories about witches).

In the past, most anthologies were commissioned by publishers who invited specific authors to write the novellas. With a name author or two to headline, the anthology boosted the careers of the new authors who were lucky enough to be included.

Now anthologies are usually proposed by one or more of the authors, who choose a theme and invite others to participate. The majority of anthologies are now self-published or created in cooperation with a book packager or distributor, and presented as e-books rather than in print versions.

The aim of most of today’s collections is to hit a best-seller list – something that, while still challenging, is more likely with twelve or more authors pushing for first-day sales. Word count: 15,000 to 35,000 for each novella, often depending on the number of authors taking part.

BDSM: Bondage, domination, and sado-masochism. While the commonly-used description includes all the terms, sadism and masochism are seldom if ever seen in romance, and are especially unlikely between hero and heroine. Bondage and domination must be both consensual and informed – that is, the parties agree to a clear set of rules and restrictions, and both must be knowledgeable about what is being agreed to. Outside of the agreed-upon conditions, the behavior of the partners is like any other consensual relationship. Bondage and domination are not abuse, either physical or emotional; they are a game the players have agreed to participate in.

Blurb: The summary of the story which appears on the back cover of a paperback, on the inside front jacket of a hardcover, and on the sales page of an e-book. Usually 200 to 300 words, the blurb is meant to tell the reader what makes this book unique, and tempt her into buying.

Bodice-ripper: A derogatory term for all romances. Inspired by some early historical romances that featured rape fantasies or included rape as a part of the plot, the term is occasionally still used – usually by people who don’t read the books.

Category romance: Books which are published under a name brand, packaged with similar covers, and marketed as a group, rather than standing alone on the shelf. Sometimes referred to as series romance.

Chick-lit: Builds on the success of television shows, movies, and general fiction about twenty-something urban women who are often more interested in building a career than in finding Mr. Right. In fact, many of these young women aren’t even pretending to look for Mr. Right, but they’re quite interested in Mr.-Right-Now—someone to date, maybe to live with, and perhaps marry ... someday.

The heroine is younger – usually in her mid-twenties – and less well-established than more traditional romance heroines. She’s more likely to live with roommates and work at a dull or entry-level job. Chick-lit stories break some of the other common rules of romance as well. The heroines might smoke, binge-drink, sleep with more than one guy, and swear like a sailor ... all things that aren’t commonly associated with romance heroines.

The ending may involve an understanding between heroine and hero, or the story may end with the heroine having matured but not being involved in a serious relationship.

The story-telling style is different as well. Many chick-lit books are written in first person, some are in present tense, and most are up-front, breezy, and less introspective than the average romance.

Christian: A common but mistaken way to refer to inspirational romance. There is no Christian romance category as such, even though most inspirationals are based on Christian philosophy and belief. See inspirational romance.

City girl: A variation of chick-lit, featuring a young heroine living in an urban area, often working at an entry-level or dead-end job. The city girl is closer than her chick-lit sister to the traditional romance heroine. She’s not likely to smoke, drink heavily, or sleep with more than one man during the story. Like the chick-lit heroine, she may not be looking for a lifetime love. But she’s more apt to find her perfect, for-always mate than the chick-lit heroine is. This is sometimes a mini-series published within an established romance category.

Contemporary: Occurring in the present day and dealing with realistic modern issues and problems, but generally avoiding mention of specific real people or current events which would cause the story to seem outdated in a few years. Contemporary books can fall into numerous sub-genres from sweet traditional to erotic to inspirational to paranormal.

Continuity: A group of books in which each volume stands alone but also advances a larger, more complex story. The books are usually written by different authors, each free to develop her own set of characters so long as she follows a bible which establishes the outlines of the larger story. Each author must cooperate with the group to avoid contradictions or inconsistencies. A typical continuity includes five to twelve related books, usually published over as much as a year.

An example is a murder mystery in a small town, where each book takes up a different pair of characters to show their romance along with dropping hints and clues about the crime, which is solved in the last book of the series.

Continuities are most often originated by the publisher. Typically an editor writes the bible and commissions authors to take on each piece of the story. An author who has sold a few books to the publisher might be asked to take part, in order to boost her career.

Elevator pitch: A one-line or two-line summary of your book (short enough to say in a breath while riding a fast elevator) which will intrigue the reader into buying the book. Similar to the hook or tag line.

EOC: Shorthand for engagement of convenience, where the couple pretends to be engaged but has no intention of going through with a wedding. A common story trope, akin to MOC (marriage of convenience).

Erotic romance: Romantic stories involving one hero and one heroine who are engaged in a very sensual and sexy lifestyle which is described and shown fully in the story. Erotic romance can include three-way sex (ménage), but only if a committed relationship develops between all the partners.

Erotica: Stories emphasizing the details of sexual encounters between the main characters or between a main character and others. Though erotica can be romantic in nature, erotica and erotic romance are not equivalent. Romance emphasizes the growing emotional connection of one couple, while erotica emphasizes sex rather than love and may include characters outside the main relationship. Romance publishers who say they’re looking for erotica mean the romantic end of the spectrum, usually called erotic romance – which includes lots of explicit sex between the two main characters.

Ethnic: Involving heroes and heroines of color. African-American, Native American, and Latino/Latina are most common, Asian somewhat less so.

In ethnic romance, publishers emphasize the need for authenticity. If the author is not of the same ethnic background as the character, then he/she must be sufficiently informed to make the reader believe that the character is a person of color. Some publishers seeking African-American romance will consider a hero of a different ethnic origin, but require that the heroine is African-American (or biracial but considering herself to be African-American).

Some ethnic romances play on ethnicity or a conflict of cultures as a part of the plot, but in most, the issues and conflicts between the characters are the same sorts that are common in other romances. Most publishers prefer that ethnicity be a background rather than a major conflict point.

Both Latina and African-American romances are a growing market, including cross-genres such as ethnic-inspirational, ethnic-romantic suspense, or ethnic-paranormal.

Futuristic: A sci-fi-based offshoot of paranormal, involving romances taking place partially or entirely in the future, often involving time travel.

Gay romance: See LGBT romance.

Gothic: A moody, atmospheric novel, most often historical, in which the heroine is generally isolated from friends and family and is often married to or courted by a mysterious and potentially dangerous man. Most often the setting is Victorian and often involving a creepy house or estate. Gothic is no longer as popular as it was in the 20th century.

H / h: Shorthand for hero and heroine (as in I need my H / h to talk to each other but they won’t cooperate.)

HEA: Shorthand for happy ever after, the standard ending of most romances, where the reader believes that the couple will remain together, and be contented, for the rest of their lives.

Hen-lit: An outgrowth of chick-lit, featuring older heroines who are more established, perhaps married, but with the same sassy attitude and approach to everyday problems as the chick-lit heroine, including the possibility of self-destructive behavior. Hen-lit often involves a heroine who is unhappy in her marriage and is seeking to either improve or end it. Often the story involves a man other than the husband, who might be hero or anti-hero. The hen-lit heroine usually doesn’t have kids.

HFN: Shorthand for happy for now, the ending most common in chick-lit and series books, where the reader believes that the couple, while perhaps not involved in a forever love, are contented with their current agreement and situation and will be together for the near term.

Historical: Taking place in a past time. Publishers of historicals have long preferred books set in Europe between 1066 (when William the Conqueror invaded England) and 1900, or in North America between 1607 and 1900.

But accepted historical settings are now extending the timeline back, with settings such as ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and Ghengis Khan’s China, as well as forward, to World War I and the Roaring Twenties. A few publishers invite World War II-era stories, but time periods closer to the present (the Vietnam War, for instance) have proved less popular with readers. It seems that the closer to our own time and experience, the harder it is for readers to think of the period as romantic.

Historicals tend to be among the longest of romance novels, allowing for deeper and more sprawling stories. They can even include a certain amount of social commentary, so long as it serves as background to the love story rather than sounding like a textbook.

Though it’s important for a historical romance to be realistic to the time period, some elasticity is required for the comfort of the modern reader. While real women in the Middle Ages were frequently married by age 13, in historical romances heroines are generally older than their real counterparts were, or the question of age is glossed over. Any torture, grisly warfare, or violence is apt to happen off-stage, with few gory details shared with the reader.

Historical heroines tend to be more independent and historical heroes more enlightened than real people of their time, making it a balancing act for the author to create characters who are plausible in the context of their era while being attractive to modern readers. In the unsuccessful historical, the characters often seem like modern people dressed up in period costume, or they display modern attitudes and use modern (often pop psychology) terms.

Hook: The story’s gimmick; the twist which draws attention to the story and makes this book stand out from others. Often stated as a caption or tag line on the back cover, this is the idea which grabs the reader’s imagination and makes her buy the book. Similar to the elevator pitch, though the hook is usually shorter.

Inspirational: A romance in which the characters’ religious faith is a central part of the story. The most effective inspirational romances involve the character’s spiritual journey as he discovers or finds his way back to a relationship with a higher power. Inspirational romances are sometimes mistakenly called Christian romances, because the religion involved is most often a non-denominational, non-specific Christianity – usually Protestant in nature.

Inspirational romance does not have to include religious figures. While the hero or heroine might be a pastor or a Sunday school teacher, they’re just as likely to be lay people. Frequently, one main character is a believer while the other is not, or perhaps is a former believer who is struggling to regain faith.

A hallmark of unsuccessful inspirationals is a reliance on the supernatural—such as angels or God himself—intervening directly to solve the character’s problems. Inspirationals are much more convincing when the character finds strength, courage, and resources within himself and his own faith in order to solve his problems.

Licensed: Romances which follow a specific theme as agreed in a licensing arrangement between a publisher and a commercial venture, such as NASCAR or a sports franchise. Agreements are usually for a limited period of time and cover a limited number of books, most of which are written by well-established authors selected by the publisher.

Each book in the series typically stands alone but follows the agreed-upon theme, as in a past NASCAR arrangement with Harlequin where each book featured racing, drivers, cars, and fans. Such arrangements allow authors to use trademarked and protected terms such as sports franchises or corporate entities, but require extreme care with detail so that the licensing entity is accurately portrayed and shown in a positive light.

LGBT romance: Often referred to as M/M (for stories involving two male partners) or F/F (for stories involving two female partners).

LGBT romance is the exception to the rule that a romance novel is the story of a man and a woman. Other than the gender of the partners, however, there are relatively few differences between LGBT romances and other romance novels. While they may have extra issues because of their sexuality, partners in LGBT romance experience the same problems as heterosexual partners do, and they must make many of the same adjustments.

LGBT romance puts no more emphasis on the details of sexual encounters than in a heterosexual romance in an equivalent line. If a romance involving same-sex partners emphasizes sex rather than love, or if it features multiple partners, it falls closer to erotica than to romance.

Long contemporary: A longer current-day category romance, frequently featuring sensuality as a strong element. The higher word count allows room for more subplots, more intense conflict, strong mystery and suspense elements, and a larger cast of characters. Long contemporaries often allow more latitude in types of main characters and in the scope of their problems—for instance, a hero with a mental illness—than shorter books do, because there is more space in the story to create reader empathy for the character and to develop a convincingly happy outcome.

The main factors distinguishing long contemporary category books from single-title books are length (long contemporaries are usually shorter than single title) and packaging (long contemporaries are marketed as part of a group with similar cover designs, rather than standing alone).

Mainstream: Stand-alone, single-title novels in which a romantic element may be present but is usually not paramount. This is primarily the story of a heroine, and even if the romantic elements were to be removed, there would still be a story.

Medical romance: Emphasizing medicine as a significant part of the conflict or as a way to bring hero and heroine closer together. At least one of the main characters should be a medical professional. Medical romance is a story about medicine as well as about love; it isn’t simply a romance which happens in a clinic or hospital, or where one main character gets a disease.

The most successful medical romances don’t focus on just one case but include several patients’ stories as a background to the romance. It’s particularly important in medicals to tie up loose ends. If a patient has been important within the story, the reader will want to know how he’s doing at the end. While it’s not realistic for every illness or injury to have a Pollyanna-happy ending, many can be left in an upbeat way without being unbelievable.

Medicine changes so quickly that it’s risky to go into too much detail about particular procedures, treatments or even diseases, yet editors want to see enough specifics to evoke the feel of a real hospital, clinic, or emergency room.

A wise author combines her medical knowledge and background with timeless elements common to other kinds of romance.

Knowledge and understanding of medical ethics is a must for the successful author. Even if the character breaks the ethical rules which govern the professional’s conduct, he or she is always aware of them and makes a deliberate choice.

Medical romance has been a steady seller for more than sixty years, though it’s more popular overseas than in the United States. It used to be known as doctor-nurse romance, with—of course—a male doctor and a female nurse in the starring roles.

Menage: Romance novels involving more than two people. Because romance is usually a feminine fantasy, it’s more usual for these stories to feature two male partners and one female (MMF) than it is to have two female partners and one male (MFF). Menage stories are often futuristic in nature.

Military romance: Usually featuring Special Forces (SEALs, Rangers) and sometimes crossing genre bounds to include paranormal characters. At least one of the main characters is a military or ex-military figure. The ex-military character is often a bodyguard or is operating or working with a private security firm.

In a culture where most men are alpha types, the hero of a military romance is usually the ultimate alpha. He may be the officer in charge or a rogue who is so certain of himself he acts outside the boundaries.

Knowledge of ethics and the military code of conduct is necessary for the successful author. Even if the character doesn’t follow the rules for accepted conduct, he or she is always aware of the rules and the consequences of breaking them.

Mini-series: Books within a romance category that carry on a theme-within-the-theme, usually published one per month for a predetermined period of time. Examples include