The Magic Formula is a home study course I created a couple years ago for aspiring romance novelists. If you’re an aspiring romance novelist the course (plus some extra goodies) is again available in its entirety ONLY from this page.
For The Writers Of Romance Fiction
Write A Romance Blog
August 19th, 2008 at 1:21 am
The Magic (Romance Novel) Formula Is Back…YES!
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
New Categories At The Forum
Hey hey!
I’m back from vacation, recovering from an unexpected illness (almost back to normal, thanks!) and I’ve added some new categories over on the forum for us to chatter about if you all wanna come over. Just the main stuff right now: characters, goals, setting, motivation, and plot.
Did I tell y’all my book’s gonna be out in October? Yeah, THE LEGACY OF SLEEPY HOLLOW is scheduled to hit bookstores/shelves sometime before Halloween, and I can’t wait! I’m more excited about this book coming out than I was REDEMPTION, but I suspect there are reasons for that. It’s a truly mega-awesome story being one!
Anyway, just wanted to let you all know there were categories to discuss over on the forum and ask you to drop in and chat with us over there. You do have to register, but once you’re in, you’re in, and you get to play with all the popular kids! LOL.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
He Said/She Said: Dialogue Tags
Dialogue tags are boringer than crap!
Okay, that’s a little slanguage for you there but in case you aren’t hip to the lingo what I mean to say is that dialogue tags, while necessary occasionally to remind your reader who is speaking, are boring and completely unnecessary most of the time.
Seriously.
(Shhh! Yes, I see it, but I’m not covering run-on sentences in this article!)
Anyway…
I rediscovered this “little known writing fact” about dialogue tags while working on my current manuscript. Chapter one? Full of them. Chapter two? A little less, but still not what I’d call “tag free”. Chapter three? Mucho better. Lots more “showing” instead of “telling” in this chapter, and it reads a lot better than the two chapters before it.
(Guess you already know I’m going back through chapters one and two to get rid of most of those pesky little boogers, right?)
So how do you get rid of unnecessary dialogue tags? Here’s how I do it. Stop concentrating on what your character is “saying”, and concentrate instead on what he or she is feeling, thinking, considering, etc. Concentrate on what your character sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes…you know the drill.
Involve the senses of your characters and you’ll involve the senses of your reader. When you do this, you’ll find yourself using dialogue tags less and less, and your readers enjoying your story more and more.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Romance Writers Forum
Thought you guys might like to join up and chatter a bit about the various aspects of writing a romance novel, so I created a forum. Pop on over to www.writearomance.com/forum to register and suggest topic categories you’d like to talk about.
January 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Confused About Erotic Romance?
My publisher just put out a call to a handful of their writers, an invitation to submit erotic romance manuscripts. I am seriously considering writing a novel for this debut line, and the first thing I did was email the publisher for their definition of “erotic”. I didn’t want to cross their boundaries.
While I waited for a reply, I hit the dictionary for a definition of “erotic”, for my own piece of mind. What I discovered is this: “erotic” is defined as arousing or satisfying sexual desire. I prefer “arousing” sexual desire as my definition when pertaining to writing.
“Satisfying” sexual desire, in this case, would be a bit icky to me: images of males sitting in the potty room with the latest copy of Hustler comes to mind, so I’ll stick with simply arousing. 
So…to write erotic romance your story must arouse sexual desire in your reader using words that convey mental pictures into your readers minds. Stimulating images.
An example:
There is an excerpt from one of my works in progress, Mad About Mallory (and I’m not sure if I put this scene online or not, but it’s in there), where the heroine eats a cherry cordial. This scene is highly erotic for both male and female readers. Here’s why:
Males are given vivid images of Mallory eating that cordial in slow, seductive steps that make them think of, or imagine, having oral sex performed on them.
Females see an increase of sexual power, the ability to stimulate their man by doing nothing more seductive than enjoying a favorite chocolate. Thus, the female’s sexual desire is aroused by having caused the male to become aroused.
If you’ve been confused about writing erotic romance because you weren’t sure just what “erotic” meant, well there you have it. Hope this clears up some things for you.