On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells
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Product Description
Product Description
This book gives comprehensive how-to information for novice romance writers. For those new to the genre and/or to writing, this book provides a starting point for developing the skill set essential to writing a best-selling romance novel. "On Writing Romance" is a thorough reference that will provide readers with detailed descriptions of more than 20 sub-categories within the romance genre, tips for avoiding cliches, specific instruction for creating the perfect romantic couple, guidelines for drafting those all-important love scene, submission information for breaking into the genre, and much, much more.
About the Author
Leigh Michaels is the author of more than 80 contemporary novels. She teaches writing at in person seminars an on the Internet at Gotham Writer's Workshop and at Barnes & Noble University. She has written articles for Writer's Digest, The Writer, and the RWA journal.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As an enthusiastic romance writer I didn't want to waste time on anything less than the bibles of romance writing. I needed to learn from the experts, and a published writer recommended this book to me. I first got the book through the library, then realised I needed this on my desk permanently. Leigh Michaels delivers quality advice in spades! Buy this book if you want to succeed. It is one of the few books on this subject that delivers what it promises. I also recommend Kate Walker's '12 point guide to writing romance'.
Michaels herself is a prolific and highly successful writer of romantic fiction, and teaches extensively on the subject. Her advice is realistic, sound, and concise. She delivers it with warmth, humanity, and what appears to be a genuine desire for burgeoning romance writers to succeed.
Michaels provides in-depth advice on areas such as research, sub-genres of romantic fiction and helps you to identify the one that suits you best. She examines the essential ingredients of romance writing, and devotes excellent sections to subjects such as conflict, believable characterisation, and dialogue. She describes the dos and don'ts of writing a sex scene, and illustrates specific solutions to fix problem areas of your manuscript, all working towards an exciting and cohesive story.
Her advice will make you look critically at your pre-draft plot, focus on the essential elements of romantic fiction, help you get over a sagging middle, and revise your manuscript pre-submission.
Finally, Michaels includes a useful section covering query letters, the dos and don'ts of submissions, agents versus going alone, and what to do when you get a rejection slip.
Her introduction says it all, she'd 'have given anything to have the book you're now holding in your hands'. This book is worth every cent - buy it and enjoy!
Michaels herself is a prolific and highly successful writer of romantic fiction, and teaches extensively on the subject. Her advice is realistic, sound, and concise. She delivers it with warmth, humanity, and what appears to be a genuine desire for burgeoning romance writers to succeed.
Michaels provides in-depth advice on areas such as research, sub-genres of romantic fiction and helps you to identify the one that suits you best. She examines the essential ingredients of romance writing, and devotes excellent sections to subjects such as conflict, believable characterisation, and dialogue. She describes the dos and don'ts of writing a sex scene, and illustrates specific solutions to fix problem areas of your manuscript, all working towards an exciting and cohesive story.
Her advice will make you look critically at your pre-draft plot, focus on the essential elements of romantic fiction, help you get over a sagging middle, and revise your manuscript pre-submission.
Finally, Michaels includes a useful section covering query letters, the dos and don'ts of submissions, agents versus going alone, and what to do when you get a rejection slip.
Her introduction says it all, she'd 'have given anything to have the book you're now holding in your hands'. This book is worth every cent - buy it and enjoy!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm not writing a romance, but was advised that a bit of romantic tension would add to the saleability of any novel, a quick search brought up this book. I wasn't sure if it was worth spending money on a book about a different and such a specific genre, but I'm so glad I did.
The subtitle of this book is 'How to Craft a Novel that Sells' and that's exactly what it shows you. 90% of the advice and techniques can be applied to ANY genre of fiction.
It has a brilliant chapter on Plotting, put in terms that can be easily understood. The author covers dialogue, even the differences between male and female speech patterns; how to create suspense, the difference between scenes and chapters and how to start and finish, keeping the reader interested as well as how to create characters and introduce conflict, and much more. It is also worth noting the excellent chapters that cover the topics of submitting manuscripts and all the relevant advice to help us budding novelists to actually get published.
All-in-all this is a very useful tool that teaches the basics in a way that is easy to read and easily understand. I wish I'd read this book first.
The subtitle of this book is 'How to Craft a Novel that Sells' and that's exactly what it shows you. 90% of the advice and techniques can be applied to ANY genre of fiction.
It has a brilliant chapter on Plotting, put in terms that can be easily understood. The author covers dialogue, even the differences between male and female speech patterns; how to create suspense, the difference between scenes and chapters and how to start and finish, keeping the reader interested as well as how to create characters and introduce conflict, and much more. It is also worth noting the excellent chapters that cover the topics of submitting manuscripts and all the relevant advice to help us budding novelists to actually get published.
All-in-all this is a very useful tool that teaches the basics in a way that is easy to read and easily understand. I wish I'd read this book first.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
23 reviews
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
From a beginning writer in the uk
4 Feb 2007
Format:Paperback
This is a superb book. I don't think I've ever learnt such a lot in such a short space of time and enjoyed it so much than when reading this.
What singles this book out is it's attention to detail and thoroughness. Michaels guides us all through the process from deciding to write a book, to which sub-genre suits you best, summarising all the different aspects of how to write each, straight through to editing and presenting, to writing a synopsis and query letter.
Each chapter takes one aspect of writing a novel, such as plotting, characterisation, dialogue, love scenes, sexual tension etc. and explains it in easy to read language. Then she goes on to use excerpts from different authors, together with more explanation, to illustrate each point. Its very effective and must have taken ages to compile, as she's used a wide variety of authors from both the UK and America.
Her writing and her chosen excerpts are so easy to read that it's very easy to follow, I can quite see why she`s won so many awards.
I enjoyed it so much I just wanted to hole up somewhere and read the whole book straight through, soaking up every word. There's a lot of it (257 pages) and it's quite densely printed, but that doesn't make it difficult to read because the text is broken up by subtitles, bullet points and boxouts.
As a novice writer myself I couldn't recommend it highly enough and will treasure my copy for many years to come.
What singles this book out is it's attention to detail and thoroughness. Michaels guides us all through the process from deciding to write a book, to which sub-genre suits you best, summarising all the different aspects of how to write each, straight through to editing and presenting, to writing a synopsis and query letter.
Each chapter takes one aspect of writing a novel, such as plotting, characterisation, dialogue, love scenes, sexual tension etc. and explains it in easy to read language. Then she goes on to use excerpts from different authors, together with more explanation, to illustrate each point. Its very effective and must have taken ages to compile, as she's used a wide variety of authors from both the UK and America.
Her writing and her chosen excerpts are so easy to read that it's very easy to follow, I can quite see why she`s won so many awards.
I enjoyed it so much I just wanted to hole up somewhere and read the whole book straight through, soaking up every word. There's a lot of it (257 pages) and it's quite densely printed, but that doesn't make it difficult to read because the text is broken up by subtitles, bullet points and boxouts.
As a novice writer myself I couldn't recommend it highly enough and will treasure my copy for many years to come.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
One of my best purchases this year!
25 April 2009
Format:Paperback
I'm a recent college graduate with a degree in English Literature who, very recently, came to the conclusion that if I could spend the rest of my life writing romance novels, I'd be a happy camper.
Without the time (or money) to enroll in a creative writing MFA program, or even an in-person writing workshop, I've had to "educate" myself with books on writing style.
I've read and skimmed several over the past several months--books on dialogue, scene/plot development, characterization, etc--but Leigh Michaels' "On Writing" is the ONLY style book I've been literally compelled to read cover-to-cover. Usually, I start these types of books with the best laid plans, then end up skimming or skipping to the pertinent parts (i.e., what I need help with at that moment), but THIS book is so well-structured, it pulls you along.
Aimed at the beginning romance writer (like me!), Michaels' clearly outlines common pitfalls and cliches to avoid, gives extremely helpful tips on how to write "from a male POV" or "a female POV", and goes so far as to explain the structure, layout and general guidelines for several types of romance fiction (inspiration, sweet, short contemporary, long contemporary, chick-lit AND erotica). Basically, no matter why type of romance you're trying to write, there are helpful tips for you!
It's also chock-full of excerpts from published romance novels, which helps Michaels illustrate the topics she's discussing (there's one section where she points out how silly the overusage of dialogue tags can be that made me laugh out loud).
I just bought this book yesterday and, despite the fact that it's really just a style book, I've read almost the entire 250-some pages. I'm about halfway through my first novel attempt and I can already see where the tips in this book will help me improve when it's time to go back and revise.
As some have said, this definitely isn't a book for the more experienced/advanced writer (even as a beginner, there were some things discussed that just seemed overly obvious), but it's definitely going to be a valuable resource on my bookshelf as I advance my writing skills.
Without the time (or money) to enroll in a creative writing MFA program, or even an in-person writing workshop, I've had to "educate" myself with books on writing style.
I've read and skimmed several over the past several months--books on dialogue, scene/plot development, characterization, etc--but Leigh Michaels' "On Writing" is the ONLY style book I've been literally compelled to read cover-to-cover. Usually, I start these types of books with the best laid plans, then end up skimming or skipping to the pertinent parts (i.e., what I need help with at that moment), but THIS book is so well-structured, it pulls you along.
Aimed at the beginning romance writer (like me!), Michaels' clearly outlines common pitfalls and cliches to avoid, gives extremely helpful tips on how to write "from a male POV" or "a female POV", and goes so far as to explain the structure, layout and general guidelines for several types of romance fiction (inspiration, sweet, short contemporary, long contemporary, chick-lit AND erotica). Basically, no matter why type of romance you're trying to write, there are helpful tips for you!
It's also chock-full of excerpts from published romance novels, which helps Michaels illustrate the topics she's discussing (there's one section where she points out how silly the overusage of dialogue tags can be that made me laugh out loud).
I just bought this book yesterday and, despite the fact that it's really just a style book, I've read almost the entire 250-some pages. I'm about halfway through my first novel attempt and I can already see where the tips in this book will help me improve when it's time to go back and revise.
As some have said, this definitely isn't a book for the more experienced/advanced writer (even as a beginner, there were some things discussed that just seemed overly obvious), but it's definitely going to be a valuable resource on my bookshelf as I advance my writing skills.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Generous, passionate and entertaining.
4 Nov 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am trained in script and story editing, have produced literally hundreds of books to unabridged audio and am a bit of a writing book junkie - by no means am I a beginner in storycraft. I bought this book because I wanted something tailored to the romance genre and that is exactly what this book gives you. Yes, you could spend hours on the internet finding similar information and, yes, if you've done your research you'll have heard a lot of it before but this book not only collects it for you in one place but is also utterly entertaining. The book arrived late this afternoon and I have just finished it. It's 3a.m. - I couldn't put it down.
Michaels' passion for the subject is in every word. This is not a book written by someone jaded who wants to be able to point at her book when the 4,999,999th person asks her what the formula for romance writing is! She is also generous with her knowledge. So often one gets the feeling that the author of a writing book is holding something back for themselves - not quite fully explaining a point here or there, alluding to something you sense is more important than they are admitting. Not so here. In fact Michaels is so generous that at one point she even uses a sentence from her own (I assume earlier) work as an example of what not to do!
Highly recommended.
Michaels' passion for the subject is in every word. This is not a book written by someone jaded who wants to be able to point at her book when the 4,999,999th person asks her what the formula for romance writing is! She is also generous with her knowledge. So often one gets the feeling that the author of a writing book is holding something back for themselves - not quite fully explaining a point here or there, alluding to something you sense is more important than they are admitting. Not so here. In fact Michaels is so generous that at one point she even uses a sentence from her own (I assume earlier) work as an example of what not to do!
Highly recommended.
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