(no subject)

[bjornwilde]

I've been outlining my book for the past week and I think I might be at a stage where I need to shift from the not!romance to the mystery as I seem to be floundering now with the not!romance plot. This could easily be because I don't know romance tropes or plot lines a whole lot--don't ask me why my story decided to use a romance plot structure or have romance themes--so maybe I just need to listen to some romance stories to get the genre.

I'm getting to the end of Act 02 I think, and soon will move to Act 03. I'm not sure if the mystery plot is there though. I think it might be good to read the outline through before I work on it tomorrow.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

A great site for romance understanding is smartbitchestrashybooks and lots of good reviews. Good luck with the book, that's so exciting.

[bjornwilde]

Thank you! I think I keep getting in my own way, cause I'm figuring out how to write, while writing in a genre I don't know. Then again, I'm not unfamiliar with romantic elements to stories. There's lots of books I've read and enjoyed that had strong romance plots within them.

I guess I just keep getting fearful of getting it wrong and stopping. I need to stop doing that. Can't fix what doesn't exist.

[ceitfianna]

I get that. I do a lot of thinking about things in my head before writing them down or going I should wait longer before sharing something.

Just write and then deal with it, also I read a lot of romance so I'm glad to help too.

[misslucyjane]

The "so you want to write a romance" pages on TVTropes should help, too.

[bjornwilde]

Oh nice. I'll give it a look. To be honest, the story isn't a real romance, in that the male lead does not end up with the female lead and instead they become good friends, but I want to kind of flip romance tropes a bit as he struggles with thinking he's developing feelings for her, but respects their friendship too much to act, as well as respecting her being a lesbian and so not into him.

Mostly this is a "hey dudes, we can be close friends with women. Romance isn't the only awesome relationship we can have with them."

There is a secondary romance for the female lead, that does end up happening. So it is a romance in that sense. :)

And I do realize there are a lot of balls I am juggling here for a first book. I'm going to see how it comes out and figure I cna always cut threads if it's too messy.

[misslucyjane]

Assuming that it only counts as a romance if it's a man and woman involved is surprisingly heteronormative, coming from you. There's an entire subgenre of LGBT+ romance novels. Entire publishers who do nothing but gay romance.

If the female lead ends up with someone else, sounds to me like that's the main romance. Her relationship with the male lead only needs to be a friendship from beginning to end.

[bjornwilde]

That is a very valid point and thank you for making it.

To try again, my male protagonist has a heteronormative sort of romance angle/expectation as he comes from a heteronormative culture and has those expectations he needs to learn not to have. And I am using him to spotlight bad assumptions hetero men tend to make in friendships with women.

My female protagonist has a romance and mystery plot, both of which conclude happily, and she ends up with a good friend to boot.

At this point my male protag is my POV character since I know that experience and it fits the themes I’m aiming for. Which is also why I need to be careful of the biases I use and express when talking about and writing the story. :D

[misslucyjane]

That sounds much better than how I originally read it :).

[bjornwilde]

I'm glad I was able to explain better. And thanks again for pointing out my bad pitch before!