Have you ever picked up a book and been unable to put it down? What made it so interesting? Was it the characters? Was it the setting? The way words were used? Maybe it was even the design of the cover.
This is what makes us love books! We get dragged into a story and we just can’t wait to see what happens next. We love learning about characters, places we’ve never been to, and maybe even historical or futuristic settings we’ve never been to or thought of. We are seeking escape. We want a place to “live” for a while to escape the hustle and bustle of the real world.
Right now, the real world is a scary place. It’s full of strife, responsibility, and a ton of negativity from every direction. When I read, I’m escaping that. I’m looking for a place that is full of sunshine and butterflies and happy endings. I crave happy endings.
Have you ever read a Harlequin romance novel? I dated a guy when I was in college whose mom read a million of them. She had shelves and shelves of them. I spent a lot of time at their house, and I would often take breaks from reading the serious literature that an English major reads by devouring a Harlequin romance. That’s right, I said devouring. You can pretty much read a Harlequin in a day or two. I mean, really, they were hard to put down! Steamy, fun to read, Fabio-esque covers… what’s not to like?
They all follow the same sort of formula. Boy meets girl (nowadays we would say character meets character), they think (or have been told) that they need to love one another. The story goes on and a new character comes in who might steal a heart. Or one character learns something horrible about the other character. They break up, think they fall in love with someone else, (or do), then everything blows up, and somehow the characters end up with exactly who they should end up with and everyone lives happily ever after.
That description sounds pretty complicated, but it really isn’t; it’s very straightforward. There is a clear beginning where we see the setting, meet the characters, learn what makes them tick, and maybe learn something about one that the others don’t know. We go on, in events, learning more, and more. Things seem like they fall apart, then somehow they come back together and we get a happy ending.
That’s what a romance is. That’s what readers want. We want an escape. We want to ride that tidal wave of passion along with the characters—and maybe even pretend we are one of the characters.
Can you write like this? We challenge you to give it a try! We want your stories and we want you to knock our socks off with your creativity!
We look forward to reading your stories.