This aspect of romance writing is so often neglected, usually with disastrous results; a novel that reads like a badly written script. Fortunately, there's now a way for any writer, regardless of their experience, to get a huge head-start writing in this profitable genre. It's a secret resource that romance writers don't want you to know about! Dahlia Evans has compiled a romance writing thesaurus unlike anything ever published. This reference book is filled to the brim with words and phrases gathered from hundreds of bestselling romance novels. Using this book you will be able to describe intimate encounters of every kind without breaking a sweat.Inside You'll Discover:# 8,500 words and phrases sorted into 37 categories.# Thousands of words you can use to describe each part of the body.# Words that describe each of the five senses; taste, touch, sight, sound, smell.# Words to describe feelings and emotions.# Words that describe facial expressions.# Hundreds of words to describe intimacy.'Thinking Like A Romance Writer' is the culmination of hundreds of hours of research and is a book destined to become a classic in the field of romance writing instruction.

    How do you make your readers believe your characters are falling in love? How do you show that sizzle of attraction? How do you write a good kissing scene? How do you bring in the much-needed tension but still have your characters flirting and getting closer? In this book I take one of my romance novels (Acting Married) and I go through the entire novel with you, basically interrupting myself to tell you what I was thinking as I was writing the novel. It's like watching a movie with commentary. I pull back the curtain so you can see why I started it the way I did, why I decided to put certain scenes in, and what pushes the romance forward in the book. I preface all this with what I consider the essentials of a good romance novel, and I end with my list of well-loved romance tropes that you can draw from in order to write your own bestselling romance novel.

    This simple guide—written by two awardwinning romance novelists—will show readers what it takes to break into this highly competitive market and will provide them the information they need to get their manuscript out of the slush pile and onto the bookshelf. Readers will learn how to do the following techniques: build a story from premise to plot; add a fresh twist to a classic storyline; create compelling characters; write sizzling sex scenes that carry an emotional punch; research agents and markets; write a story that an editor can’t reject; and promote themselves and their work. New writers, and even experienced writers, will find the solid howto information here invaluable. This is a musthave for aspiring writers who want to write the perfect love story.

    The romance arc is made up of its own story beats, and the external plot and theme need to be braided to the romance arc—not the other way around. Told in conversational (and often irreverent) prose, Romancing the Beat can be read like you are sitting down to coffee with romance editor and author Gwen Hayes while she explains story structure. The way she does with her clients. Some of whom are regular inhabitants of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Romancing the Beat is a recipe, not a rigid system. The beats don’t care if you plot or outline before you write, or if you pants your way through the drafts and do a “beat check” when you’re revising. Pantsers and plotters are both welcome. So sit down, grab a cuppa, and let’s talk about kissing books.

    But what if the stories you love to write aren’t the kind that are selling like ice water in July? How do you create a career in writing that you both love and hits the financial success you need to justify the hours spent at the keyboard? For Love or Money talks about writing for love (and how to sell that) as well as writing for money (and how to love it). It contains serious strategies about making money with your books, living the freedom of indie publishing, and stretching yourself creatively in your career. For authors willing to take a hard look at themselves and the market, this book will lay out the necessary steps to create your dream writing career. For Love or Money is meant to be used in tandem with The Indie Author Survival Guide (Second Edition), the first book in the Crafting a Self-Publishing Career series. Together, these two books will set you on a path of turning your love for storytelling into a career. **JOIN THE FOR LOVE OR MONEY FACEBOOK GROUP** Connect with your fellow self-published authors and share information about writing and publishing. Susan hosts monthly consultation giveaways and shares updates on the constantly evolving publishing landscape. JOIN HERE: http://smarturl.it/LoveOrMoneyGroup **Table of Contents** Author's Note Crafting Your Dream Writer Life 1.1 Choosing Your Mountain 1.2 Park Your Biases At The Curb 1.3 Embrace Your Freedom 1.4 My Journey 1.5 Decide For Yourself 1.6 Bite-Sized Summary Writing For Love 2.1 Writing Challenges Me 2.2 Forget About Readers 2.3 Joyful Writing 2.4 Take Your Craft Up A Level 2.5 It Will Always Be Hard 2.6 Bite-Sized Summary Turning Love Into Money 3.1 Don't Give Up Too Soon 3.2 All The Marketing Tricks 3.3 Making What You Love More Commercial 3.4 My Biggest Failure/Learning Experience 3.5 Why Isn't My Book Selling 3.6 Build Your Backlist 3.7 Bite-Sized Summary Writing For Money 4.1 Writing What Sells 4.2 What's In Your Wheelhouse 4.3 Don't Try This At Home 4.4 Bite-Sized Summary Balancing Writing And Life 5.1 Staying Sane in a Crazy (Indie Publishing) World Managing Your Career Appendix: Your Self-Publishing Toolkit

     Johnny Truant and Sean M. Platt -- owners of the Sterling & Stone Story Studio and authors of the how-to-publish cornerstone Write. Publish. Repeat -- have spent the last eight years learning the ins and outs of professional storytelling. Between just the two of them, they've written 100 books. The studio as a whole, in 2020 alone, will publish nearly 200 more. To write and publish that much quality, reader-pleasing fiction, you can't just wing it. You need a formula to keep things streamlined and on-target. With a formula, you can be sure you're writing books that will sell. That you're enjoying writing them, and are doing so without writer's block. When you use the fiction formula, your success becomes predictable -- not a matter of luck. In their 2014 bestseller Write. Publish. Repeat, Platt & Truant showed a generation of indies the path to self-publishing success. In this long-awaited follow-up, they'll show you what they've learned since, plus all the fiction-specific stuff they didn't include the first time around: You'll learn: How to choose a genre that's commercial AND fulfilling The Sterling & Stone planning process that helps you write better books, faster. The complete start to finish path from idea to fully launched books and series Creating an author business that can withstand marketplace changes and last for years to come. The Fiction Formula will help you build a thriving indie publishing career no matter what type of writer you are ... so long as you're willing to do the work. If that's you, welcome aboard! The Formula could be your next step toward the author life you've only dreamed of before.

    They have the pedal pressed to the floor when they shouldn't have gotten in the ride at all, sort of speak. In "Slow Your Prose: 25 Tips On How New Authors Can Improve Their Craft," we go back to the basics.Showing vs. telling, passive/active voice, point-of-views ... many writers confuse these key elements for writing a good story. Before rushing a book to market, it's more important to write the best book possible first. But why do so many authors skip this step? As a bonus, you'll find three proven query letters that have led to deals with a literary agent, a magazine and popular anthology by a New York Times best-selling author.

    Talent and inspiration can't be taught, but Frey does provide scores of helpful suggestions and sensible rules and principles.An international bestseller, How to Write a Damn Good Novel will enable all writers to face that intimidating first page, keep them on track when they falter, and help them recognize, analyze, and correct the problems in their own work.

    This book is the necessary how-to for first-timers and a terrific guide for seasoned professionals as well, who are putting their racy (and lucrative) fantasies to paper. Now, for the first time, a veteran erotic romance author shows exactly what to do and how. The first book to guide writers to succeed in this mutli-million dollar genre. Explores how to set up a plot and write good, steamy sex scenes. From a best-selling experienced author. Includes resource section for research tools and further reading. Interviews with top editors in the field. Foreword by Kate Duffy, editorial director at Kensington Publishing and founding editor of the genre.

     When you are planning to write a new story, all you need to focus on are the characters, and how they are going to change during the course of the romance as a result of the relationship. That is what will make your story both unique and compelling. Advanced story craft techniques are very handy at the editing and revision stage when you shape your story for the reader – but not here! Instead, we use the power of character arc and emotional conflict to create a simple but effective emotional story map for your romance novel. As you write your romance, your characters will come to life on the page, and reveal their true personalities through what they say and do. But first you have to get those characters onto the page and interacting with one another – fast! This is the six-step writing process professional romance authors use to develop their novels – and stay motivated and excited by their story. Now you can do the same. And keep your pants on! Find out how to outline your romance novel when you don’t know a thing about story structure and the whole ideas of pre-planning your story freezes you. And enjoy doing it!

    Romance author Serenity Woods and best selling author Mark Dawson provide ten short tips to help the eager beginner interested in turning their hobby of writing romance stories into a way to earn a living.

     Instead, Nail Your Story attempts to reveal the connections between the various parts of story so that you can more easily build cohesive plots, characters, themes, and settings—without having to stress over the decisions because (surprise!) you’ve probably already made them in another area of your book. Included in the book: - Monica's Smarter Storytelling Framework, which shows you the many layers of a story and how they each relate to each other - Translation guides for building out your story (for example, how you can use character to build your theme, and vice-versa) - The Smarter Storytelling Worksheets to help you plot out all the elements of your story into one cohesive document - Tons of examples from some of the most popular stories of our time, including Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, the Twilight series, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, How To Get Away With Murder, A Song of Ice and Fire, and more. If you’ve struggled to get 5-star reviews on your stories or build an audience of people dying to get your next book, Nail Your Story will help you identify areas of improvement and even show you how a few small tweaks in your currently available content can make a massive difference in your sales!

    NOR IS A SIGH JUST A SIGH ... In ROMANCE-ology 101, Award-winning "Passion Most Pure" expert Julie Lessman tackles the subject of romantic tension in today's inspirational/sweet markets with humor and heart. Offering tips for ramping up the WOW factor with romance that is both sweet and swoon-worthy, Lessman highlights tried-and-true methods with before-and-after examples to illustrate the following points: -- Getting inside the Hero's Head with Internal Monologue -- Maximizing Use of Beats in Dialogue -- Effectively Using Dialogue to Escalate Tension -- Utilizing Dual Point of View -- Escalating Romantic Tension with Anger -- Using All Five Senses for Heightened Effect -- Cashing In on the Kid and Pet Factor -- Enhancing Mood with Emotionally Charged Words/Verbs -- Capitalizing on the Element of Surprise -- Exposing Desire in an Unwilling Character -- Immediate Hero/Heroine Confrontation -- Making the Most of Touch and Response -- Implementing the Concept of Forbidden Fruit -- Words with a Hint of Taboo -- Appropriate "Bleep" Words for Inspirational Romance -- KISS-ology 101: The Many Faces of a Kiss TESTIMONIALS: "Julie is one of the best there is today at writing intensely passionate romance novels. Her ability to thread romance and longing, deception and forgiveness, and lots of humor are unparalleled by anyone else in the Christian market today." - Rachel McRae of LifeWay Stores "Julie Lessman writing a book on romantic tension is a perfect fit. This is a writing book that needs to be on the shelf of every author because nobody does romantic tension better." - Mary Connealy, bestselling author of The Kincaid Bride and Trouble in Texas series "I've always referred to Julie Lessman as the Queen of Romance and her new craft book is proof. Passionate and practical, humorous and savvy, Romance-ology 101 is a must-read for Lessman fans and all who desire to create pulse-pounding romance. A keeper!" - Laura Frantz, award-winning author of The Colonel's Lady and Love's Reckoning "Passion with a Purpose, Julie's tagline says it all! She's the queen of romantic tension that stirs both your body and your soul." - MaryLu Tyndall, award-winning author of Escape to Paradise trilogy

    She’ll show you how to develop a foolproof character arc and plot, how to pace any book for a can’t-put-down reading experience, and how to ensure that your stories are complete and satisfying without wasting time or words.Hawker’s outlining technique works no matter what genre you write, and no matter the age of your audience. If you want to improve your writing speed, increase your backlist, and ensure a quality book before you even write the first word, this is the how-to book for you.Take off your pants! It’s time to start outlining.

    You can jump-start your plot and bring your characters and scenes vibrantly alive on the page - by watching your favorite movies and learning from the storytelling tricks of great filmmakers.With this workbook you'll learn how to use techniques of film writing such as:- the High Concept Premise- the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure- the Storyboard Grid- the Index Card Method of Plotting- as well as tricks of film pacing and suspense, character arc and drive, visual storytelling, creating setpieces, and building image systems - to structure and color your novel for maximum emotional impact, suspense, and pacing, no matter what genre you're writing in.Contains all the general story structure lessons of STFA I and much more, but with special attention to key story elements, techniques and examples from romantic comedy, romantic suspense, and romantic adventure, including ten full story breakdowns.TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroductionPART ONE: STORY STRUCTURE1. The Master List2. What's Your Premise?3. First, You Need an Idea4. What KIND of Story Is It?5. The Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure6. The Index Card Method7. Story Elements Checklist8. Elements of Act I9. Plan, Central Question, Central Story Action10. What's The Plan?11. Hero/ine, Protagonist, Main Character12. Hero and Heroine, Lover and Loved One13. What Makes A Great Villain?14. Elements of Act Two15. Elements of Act Two, Part 216. Elements of Act Three17. Top Ten Endings18. What Makes a Great Climax?19. Act Climaxes Overview and Examples20. Expanding on the Key Story Elements21. Expanded Story Elements Checklist22. Love Story Elements23. Fairy Tale Structure24. Meta Structure25. What is "High Concept"?26. The Rule of Three27. Voice28. First Chapters29. Theme and Thematic Image Systems30. Visual Storytelling31. Creating Suspense32. Plants and Payoffs33. The Big Twist34. Character Introductions35. Using Character Clusters36. Your First Draft is Always Going to Suck37. Top Ten Things I Know About Editing38. A Process for WritingPART TWO: STORY BREAKDOWNS39. The Breakdowns40. Leap Year41. While You Were Sleeping42. Notting Hill43. Four Weddings and a Funeral44. The Proposal45. New in Town46. Groundhog Day47. Sense and Sensibility48. Romancing the Stone49. Sea of LovePART THREE: THE BUSINESS50. Life is a Pitch Meeting51. How Do I Get a Literary Agent?52. Internet Resources for Writers53. So You Want to Know About Screenwriting54. Recommended ReadingFigure 1: Story Grid