Why I read and write historical romance (and what I've learned about storytelling)

Big confession: I used to look down my nose at historical romance as a genre. Just as many others, I had a vision of badly researched bodice-rippers with sappy, predictable stories.

Plus, the kind of covers you’d want to hide with brown paper.

I missed out on so much great reading, but I’ve been catching up. Why? Keep reading for the answer.

First, what exactly is a romance as opposed to a novel with a love story?

Frankly, I’d say most fiction has some degree of romance in it. After all, love, the need for connection, is a basic human desire, and it would be hard to create appealing protagonists who never had this experience. (Hard, but not impossible.)

But the thing with romance is that the romance itself is the point of the story. The entire narrative revolves around two (or more) people finding each other, going through ups and downs, and ending up together. The famous HEA (happy ever after).

Over time, the genre has acquired some fascinating structural characteristics, or beats, that true romance readers expect to encounter in any book that calls itself a romance. As detailed by Gwen Hayes in her craft book, Romancing the Beat, these are:

• SET UP: introducing protagonists and meet cute, with “no way #1”

• FALLING IN LOVE: including “no way #2,” maybe this could work, deepening desire, midpoint when they’re in love (a more or less steamy scene depending on the kind of story you’re writing)

• RETREATING FROM LOVE: Just as things were looking like they could work out, disaster—deepening doubt, actual retreat, barriers, and break up

• FIGHTING FOR LOVE: Dark night of the soul, wake up/catharsis, grand gesture, HEA with what that looks like

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the specificity in the structure would inhibit creativity. I certainly did. It’s the kind of formulaic prescription you find in Save the Cat, which this pantser has tried without success.

But the underlying principle, the push-pull of love and desire, is a captivating motivation for a really good story. And what I have been finding is that my desire to craft a really good romance overcomes my inherent dislike of being pushed into a specific structure. I endorse the principles and give myself a little leeway, taking care that the overall form reflects this rocky journey to happiness.

So many different historical romances

The thing about romance today is that it embraces all kinds of unions. It’s inclusive and diverse. It normalizes love and desire among all sorts of people of many ethnicities and proclivities. It provides satisfying reading for just about everyone who wants to lose themselves in a story that in some way reflects their lived experience—or their particular history.

And perhaps my most important discovery, as a writer of historical fiction, is that the good historical romances are scrupulously researched.

Lessons and strategies that break genre boundaries

Opening my mind and heart to this genre has paid huge dividends for me in terms of story craft. There are aspects of the genre conventions of romance that I know I will use in all my writing going forward, including the need for appealing and relatable protagonists from page one, a structure that creates suspense and tension while drawing a reader on to the ending they hope for, and fearlessly putting the emotion, the interiority, on the page.

I’ll be talking about these elements, giving examples, and leading exercises that lean into the characteristics of romance that can enhance any story in my workshop this Saturday, Romance Writing Techniques for Any Genre, online through Writers In Progress from 9:30am–12:30pm EDT. The workshop costs $80.

I hope you’ll consider joining me there, whatever kind of fiction you write! Let’s have some fun together.