This Week's Topic: What Do I Wish I'd Known Before I Wrote My First Book?
Let's see, the first book I wrote (and finished) was a shifter PNR. It was fun to write, but it got no love from agents or editors -- and, in hindsight, I'm glad they rejected me. What I'd written didn't meet romance-reader expectations. What I'd written could maybe be called romantic fantasy, but not fantasy romance. Here are four things I'd wish I'd known:
- The OTP meeting needs to happen in the first chapter
- I'd waited until ch 5, building on the Jaws-esq dunuh dunuh dunuh approach (closer, closer, closer, Meet Cute)
- They need to spend 99% of their time on-page together
- I'd structured it in the way I like my personal romances--with time spent apart, not living in each other's back pockets.
- A short synopsis is not my enemy; it is a tool to ensure my plot is structured and complete.
- That there was such a thing as readers' genre expectations.
- hahaha, zomg, {face palm} I can't believe I didn't know that
It's been almost two decades since I started writing as a career, so uh, safe to say, I've learned some things along the way.
