Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies (For Dummies (Language & Literature))

387 Pages·2023·5.16 MB·

by  Victorine Lieske, Leslie Wainger

Writing a
Romance Novel
2nd Edition
by Victorine Lieske and Leslie Wainger
foreword by Linda Howard
Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2022951779
ISBN 978-1-119-98903-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-98904-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-98905-9 (ebk)
Table of Contents
FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Foolish Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Icons Used in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Beyond the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Where to Go from Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
PART 1: WELCOME TO THE WORLD
OF ROMANCE WRITING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
CHAPTER 1: Romance Writing at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Tuning in to the Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Defining a romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Subdividing romances into genres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Practicing Your Craft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Everything starts with characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
It’s all about emotional tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Plotting, pacing, and point of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Choosing Indie Publishing or Traditional Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Exploring the pros and cons of each . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Choosing your path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Best Practices of Indie Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Working with editors and graphic designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Marketing and selling your book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Submitting Your Manuscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Choosing the right publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Putting together a selling submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Romancing the Marketplace: Identifying
CHAPTER 2:
Your Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Knowing Your Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Meeting the romance reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Meeting the romance reader’s expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Starting from Square One: Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Drawing up a reading list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Reading like a writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Getting to Know Your Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Historical versus contemporary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Mainstream versus category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Table of Contents iii
Subgenres and niche markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Related women’s fiction markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Choosing Your Subgenre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
What do you like to read? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
How do you fit into the market? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
CHAPTER 3: Setting Up for Writing Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Finding the Perfect Time to Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Making time to pursue your dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Creating your writing routine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Building a Writer’s Tool Kit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Sharpening up your office supplies: More than just pencils . . . . . . 49
Stocking the shelves: Your home library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Booking it: Accurate financial records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Accessing Resources for the Would-Be Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Joining writers’ organizations — romance-related
and otherwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Going where the writers are: Conferences and more . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Taking advantage of courses and critique groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Online resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
PART 2: LAYING THE FOUNDATION:
THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF A GREAT ROMANCE . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Creating Compelling Main Characters:
CHAPTER 4:
Alpha Males and Fiery Females . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Depending on Your Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
The Key to Every Romance Is the Heroine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Drawing the reader into your story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Making your heroine feel real . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Introducing imperfection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Naming your heroine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Creating Your Hero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Heroes are for loving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Holding out for a hero: Alphas and others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Looking for love in all the wrong places . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Hello, my name is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Keepin’ It Real: Secondary Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Remembering their roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Avoiding stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Speaking up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Naming the baby (and everyone else) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Factoring in the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Laying Concrete Strategies for Creating Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
iv Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies
Crucial Ingredients for Every Plot:
CHAPTER 5:
Conflict, Climax, and Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
You Can’t Have a Novel without a Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Where do ideas come from? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Letting your characters drive the plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Suspense: Every Story Has It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Using romance to create suspense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Other ways of creating twists and turns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Making Sense Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Creating Emotional Conflict and Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
Emotional versus intellectual conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Internal versus external conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Personal versus situational conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Handling Conflict Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Keeping them together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Letting conflict complicate your plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Taking two steps forward and one step back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Using sexual tension to deepen conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Dreaming of love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Saving “I love you” for the right moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
And They Lived Happily Ever After . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Making your reader believe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
Dark moment: Where all is lost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Climax: Timing is everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Resolution: Endings made easy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
CHAPTER 6: Setting the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Deciding Where Your Story Takes Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
Following the lead of your characters and plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
Joining the real world or living in your imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Keeping your setting in check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Telling Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Using Your Setting to the Fullest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Illuminating your characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Making your setting a character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
CHAPTER 7: Outlining versus Discovery Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Identifying What Kind of Writer You Are . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Outlining methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Discovery writing methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Outlining: Mapping Out Your Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
What can an outline do for you? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124
What belongs in an outline? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Table of Contents v
Using your outline effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Listening to your creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127
Discovery Writing: Letting Your Story Unfold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Letting the characters guide you . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128
Plotting as you go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Getting stuck in the rewriting trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
PART 3: PUTTING PEN TO PAPER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
CHAPTER 8: Finding Your Own Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Speaking Up for Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Revealing where readers hear your voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Making the language your own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Choosing your words wisely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Mixing what you say with what your characters know . . . . . . . . . 140
Putting the Show in Show and Tell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Knowing what you need to say, and then saying it . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Speaking metaphorically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Describing your characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Making every word count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Talking too much . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143
Telling It Like It Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Keeping your writing clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Moving right along . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
CHAPTER 9: Letting Your Characters Speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Giving Your Characters Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150
Making every character unique (and real) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Giving every character a consistent voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Meeting the secondary-character challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Writing Great Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154
Using dialect and accents effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Keepin’ it cool: A word about slang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156
Using dialogue to convey information naturally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Putting dialogue on paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Choosing and Using Point of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
What are they thinking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Knowing whose voice to use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Internal monologues and how to use them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Pacing: The Secrets of Writing
CHAPTER 10:
a Page-Turning Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Pacing Doesn’t Mean Racing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Pacing and Plotting: Two Halves of a Whole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
vi Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies
Knowing what readers care about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
It’s not only what happens, it’s when and where . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Knowing what to tell and what to leave out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Avoiding the Dreaded Sagging Middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Recognizing a sagging middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Stopping the sag before it starts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Dealing with it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Show It, Don’t (Always) Tell It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Harnessing the power of dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Telling it like it is: Using narrative effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183
Finding the balance between showing and telling . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Prose That Goes and Prose That Slows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
CHAPTER 11: Taking It All Off: Writing Love Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Comparing Sex and Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Knowing Where and When . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Creating sexual tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Deciding when the time’s right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Using love scenes to increase the tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Using love scenes to support your pacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195
Writing the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Knowing your market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
It’s not what they do, it’s how you describe it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
PART 4: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
MECHANICS COUNT, TOO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
CHAPTER 12: Starting and Stopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Mastering the Winning Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
How to hook your reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
How to bore your reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
The cute meet: Necessary or not? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Putting Theory into Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Finding your starting point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Backtracking to the background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211
Opening lines that work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Constructing Can’t-Miss Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .216
Viewing every chapter as a new beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Leave ’em wanting more: Effective chapter endings . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Keeping transitions fresh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Moving from Scene to Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Stringing scenes together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Seeing scene endings as mini-chapter endings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Intercutting scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
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CHAPTER 13: Getting Your Story Straight: Doing Research . . . . . . 225
Getting It Right: Priority Number One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Making Research Work for You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Figuring out what you need to know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Avoiding information overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Getting Down to Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Timing is everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Organizing like a pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Finding the Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Surfing the Net: Great information (and misinformation) . . . . . . . 233
Supporting your local library and bookstore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235
Developing a nose for news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Taking time to stop, look, and listen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238
Traveling for fun and profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Talking to experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Getting Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Determining when permission is necessary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Filling out the paperwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
CHAPTER 14: Neatness Counts — and So Does Grammar . . . . . . . 243
Knowing the Importance of Good Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Finding good references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Using grammar and spell-check programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Taking a course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Asking a friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Making a Point with Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Comma placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Using ellipses and em dashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Talking about Dialogue and Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Making Thoughtful and Relevant Word Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Don’t choose a fancy word when a simple one will do . . . . . . . . . 250
Don’t use incorrect synonyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Watch for repeated words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251
Formatting for Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Setting your margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Using the right fonts and spacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253
Breaking your story into paragraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Avoiding common formatting mistakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Formatting with indie publishing in mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Checking Your Work One Last Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
viii Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies