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Researching The Romance Novel
Romance novels can be wonderful tales of love and burgeoning relationships between two fantastic people, the hero and heroine you create. But along with a story of blossoming tenderness and caring, anyone learning how to write a romance novel will also need something more to add to the story - emotional impact, a plot (and often two), a setting, and description. This means you're probably going to have to do some research. Unfortunately, it isn't always easy to figure out what research is required or how to go about doing your research. Research has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. There was a time when you would need to spend hours in the local library, skimming through book after book in search of little tidbits that might add to the authenticity of your setting or your character's background. Today, however, you can find almost anything you're looking for right at your fingertips by using the Internet. Before you start surfing, though, you first need to decide what type of romance novel you're writing. If you're writing a romance about two people in a modern world much like our own, your research will probably focus more on relationships, how people interact, and how emotions often play against each other. Psychology is a cornerstone of emotional affairs. You'll want to thoroughly understand its nuances. Knowing how fears can work against us, or what attracts two people to each other, or what reaction is appropriate to a particular comment or glance, these are all integral to creating a romance novel that's both believable and real. Never forget that it's the psychological undercurrent in relationships that makes them three dimensional and fascinating.   If you want to become a novelist, a good one, and you’re not sure what you must to do to develop the skills you need, Andrea Rains Waggener wants to help you. A novelist who sold her first novel for a nice advance to one of the biggest publishers in the world, Bantam Dell, Andrea Rains Waggener has created a plan that makes it easy to go from novel idea to completed, publishable novel. If you're still learning how to write a romance novel, you'll quickly realize that the historical romance is a genre of its own. Historical romances require a basic understanding of the time period in which the story takes place. You'll need to research facts, figures of the time, and the day to day life of people in your time period. Historical faux pas can destroy the credibility of your romance novel. Avoid basing your information on what you've read in other novels, or what you've seen in movies, or what you believe to be true. Generally, the best websites for research are educational facilities and reputable organizations that make accurate historical data their mission. In addition, authorities on your time period can be excellent resources. If you look at the acknowledgements of most romance novels, you'll often notice that authors give credit to experts that have helped answer their questions. Other topics of research might include localities, environmental conditions (such as climate, population, language, etc.), and careers (you want to make sure your characters are portrayed accurately in their professions). Be careful, though. Too much detail, data, statistics, and information is going to bore your readers to death. And don't forget that the focus of a romance novel is the love story. Everything else is there to lend support, to make the situations accurate and believable without becoming intrusive. Provide your readers with enough information to carry the story forward and leave out all the extraneous material that doesn't serve that same purpose. The settings, descriptions, lifestyles, and information of your story should be accurate, but remember that the true goal for anyone learning how to write a romance novel is to develop an emotional relationship between two characters that leaves your readers feeling good when the final page is turned.
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