The Romance Writer's Handbook: How to Write Romantic Fiction & Get it Published
by Rebecca Vinyard
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rebecca VinyardEdition: Paperback
Published: 2004-04-01
ISBN: 0871162040
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Kalmbach
Book Reviews of The Romance Writer's Handbook: How to Write Romantic Fiction & Get it Published
Book Review: rudimentary
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm going to begin by picking a nit, here. This book is not authored by Ms Vinyard in the conventional sense. Probably 50% of the copy is authored by other women.
On to more important issues:
1) Most of the material in the book is quite elementary. If you don't know what point of view is or what the options are, this book explains that. But if you want advice beyond "don't change point of view too often," you will not get much help.
2) Unlike other writing manuals, this book is not structured in a way to help a beginner actually write a romance. It reflects this in it's contents, which include "Elements of Romance Storytelling," but nothing on putting the elements together.
I prefer "On Writing Romance" by Leigh Michaels and "Writing Romance" by Vanessa Grant, both of which rewarded my reading time with a great deal of useful information.
On the other hand, if you want to be part of the romance writers' community, this might be a good book for you, as it often mentions Romance Writers of America and the author's own web site. The section on "Support Networks" is as long as the one section on writing, "Elements of Romance Storytelling," and there is a whole section titled, "Inspiration, Comisseration and Information." That's all padding, from my point of view.
My own experience? I've won a state wide fiction award, edited a very small magazine and a book published by a major publisher, and written for a web site with ga-zillions of hits a week (yes, that's a technical term), and a glossy magazine. I teach college. I need to organize my material well and include plenty of useful content if I want my work to benefit my students.
Summary of The Romance Writer's Handbook: How to Write Romantic Fiction & Get it Published
Would you like some friendly help getting started writing some of America's most popular fiction? Author Rebecca Vinyard has put together a collection of folksy wisdom for aspiring romance writers to help them get published.Romance fiction makes up more than half of all mass-market novels sold, with over 2,000 new titles released each and every year. And unlike other fields of fiction, romance truly welcomes new writers, as editors search through queries and conference appointments for the next Nora Roberts or Barbara Delinsky. In 49 chapters, The Romance Writer's Handbook takes aspiring writers through a quick course in writing romantic fiction for today's markets. Here is "from-the-ground-up" advice on how to begin to climb romance writing's ladder of success..
The short, readable chapters in The Romance Writer's Handbook provide practical information to help improve any writer's stories. They offer advice on creating new but familiar heroes and heroines; crafting scenes, places and plot complications; and tackling thorny issues that range from point-of-view conundrums to steamy love scenes.
The Romance Writer's Handbook is the helping hand every author needs to get going and write romance stories that satisfy and sell.
It includes:
• Info on the business side (setting goals, finding an agent, formatting manuscripts, submitting winning query letters, and more).
• The lowdown on giving and receiving critiques.
• A paragraph-by-paragraph study of a well-written synopsis (essential to catching an agent's or editor's eye).
• Valuable advice on creating an author website.
• Short interviews with bestselling authors Lorraine Heath, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Connie Flynn, Katherine Sutcliffe, Judy Christenberry, and Suzanne Brockmann.
• Market information on mainstream publishers active in the romance field.
• A useful list of small presses and e-publishers.
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