Romance writing

[saz2022]

Can anyone recommend writing books / courses about romance writing for say Mills & Boon? TIA

Mills and Boon have a section on their website about writing for them. The structure of their books is particular to them, compared with longer romantic fiction. If you want to write romance there's a book called Romancing the Beat which is supposed to be good. And any 'how to write' book will explain the structure of any commercial fiction because they all have a similar structure.

Thanks. I'm aware of the guidelines and have that book.

Seems odd that M&B are always looking for authors but don't have in-house writing courses like say Faber and Curtis-Brown.

Look into "The Hero's Journey". It's the most commonly used struture and it works well as a scaffold to hang your story on. There's a really good article (with examples) here:
https://prowritingaid.com/art/2339/heros-journey.aspx

I used it to write my only Romance (a novella) and it worked, it got talked about on Reddit for a while and it sold well. I can't advertise on here but if you DM me I'll send you a link.

Be aware too that if you submit to M&B or Black Lace you're likely to wait six months to hear back from them during which time you could have sold thousands of copies on Amazon.

Thanks so much! Will look into this. Also found some courses on Udemy

And thanks re heads up on waiting times and self-publishing

Romancing the beat is good. I use that along with save the cat. I am definitely going to look at the hero’s journey.

And I’m listening to the story grid podcast. That’s helpful too.

Yes I have that.
I also have a RTB template for Scrivener.

Interesting. Will check that out.