Romance Clinic, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Heroines

I rarely submit stories for anthologies or specific themes because my writing tends to go off on its own course. The moment I know something "specialized" is required, I can bet the farm the story will go far afield of its original intent. I'm experiencing this now -- writing a story on command, with a specific word count, genre and audience focus.

Outlines and synopses be damned...I can't get this thing done. I don't feel particularly blocked. In fact, I have a whole lot to say. It's just that the deeper I dig, the more I realize I'm not finding the romance in this story.

And there lies the problem: I'm not a romance writer.

It's not a romance if...
- the story can stand alone without romantic elements

That's what I've been told. That's what I've read.

Kind, well-meaning authors have tried to tell me this in the past. All that did was put my nose out of joint. And since my mom always says, "You don't believe shit stinks until you smell it," I had to do a lot of reading and writing to finally come to the same conclusion all on my own.

After a writer-friend said, "Romance seems to be secondary in your stories. In fact, your heroine always seems to do everything in her power to not be with the hero, it's crazy!" I finally had one of those Oprah's light bulb moments.

My heroines are commitment-phobic. They are often "coerced" into romance. If I wrote historicals, I'm sure I'd probably be fond of those un-PC forced seductions. Egads!

"Sassy is fine," I'm often told. "But your heroine is going into "unlikable" territory, and the reader won't be able to relate. Why must she be so ornery?"

Since I spent most of my year partying at Must.Find.A.Publisher-alooza 2007, similar questions have been asked of me as I shopped my wares. After much gnashing of teeth on my end, I sat down and reevaluated my goals.

I believe publishing is a cooperative business between authors, publishers and readers. Therefore, I set out to cooperate.

For a brief time, I went into what I like to call Romance Clinic. I picked the brains of the sexier writers I know and got critiques -- good and bad. I wrote a lot, edited a lot and revised a lot. I wrote some good stories during this period. I wrote stories that need to be rehabbed. I wrote stories that will never see the light of day. Most importantly, I wrote and wrote and wrote some more.

Out of all that writing came another light bulb moment: I gotta be me.

I'd be doing a disservice to myself and readers if I suddenly morphed into someone else. And whether publishers realize it or not, me sending them watered down versions of my original vision would be a disservice to them.

So all I can do now is work on the stuff every romance/erotica writer should care about. For me, these include tighter writing, better grammar/punctuation, better plots and hotter love scenes.