How to Plot Romance Fiction: How to Outline a Romance Novel When You Are an Intuitive Writer

by Nina Harrington

Calling All You Intuitive Writers out there!

Does the idea of having to plan your romance novel in advance horrify you, even though you are afraid of getting lost or never finishing a new story?

Well here is the secret.

When you are planning to write a new story, all you need to focus on are the characters, and how they are going to change during the course of the romance as a result of the relationship.

That is what will make your story both unique and compelling.

Advanced story craft techniques are very handy at the editing and revision stage when you shape your story for the reader – but not here!

Instead, we use the power of character arc and emotional conflict to create a simple but effective emotional story map for your romance novel.

As you write your romance, your characters will come to life on the page, and reveal their true personalities through what they say and do. But first you have to get those characters onto the page and interacting with one another – fast!

This is the six-step writing process professional romance authors use to develop their novels – and stay motivated and excited by their story.

Now you can do the same. And keep your pants on!

Find out how to outline your romance novel when you don’t know a thing about story structure and the whole ideas of pre-planning your story freezes you.
And enjoy doing it!

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Romance

71 pages, Paperback

Published April 9, 2019

About the author

Nina Harrington grew up in rural Northumberland, England, within walking distance of both heather moorland, and wonderful wild sandy beaches.

She decided aged eleven, that her dream job was to be a librarian because then she could read all of the books in the public library whenever she wanted!

Many years later she took the bold decision to take a career break from working in the pharmaceutical industry to realise her dream of being a fiction writer. No salary. No contract - but following her heart.

That decision had put over 1.7 million copies of her romance books into the hands of readers in more than 28 countries and translated into 23 languages.

Some of these books have won international awards.

Nina loves to read both suspense and contemporary romance, and is still a total fan-girl when she meets her favourite authors at book-signings and conferences.

Nina has worked in the UK, France and Spain, and enjoyed wonderful holidays in countries such as Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Jamaica, India, Nepal, Mauritius, Reunion and Portugal, but is now settled with her husband in Jane Austen country in the south of England.

When she is not creating stories, which make her readers smile, without the aid of pharmaceuticals, her hobbies are cooking, eating, enjoying good wine, and talking, for which she has had specialist training.

Nina currently writes contemporary crime novels and series romance for the Mills and Boon Modern Tempted/ Harlequin KISS lines and Carina UK, plus non-fiction guides for other authors.

Reviews

[Jacquie Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful tool to guide authors through the general process. Contained a fair amount of examples and got a little too bogged down with details, which made it feel less intuitive.
Not exactly ideal for m/m fiction, I think character arcs for women are framed differently. Both pov's in m/m get the same level of characterisation where here only 1 is focused on.

[Martin Rinehart · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, others have pointed out that the publisher (the author) skimped on copyediting. Lots of errors. No excuse.

Now, the good parts. Harrington starts plotting with the characters. She is very friendly to seat-of-the-pants writers. To over-simplify, she would have you get a heroine. Get deep inside her (troubled) head. Why is she hiding from love? (She must have an issue, otherwise you have no plot.) Second, though less so, get a hero. (Harrington maintains that the heroine is more important as she is the one your readers, mostly female, identify with. I'd argue that this is too bad, but she's right.) Get inside his head, too. The story should emerge on its own.

Then, characters in place, start writing. She permits (encourages!) much more pantsing, as long as you follow your characters. You will only hear of plot points and pinch points to hear them disparaged. (Actually, she still honors the midpoint. And she talks often about four-act structures. Four acts? I've not met that elsewhere.)

I like her approach. But this is an 80-page book. Readable font size (good) and near double-spaced lines (to pad the length). It would have made a really good blog post. Maybe two. If you really love pantsing, try Stephen King, On Writing.

[Denver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely helpful for someone who wants to write romance but doesn't know how to go about it. It lays out the process for both Hero and Heroine, which is extremely useful to someone like me. I thoroughly appreciated this book because it's given me a better base to work off of for a romance novel.

[J.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This book did not come recommended to me, but it showed up in the Amazon algorithm and the price for a hardcopy version was more than reasonable. After reading it, I’m glad that I did not spend more than I did. Overall, the text could have benefited from an editorial review by someone experienced in nonfiction/technical editing for structure and organization. The tone of the text also varied from helpfully instructional to awkwardly cheerleading.

One thing this book did well was presenting the Four Act/Eight Sequence story structure, with inciting incident and turning points, specifically in the context of a romance arc. Harrington also deconstructs one of her books to show the beats of each sequence in a “live” example. I also appreciated the guidance on specific questions to consider when developing characters, since romance plots are specifically character-driven.

Be warned that this craft book is NOT gender-neutral when it comes to the two main romance protagonists. Harrington encourages writers to specifically start with the heroine and then craft the hero as an intentional foil. This shows the author’s bias in her experience with specific romance markets, and the information could easily have been converted to crafting two protagonists of any gender.

Some good information can be found here, especially in the context of intentional plotting for writers who are generally allergic to the concept, but I’m not sure how helpful it would have been if I didn’t already have a solid grasp on story structure. Take advantage of the “Look Inside” feature before deciding whether this craft book will be helpful to you.

[Rubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of Examples

This is a short and simple book on how we can outline simply, without having to know our entire story and frustrating ourselves. The author provides good ideas and tips and then (best if all) gives examples showing exactly what she means and how these outline ideas are useful in an aspiring author knowing their characters and plot. Fast read but I'm sure it would be longer if one decides to read this as they write to implement what they are learning. I enjoyed it and even though my current story idea is not necessarily a romance, I do want to include some and this helps me figure out how to get started and the questions I need to ask.

[DoodleBug · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hit a stumbling block right away, in the introduction.

Here's the thing that outliners/plotters do not understand about organic/intuitive writers: for some writers, no amount of plotting works. Harrington's first suggestion is to "develop your characters and know them from the start."

I know many, many writers for whom developing the characters occurs *as they write*. Any attempt to force the characters to develop before writing the story results in the kind of stuckness and burnout that ruins careers. I've seen it happen over and over again.

These are not mindsets that plotters understand. Harrington, being a plotter (judging from the book itself), just doesn't get it. This is NOT how intuitive writers work. Stop telling them to do these kinds of things. Do you realize how damaging that is?

DNF'd.

[Peggy Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romance writer's tool book!

thonNina lays out everything you need as a Romance writer To make your book Work Spectacularly.She breaks it down point by point, With easy to understand Explanations For you to follow.She also has a Great Course lesson on YouTube So you can follow alone with both.I highly recommend it.

[Sara Galisteo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro directo al grano que se centra en los escritores brújula. Yo siempre he sido más de mapa pero quería tener una aproximación al otro extremo para poder equilibrar mi escritura un poco. Lo he ido leyendo a ratitos y aunque creo que usaré algunos de los puntos me hubiera gustado que fuese un poquito más extenso.

[Lissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not an intuitive writer (I tend to need at least a barebones outline), but I still found this book to be helpful. I think Romancing the Beat is going to be my "bible" when it comes to writing, at least for the foreseeable future, but I am going to be using some parts of this book, as well (I've already been developing my characters as the author recommends).

[Laura Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

A good book on story structure for those who aren’t keen on plotting their whole book. I like the detailed dive into the 4 Acts structure and how it works in romance novels.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have plenty of books on writing but I appreciated how this one broke down and entire story for me to see each scene and plot point in an easy-to-understand way. It's a short book, less than 100 pages, and easy to digest in a sitting so you can then get to work!

[Sonia Cuerda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very basic and beginners how-to book

If you have an idea to write a romance book, but never had before, and have no clue how yo start, this might work gor you. But definitely not for people with more knowledge, have already started or had experience in the writing life.

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok for making a plan

What this book lays out should be intuitive to someone who reads a lot of romance novels. It might be helpful for some people to see the structure laid out, but there's not much new information here.

[Beth Jackson- king · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right to the point

Very easy to understand and straight to the point. A very helpful read! This author lays out an easy way to plot our romance novel I. A character focused way.

[Ashlyn Bragg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely what I was looking for! It's perfect for the romance writer when it comes to plotting out your first (or next) book.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

What helped me most was that she used ‘stages’ for some reason that terminology just clicked in my head.

[Mike Kanner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The low rating is probably because this was not what I was looking for. It is a good introduction. However, the example assumes that the reader had also read the book that was being dissected.

[Keith Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is aimed at intuitive writers, or “pantsers”, who don’t know anything about story structure and find themselves getting lost part way through a project. By learning a little about structure, the author says they can help you become more productive and prolific than ever before by finding a middle way between “meticulous story plotting and full on organic writing.”
Before I get started with this critique: Harrington's "secret" to plotting romance fiction is extremely valuable, changed the way I write my own novels, and is useful to writers in any genre. There were some things I didn't like so much, but they were MUCH less important that the bottom line: this book is really useful.
The secret, Harrington argues, is the “Emotional Story Structure.” This for the most part is another regurgitation of Aristotle’s poetics, but the emphasis on the importance of romance being character driven is useful to anyone in any genre. If you’re a plotter then it’s easy to get wrapped up in where you want the story to go and forget your characters have to get your there.
There’s a chunk of pseudo-neuroscience intended to debunk some older pseudo-neuroscience (honestly, anybody who isn’t a neurologist should just stay away from this discipline until it’s had 50 years to get over Bennet and Miller’s IgNoble for “Study on a Dead Fish’s Thoughts”). Harrington is a scientist herself, so there are references and some decent reading, but really it serves to do nothing more than make her system sound like it is based on neuroscience. Which it isn’t, really, nor does it have to be: the six steps she lays out are useful and her credentials as an author sufficient.
The pseudo-science is, however, use to make an important point: you don’t have to have a particular sort of brain to use planning techniques: focus on theme to build your character’ emotional journey, because that is the story, and the plot is just a mechanism for its delivery. Finally, and most valuably, she introduces the concept of the character’s “wound” – something from their youth that has damaged their world view and must be fixed before they can have a happy ending. The plot is how they pay a price to heal their wound and become a better person.
So, despite my snarky remarks about neuroscience, this is both a solid book on story structure and one that contains valuable insights put in a way that I hadn’t come across before that directly improved my own writing. Pick up a copy if you want to know how to put your characters in the driver’s seat (and for a decent model for structuring story to boot.) Highly recommended.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you love romance fiction and film? Have you ever finished a romance novel and thought 'I could do that"? Keep Your Pants On! is a fantastic resource for the budding romance author who is serious about writing genre fiction.

[Lori Puma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every romance writer needs to find a plotting strategy that works for them. Harrington proposes a flexible planning method that starts with the romantic heroes. The writer identifies one limiting belief in one of the romantic heroes and develops the story from there.

What it covers:
+ A six-step process for developing a romance novel with worked examples from published books
+ A four stage character arc: Start, Resistance, Growth, Transformation
+ How to expand each stage of the character arc into a sequence of scenes

Overall, I think this book is very helpful and gives romance authors milestones that their novels will need to hit without being overly prescriptive. It could use a formal definition of a limiting belief and some more examples of them for writers who aren’t familiar with that terminology. I've tried to explain this concept to authors and been met with confused looks.

A definition might sound like this: A limiting belief is a *false* conclusion that a character has drawn from their past experience. Past experience means it’s something that happened before the story starts (aka backstory) or sometimes it’s the lesson learned from events shared in a prologue.

Example: A heroine whose mom repeatedly cheated on her dad may conclude that the way to live a good life (and avoid becoming the subject of town ridicule) is to never, ever let her wild side out or take any risks. (Scarlett Kelly in Jami Albright’s Running from a Rock Star). The belief that it’s possible to live a good life without risk is the limiting belief.

[Spinster · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a decent overview of romance writing. I wish parts had been fleshed out a bit--it's very short, and the author mentions that there are bits every romance has, which will be "signposts" as you write, but then she doesn't really go into detail about what all those signposts are. Combined with something like Romancing the Beat it does help you figure out what to include.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is a misnomer. It has nothing to do with outlining. All the advice is basically about pantsing your way through a rough draft following an emotional story map.

The book needs a good editor.

[Delaney Diamond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad I stumbled across this book. It's great for those of us who are pantsers and don't prepare outlines.

[Deb Moncrief · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book had some helpful information, but I was expecting more on how to plot a story. Overall, it was a good resource.