The Filipino Group discussion

Hello! I'm hosting the Biweekly Meme for the first half of August, and I'm currently typing this post while I'm in class. #likeaboss Haha. But anyway, I am going to channel my author persona, Ana Tejano (look, author page!), for this meme.

So this week, we are all going to create our own romance novels. :) This is the framework that we used for our various romance writing workshops. :)

What we will do is create our own romance novel using the structure below. (Or really, any novel, but since I'm a romance author [yey], let's go with this genre :D)

YOUR ROMANCE NOVEL

Author Name
- You may use your real name or a pen name

Your Genre
- Contemporary, fantasy, historical, etc.

Your Novel's Romance Trope
- what is your chosen trope? Ideas are here (warning, black hole!). You can have a sub-trope, but for simplicity, just choose one. :)

Your Title
(Self-explanatory :D)

Your Main Character
- Give us a name, what he/she does
- What is his/her situation at the start of your novel
- What is his/her goal?

Your Lead Interest
- His/her name, what he/she does
- How will your MC meet him/her, and what's about him/her that your MC will like (or not like)?

Your Villain
- His/her name, if applicable - because the villain could be his/herself
- What does he/she do in the story to keep your MC from getting her goal?

Your Setting
- When/Where is your novel happening?

Your One Paragraph Synopsis
- Write this as if it's a book description on Amazon - make me want to read it/buy it :)

But what if I don't want my novel to be romance?
Well, it has to be romance because that's the meme. :P But okay, really, your novel doesn't have to be purely romance (like there could be a war happening), but the main storyline will concentrate on the relationship of the main character.

All participants will get a stamp on their passports! And because we like competition, all entries will be sent to a set of judges who read/write romance, and they will pick among the entries the one(s) they, as romance readers, will want to read. Winner(s) will get a special stamp + a prize (that I will still determine). :)

Got it? Example in the next post! :)

Example!

Author name:
Ana Tejano (a combination of my second and middle name)

Your Genre:
Contemporary

Your Romance Trope:
I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship but moving to Relationship Upgrade

Your Title:
Fall Like Rain

Your Main Character:
Rain De Castro, 24, an IT professional. She's shy, almost socially awkward, and keeps to just a few friends. She's been in love with her best friend from college, Mark, since she turned 18, but he's currently in a relationship, until she finds out that he's not.

Your Lead Interest:
Mark Velasco, 25, a freelance graphic designer. He's friendly, boy-next-door type of guy. They met when he said hi to her during a summer camp, and they were studying in the same school. Despite Rain's shy, stoic and sometimes abrasive personality, he saw through her became her friend.

Your Villain(s):
Rain, in some cases because she over thinks and does not want to harm her friendship with Mark. And then there's Lissa, her cousin, who she thinks Mark likes soon after he becomes single.

Your Setting:
2014, Makati (where Rain works), and Pasig (where Rain lives)

Your One Paragraph Synopsis:
Rain De Castro has been in love with her best friend, Mark Velasco, for almost the entire time she has known him, but she’s clearly in the friend zone because he’s happily in a relationship. Or so she thought, until the news of his break-up reaches her. Now that Mark’s single again, she decides that it’s time to get out of the zone. But when her cousin Lissa comes into the picture and sets her eyes on Mark, Rain feels troubled when he gets a little too friendly with her. Rain is determined to fight for what she feels this time, but is it worth the effort if it's a losing battle from the start? Will she back off to give way for her best friend's happiness, even if it means losing him to someone else again?

Oooh I like this! Yay go romance <3 And you're right, TV Tropes is such a rabbit hole. While checking out the link you sent, I somehow ended up reading about Professor X giving Magneto the Care Bear Stare HAHA. I'll get back to this later! :)

Wait lang lemme think. Me wants to join hihi

YOUR ROMANCE NOVEL

(view spoiler)[
Author Name
Monica Jacob

Your Genre
Contemporary romance

Your Novel's Romance Trope
Belligerent Sexual Tension (hehe!)

Your Title
It Is So Ordered.

Your Main Character
Sofia Perlas, 31, is the Chief of Staff of the most senior Associate Justice at the Supreme Court. She’s been working with Associate Justice Carpio for more than 5 years already and can’t wait for the time when she can apply for a judge position and (hopefully) be appointed, with the help of her boss.

Your Lead Interest
Maxwell Dizon, 35, just started work as the Chief of Staff of the most recently appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He is gorgeous and intelligent – a bar topnotcher – and he knows it, too. He transferred from the private practice to the Supreme Court per advice of the senior partners in the law firm where he works in the hopes of landing a judge position soon.

Your Villain
- Maxwell, because he will compete with Sofia for the same judge position.
- Angel Jacinto, who works at the Judicial Academy which screens applicants for the judge position. She happens to be Maxwell’s batchmate at the Ateneo Law School where they both graduated.

Your Setting
In the vast, silent, and majestic halls of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

Your One Paragraph Synopsis
Sofia Perlas has one goal in her life: to become a Supreme Court Justice. But first things first: she needs to be appointed as a trial court judge. Her short stint as a private litigator combined with her experience as Chief of Staff of the most senior Justice of the Supreme Court, who has pledged to help her, make her a shoo-in. There is no reason why Sofia should not feel confident. Unfortunately, good-looking bar topnotcher Maxwell Dizon, Chief of Staff of the newly-appointed Justice of the SC, also has his eye on the same judge position. As Chiefs of Staff, Sofia and Maxwell have had to deal with each other often, and each time they did, they clashed. Sofia despises Maxwell for his know-it-all ways, and she detests him more when she learns that he is her strongest competition for the judge position. It doesn’t help to know either that he’s friends with Angel Jacinto, a member of the panel from the Judicial Academy that selects and screens applicants for positions in the judiciary. In this battle of wills (and judgeship), who will prevail? Will all be just in love?
(hide spoiler)]

MONIQUE: This is amazing and I'm angry that it doesn't already exist.

Kristel wrote: "MONIQUE: This is amazing and I'm angry that it doesn't already exist."

Ehe, thanks Kristel! :D

MONIQUE: (view spoiler)[ Go, write that novel! :) (hide spoiler)]

Lynai wrote: "MONIQUE: [spoilers removed]"

AYYYY. (view spoiler)[Sa totoo, kinilig naman ako sa comment mo Lynai haha. But I don't have time for that. It requires commitment and I don't think I can commit. And I don't know if I can write romance? Hehe. Thanks though! :D (hide spoiler)]

Monique wrote: "Lynai wrote: "MONIQUE: [spoilers removed]"

AYYYY. [spoilers removed]"

Ang interesting kasi. Two tough characters butting heads over ambitions and then (view spoiler)[falling in love with each other? (hide spoiler)]. Kilig. :D

Overthinkiiiiing
Hope I can submit something

Ingrid wrote: "Overthinkiiiiing
Hope I can submit something"

Don't overthink! :D Haha tip: don't worry about making it unique. Just think of a story you'd want to read (view spoiler)[(or you know, pwedeng wish-fulfillment din haha) (hide spoiler)]. (And don't think about the ending :D)

Monique: Gusto ko rin yang idea mo. :) I can imagine a cover for it already :)

Ohmygash Tina, sumakit ang bangs ko! :-P Lol!

http://blackbodyslists.blogspot.com/2...

Nakahabol pa. Haha. HUhu.
(view spoiler)[
Author name:
Celestina Lovelorn

Your Genre:
Western Fantasy

Your Romance Trope:
Beligerent Sexual Tension, Stockholm Syndrome

Your Title:
Magic and Mayhem

Your Main Character:
Charlie Charlston, 23, a smart, arrogant and plucky, young man, orphaned at the age of 16 when his archeologist and amateur magician father was murdered on his way home from an expedition. Hewas left a chest of his possessions, containing a diary, articles of clothing and an amulet. He was sent to live with a despotic aunt and uncle, to work on their tobacco farm.

Your Lead Interest:
Kiradesa “Kira” Novarhk, a wile and headstrong Mayan sorceress, cursed to be trapped inside an amulet and to be duly obligated to perform the bidding of whoever frees her. Her freedom can be achieved only if the master wishes such, or if she can find any loopholes during the summoning.

Your Villain(s):
Rufus A. Varicious, 45, a corrupt politician, a powerful magicianand head honcho of a band of thieves. He has been known to kill in order to gain precious artifacts of various kinds, preferably the ones with very high monetary value. But most especially the rare ones, those with magical qualities. He killed Charles Charleston Sr. hoping to find a magical amulet. He did manage to kill him, but failed to gain possession of the amulet.

Your Setting:
19th Century Wild Wild West

Your One Paragraph Synopsis:
Charlie Charleston has long harbored the desire to escape the tobacco farm and his overbearing aunt and uncle in order to hunt down the perpetrators who killed his father. As he was reading his dad's diary for the nth time, he discovers a folded piece of paper with instructions regarding the amulet. He sets out to perform the incantation and finds himself in front of Kira, the Mayan sorceress. They already detested each other after just a few seconds of meeting. But Kira had no choice but to do Charles' bidding. Together they set off in search of Rufus A. Varicious, hoping to put a stop to his crimnal activities and make him pay for his dark deeds, with Kira always finding ways to escape captivity and to take revenge on Charles, and Charles finding ways to torment her with propersterous biddings. But strangely enough, the two also starts to fall for each other, only to be thwarted by Rufus A. Varicous who was able to took possession of Kira and the amulet. Will the two be able to gain freedom and perhaps love freely as genie and master? Char. (hide spoiler)]

MY CRAPPY ROMANCE NOVEL
(view spoiler)[
Author Name
- A.C. Miranda

Your Genre
- Contemporary

Your Novel's Romance Trope
- No Romantic Resolution

Your Title
- He Ain't a Gangster --> I cringe! LOL!

Your Main Character
- Ralph
- He is a shy boy who lives in the slums. He is lanky but muscled, has floppy hair, and sun-darkened skin. He goes to a state university even though his family can barely manage. That's how poor they are. His family pressures him into dropping his studies and help them with their kwek-kwek stall.
- His goal is to make it each day while still going to school. And to catch a glimpse of the lead interest.

Your Lead Interest
-Joey
- He has gangster looks but he's not part of it (he's friends with some of them though). He is slightly stocky, has a lion tattoo on his right bicep, and fair complexion. He works fulltime at a fastfood chain and thinks he is too stupid for school. And he's poor, so why waste money? He has an asexual vibe but his helpfulness makes him magnetic.
- They were high school classmates and live on the same street. He acts as Ralph's protector from the barangay gangs ever since Ralph let him copy his quiz answers.

Your Villain
- Adrian
- He is a small boy with a crutch. Childhood polio deformed his right leg. He is the son of the barangay chairman. He is a barangay scholar although he's not really smart. But he is kind and diligent, but maybe his father rigged up the scholarship.
- Well, he "stole" Ralph's scholarship (Ralph isn't a genius but it is generally believed in the barangay that Adrian doesn't need the scholarship as much as Ralph does) and he sometimes gets the attention of Joey (because of the bad leg).

Your Setting
- Late 90s, in the slums with a makeshift wooden bridge over a stinking estero.

Your One Paragraph Synopsis
- Ralph dreams of finishing his studies at a state university. However, he is too poor to even buy a ballpen and sheets of yellow paper. He is also intimidated by his classmates who, even though they belong to the same socio-economic class, manage life better. His small school worries are assuaged by Joey, a high school friend and also a kabarangay. He buys some of Ralph's school supplies and keeps his esteem up (even though he himself thinks school is crap). Ralph has a crush on him but Joey isn't interested because well, he's one of those guys who are not sexually mature (who prefer to play games and, in Joey's case, work). One day, two rival gangs had a face-off and a kabarangay named Adrian got caught in it on his way home from school. He falls into the estero and he would have drowned had it not been for Ralph and Joey. Feeling grateful, Adrian befriends them, who is friendless himself because of his bad leg. So the three developed a friendship. But! A silent war stronger than those of the gangs ensues between Ralph and Adrian for Joey's attention, who is so dense (and who's probably straight?), and we wonder if either of the two can awaken his sleeping desires and have a happy ending. Or not.
(hide spoiler)]

Romance Novel
(view spoiler)[Author Name
- Ema Vergara

Your Genre
- Contemporary

Your Novel's Romance Trope
- The Gentleman and the Scoundrel

Your Title
- Race to Lala Land

Your Main Character
- Lala Reyes, 22, fresh graduate. Carefree-natured, she plans to celebrate the end of her student life by going on a road trip with her friends. She has the car, but not the license. And she has three weeks to earn it and have the time of her life before summer ends and adult life begins.

Your Lead Interest
- Ben Angeles, 26, driving instructor. Ben always followed the rules: never beat the red light, never forgot to turn on his signal light when making a turn, never had a ticket to his name. Ben seems a bit too strict and methodical but to Lala’s surprise, Ben transforms into a whole new person on the racetrack as a drag racer! (Of the regulated kind, of course).

Your Villain
- Albert Soriano, 26, Ben Angeles’ biggest rival in the racetrack. There’s always been an air of arrogance around him which Lala finds annoying but at the same time quite attractive, more than she cares to admit.

Your Setting
- Baguio (driving lessons), Clark International Speedway (where the action happens)

Your One Paragraph Synopsis
- A road trip with friends, that’s how Lala Reyes wants to celebrate the end of her student life. But she doesn’t know how to drive, at least not yet. Ben Angeles, his strict driving instructor makes sure she earns her license in the soundest way possible. A month later, Lala receives an invitation to a Drag Racing Competition. She decides to see the event for herself and to her surprise, Ben is on the racetrack and cocky Albert Soriano just made him eat dust. Fast cars and bad boys, who will Lala end up riding shotgun with? (hide spoiler)]