It’s that special 💝 filled day again on Saturday. You know the one Reader, I’m talking about Valentine’s Day.

And in the week leading up to the day of love 💖, sales of chocolates and flowers have been massive. But what about…

Books? 📚

Yep, you heard me correctly.

Over 2.2 billion books are sold each year worldwide. And of those billions, 25% were Romance books. That number jumps to 40% if you’re just counting books within genre fiction.

Crazy right? 🙀

And that’s only counting stories that would be shelved in Romance or its subcategories. It doesn’t count stories in genre fiction “with romantic elements” such as Rick Riordan & Mark Oshiro’s The Sun and The Star.

So why has Romance always gotten the snub despite the clear BILLIONS it brings in each year for authors and publishers, both traditional and indie?

The ugly truth?

Because traditionally, those were stories written for women by women authors. And historically, the industry—and society as a whole—have done their damnedest to dismiss the accomplishments and desires of femalekind.

But times they are a-changing, and YOU can be a part of that, Reader, whether you want to write a Classic, Contemporary, or Queer Romance. So if you’ve always harbored a secret desire to pen your own love story…

Here are the 5 Elements You’ll Need to Craft the Perfect Love Story:

1) The Incomplete Character

Notorious rakes, damaged goods, characters with trauma with a capital T. Perfect people don’t make for interesting stories, and your Legendary Character needs to be an incomplete person who is missing some important piece of themselves. A character who can only become a whole person because of The Foil.

2) The Foil

Every Legendary Character needs a cute and charming counterpart to foil the status quo of their current day-to-day life. Or maybe your Legendary Character is the roguish Loki type, and their Foil is the serious stoic type, such as in the Danmei series Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.

3) The Meet Cute

The Legendary Character and Foil need to meet in a crazy and memorable way. The sort of thing that usually becomes part of the story’s pitch.

In While You Were Sleeping, Sandra Bullock’s character, Lucy, meets her Foil, Jack, while she’s pretending to be the fiancée of his brother, Peter, who’s in a coma. The same Peter she saved from being hit by a train on Christmas Day.

Honestly, it’s one of my favorite RomComs of all time.

4) The Complication

The thing that’s keeping them from finding their “Happily Ever After,” while at the same time continuing to throw them into close proximity. Maybe it’s their workplace hierarchy, the threat of deportation, or societal prejudice, but something is wrenching these two would-be lovers apart while also shoving them together in the story.

In Heated Rivalry, the Complication is the hockey itself. Sure, playing professionally means they’re constantly being forced onto the ice against each other, and that rivalry eventually turns into something more. However, the sport—and Ilya’s home country of Russia—are less than welcoming to queer persons, and they must hide their feelings behind a facade of, well, rivalry.

5) The Grand Gesture

A big grand gesture the Legendary Character makes to prove themselves to the Foil and obtain their Happily Ever After.

Maybe it’s interrupting the wedding to confess their feelings, forsaking one’s family to run away together, or reigniting the Foil’s heart with their magic after near-death. Whatever the action, it’s gotta be big, shocking, and dramatic enough to leave the love interest and readers breathless.

Aside from these 5, there are other important things to consider when crafting your love story. One of which is how high you intend to set the burner on that tame to explicit scale for your story’s intimate content. In Romance, this rating is called the Spice Level, and I’ve included it (along with TV and age ratings for comparison) on The Saga Quest site.

Well, Reader, I hope this helps you craft your own love story this Valentine’s Day. 💘 This is your friendly neighborhood storytelling Kat wishing you a wonderfully creative holiday!

Your cohort in storytelling,

Kat Vancil

🐱

PS 👉 Looking for a new read? Then here’s a bouquet of 10 Swoon-worthy Queer Regency Romances for the Palentine’s Season just for you!

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Sarah Marie Page Heart-pounding YA and NA fantasy Hi! I'm Sarah! I'm a YA and NA fantasy author. 🔥🌹 If you like A Court of Thorns and Roses and the Fourth Wing, you would LOVE my books. Wanna check one out? I'll send you my short story, Rapacity! Here's what it's about: "18-year-old Catalina has one purpose: marry her fiance, then murder him. But all bets are off when she strikes a bargain with the trickster demon prince and discovers her fiance is planning to murder her too." Subscribe​

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