(Writing Romantasy For Beginners)
You Must Read Your Genre, they say
Yes, we’re supposed to read our own genre. But I refuse, at least while I am writing my newest novel. You know why. Because I don’t want elements and ideas from other stories to accidentally creep into my own books through my subconscious mind.
I read very widely, all sorts of books with all sorts of ideas, in many different genres, fiction and non-fiction. They go through an alchemical process in the deep recesses of my mind before pouring onto my page in surprising stories. I grew up immersed in fantasy and fairy tales, and my first series is a MG historical fantasy interactive novel. I accidentally fell into becoming a romantasy writer (see my journey here). The only books and series in this genre I’ve read are: Outlander, Twilight, ACOTAR, and Duskwalker Bride (who knew I had a thing for monsters?!). I did read the first book of Fifty Shades of Grey, but no more, as the writing isn’t the quality I prefer. I watched the movies instead. But there wasn’t enough fantasy in it for me.
I highly recommend the Duskwalker Bride series. Opal Reyne is a hugely successful indie author, and these are very fun. After reading these, well, let’s just say I had my longest-lasting high ever…with my husband…wow…
Using AI for comp title research
But I purposely stayed away from any and all others. I only had a few ideas of which comp titles (comparable book titles) to put in my query letter. ChaptGPT helped me research this, and I met an agent who recommends using AI for this particular purpose. Especially since many of us writers don’t have time to keep up with all the latest and newest comparable books to our own.
AI affirmed several of the titles I’d already chosen (Bartholomew: A Fairy Tale is like a fusion of Outlander, Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey, only in the Fairy Realm), and gave me some new ones to read, like Rhapsodic and Neon Gods. Now that I’ve finished my first book of my new series, Bartholomew: A Fairy Tale, I am ready, finally, to read in my genre. I will start with those two which I’d never heard of.
And very soon, I’ll dive into Book 2 of my series, when I will refuse to read my own genre once again.
Today’s Rules of Romantasy books
The more research I’ve done into submitting query letters for Bartholomew: A Fairy Tale, the more I’ve discovered that Romantasy, to be accepted by agents and publishers today, have to fit super strict parameters. Otherwise it’s an automatic no, no matter how good the writing is. (An agent once said they can’t believe I’m not published yet.) These are several romantasy elements to include and rules to follow:
- First, a debut book can’t be over 100,000 words.
- Oops. Mine was at 144,000 words, but an agent had me trim it down. It was challenging, but it’s now just under 120,000. (Outlander is 305,000! How times have changed!)
- There must be a Meet Cute or a Meet Ugly scene.
- Hmm, not sure my first meeting of my two characters fit this exactly. It’s not a “first meeting with a fight” or “first meeting is cute and they don’t realize their connection yet.” It’s more of a “wily fae man captures a human woman with such art, she tumbles right into his trap head over heels without quite realizing what is happening until too late.” Is that a Meet Cute or a Meet Ugly? Doesn’t quite seem to fit. Meet Trap? Oh dear.
- Romance readers want the usual tropes.
- What if you have more than one? Some tropes found in my new series are: Beauty & the Beast, Invisible Lover, Powerful Wealthy Man with naive woman who has to learn her own power quickly (that’s a trope, right?), Dominant vs. Submissive. The largest overriding trope is…well, I don’t want to give it away. You might pick up on the breadcrumbs.
- It has to have roughly 2.5 sex scenes in the whole novel.
- WHAT? Now I’m really in trouble. Only 2.5 sex scenes? What kind of romantasy is that? I’ll have to count, but mine has a blow-the-roof scene in almost every chapter! And I have 62 chapters!
- The story must have Internal and External Conflict.
- Oh, we’re good here – mine has plenty of all sorts of crazy conflict, inside and out! I’m wondering myself how they’re going to get out of their situation in Book 2. Got to start writing!
- It must have a Happy Ever After or Happy For Now Ending
- Whew, we’re good here. Good thing I can have a HFN ending! My own ending so shocked and surprised me, I couldn’t believe it when I finished that chapter and suddenly realized this could be the most unusual ending I’d ever read. I’m still wonder-struck.
- In any genre, to get a yes, the debut author has to already have a robust audience, social media platform, mailing list, something!
- Uh oh. I’m using a brand new pen name. Even my real name doesn’t have a huge following yet, I’ve been too busy writing novels.
Maybe This is Why My Books Don’t Fit the Mold
Once I learned about these requirements, I realized landing an agent with my new series would be next to impossible. (I’m still waiting to hear back from a few.) Not having read hardly any romantasy books, I wasn’t aware of all these rules, like such few sex scenes, while writing my own novel. This is why they say to read your genre.
Okay, fine.
Then I discovered a different strategy, and maybe this will work for me. We will find out if it will work for a romantasy book marketing strategy.
- First, build a social media brand around my pen name.
- I’m working on this now:
- www.mfgallagher.com
- MF Gallagher coming soon to Tik Tok!
- Second, release my book serially, chapter by chapter. First few chapters for free, the rest behind a paywall (helps against pirating). Most importantly, this builds your audience, helps to get feedback from readers directly, then you can use the feedback to tweak the novel. Once you’ve built your audience, THEN self-publish it with all changes. This process invites everyone along for the journey! (Let’s see if my readers tell me to get rid of all but 2.5 sex scenes. I mean, several are integral to the plot!)
This Is My Grand Experiment
I’m still learning all the ins and outs of releasing serially, working on my new website and social media, etc. This takes time. But it’s fun and a grand adventure and experiment. Let’s see how it goes! I am SO READY to finally share my own creative, unexpected stories with readers. My mind is weird and strange, and so are my stories. They do not fit a mold or a cookie-cutter formula. Yes, they have the standard hero’s journey elements, of course, but in different ways. Yes, the writing is good, I’ve gotten positive beta feedback already.
Who’s in for the journey? Let me know in the Comments below!