how to outline your romance fiction

Part Two. Emotional Story Maps

• “I don't outline--it's just not my process. I have a basic situation, a cast of characters, a canvas or setting…If my characters don't take over at some point, I'm not doing my job--which is to make them real for me so they'll be real, and compelling, for the reader. It's their story, so they need to drive the train.”

Nora Roberts

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A story map is a starting point for an exciting journey

into the unknown.

The Four Stages of any Emotional Story Map can

be described as:

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Stage One Stage Two Stage Three Stage Four

Show the hero and

heroine in their

ordinary life, with

the limiting beliefs

they have created

to protect

themselves.

Then they meet

and are locked

together.

This is the falling in

love stage! Show

how the hero and

heroine start to see

that their lives can

be different – if they

let go of their old

beliefs.

Commitment to the

other person leading

to increased

vulnerability – but

then something

happens which

challenges them

again and they

revert back to the

old fears. All is lost.

They take a leap of

faith and do what

they have always

wanted to do -

because of the

romance

relationship.

• The emotional story map of the romance is built up from the series of choices the hero and the heroine make under pressure. That’s why each story will be unique.

• In this outlining process, we are going to plan out the opening scenes which make up Stage One.

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Stage One

Show the hero and heroine in their ordinary life, with the

limiting beliefs they have created to protect themselves.

Set up the hero

Set up the heroine

The hero and heroine meet for the first time.

Something happens to upset their ordinary worlds

and throw them out of balance.

Something happens which forces them to make a

decision which will lock them together.

• What have they always been afraid of? How can you demonstrate that on the page?

• What have they always wanted to do? How can you demonstrate that on the page?

• What happened in the past should still be causing them problems in the present - in the form of self-defeating beliefs and behaviour. Their ghost or wound still causes them pain.

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•The reader wants to see that character transformed over the course of the book because of her relationship and the difficult choices she has to make under pressure - so you have to show on the page how much of a journey that person is going to have to make and how much they will resist the pain of having to face their fears.

•The bigger the fear, the greater the satisfaction for the reader.

•How does this crisis kick off the story?

•Why now?

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How to Expand Stage One into a

Sequence of Scenes

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Stage One. Part 1

So the first scene is usually setting up the hero or the heroine in the story.

Stage One. Part 2

The second scene introduces the other main character. So if I have the heroine POV in scene one, then the hero is in scene two.

In both cases, by the end of each scene the reader should have a good idea about who this person is and what they are doing and feeling inside this story world.

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Stage One. Part 3

Both of these opening set-up scenes

can be very short – a few pages at

most, because the third element is all

about getting them together on the

page.

Their crucial first meeting. 11


Stage One. Part 4.

Something happens to upset their ordinary worlds.

It could be the fact that they are meeting for the first time or it could be some external trigger linked to the story situation which forces them to react to the event.

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Stage One. Part 5.

Something happens which forces

them to make a decision which will

lock them together.

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Word Count for Stage One of your

Romance Novel

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Speed Writing.

Writing scenes out of order.

Having fun!

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how to outline your romance fiction

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