HEAs and HFNs in #Romance #IARTG

 

If you’re t a romance writer you’re probably not familiar with the acronym HEA, It stands for happily ever after. There’s a another one that’s gained prominence since the rise in popularity of continued series. HFN or happily for now.

Many have criticized the romance genre for being formulaic and they can be. I remember one historical author years ago who wrote some of the first books in which the heroine became intimate with more than one ‘hero’. Her plots were structure so similarly that you could literally do a find and replac e for the names and setting and have nearly the same book.  Still they were popular, because of the HEA.

These days because ofgroups like RWA and strong online support and education , most serious writers in the genre have studied the craft of writing – plotting, characterization, dialogue, Goal Motivation and Conflict… the same elements and standards as other genres. But the one thing that sets them apart is HEA and HFN. Romance is dependent upon either a happy ending or a satisfactory ending with hanging threads, usually in the fantasy sub-genres. There is always a knowledge, not a wonder, that things will eventually turn out okay for the heroine and hero.

In Storm Crazy, book one of my Destiny Paramortals series based on Storm Lake,  things get pretty dicey at the end with a cliffhanger thread but the reader doesn’t have to worry that I’ll kill offo the hero or heroine. I’m not George R.R. Martin and this isn’t mainstream fantasy or literary fiction. It’s romance.

What they get to enjoy though is a series of books where the characters’ arcs and the paranormal aspects of Destiny grow and new characters enter the picture.  I just released the Storm Lake box set 1(Destiny books 1-3) with book 4 completing one of the story arcs in June. No worries, the main characters will live, but doesn’t anything in life remain exactly the same???? We’ll see.

Leave a comment and a link to your A2Z blog. I'd love to visit.

How I use #Scrivener for my series #Storybible @Scrivenerapp #amwriting #write

Livia Quinn's Storm Lake series Storybible

I offered this as part of my "Why You Should be Using Scrivener to pants, plot, revise, brainstorm or analyze your next novel." It's a bit more of an advanced tip though it's very easy to do once you understand the flexibility of the binder, labels, status and cork board.

If you write multiple series - or would like to - keeping track of books, how they relate, when they are scheduled, when they published, which series they were in can be challenging. Scrivener is so flexible and such a great organizer that it is perfect for doing story bibles. In this case, I have my greater series - Storm Lake - and under that umbrella I have a series set in each community around Storm Lake. So it’s my Storm Lake series bible.

I could have chosen to organize by community but I wanted to see the list of books and my progress in my ongoing plan. So this is more of a series tracker than my storybible, which I have for each individual series since they each have their own set of characters and premise.

Since the Destiny Paramortals are paranormal I gave that label the color purple and called it Paramortals. Each label (see on the right in the picture) is the name of a series and each status item a date when the book published, or I expect to publish. In the binder on the left I named each file with a code I use to tell me what series and in what order each book falls. SL6 PMS4 BIOTM is Storm Lake 6, Destiny Paramortals 4, Blame it on the Moon. You’ll notice on the index cards which are produced from the synopsis, I can add information like how much of the book is already written, 53k, 70k, etc.

This system helps when I am planning my writing and revision schedule for the year. I can also plop my finished .doc into a file inside each series folder. I can’t tell you how often that came in handy. I wish I'd thought of it back in in 2007 when I began using Scrivener.

As you can see not only is Scrivener flexible and organized but it creates a great visual. At a glance I can see all the purple Destiny books, Hot pink Under-Cover Knights (appropriate eh?), and blue Thunder Points.

Hope this gives you some ideas for your series bible or another way to let Scrivener work for you.

Livia