From J. Kaye's Book Blog

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My belief system is there is no such thing as a bad how-to write book. Anything that will get an aspiring moving in a positive direction is good. To back this belief system up, I have a shelf full of them. I even had Vanessa Grant's previous addition to this book on my shelf until a year or so ago. Remember the red one? I was curious to see how much had been added and the answer is quite a lot.

If you've read books by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Ph. D., Jordan E. Rosenfeld, and Karen S. Wiesner, this one might not impress you. The character worksheet and other templates are lacking compared to the books mentioned by two of the authors above. What it will do is give a beginner a place to start, and that is very important. Many of the how-to books out now are for intermediates. This one puts you at the starting gate. The book will assist in setting up your story, show you how to build dimensional characters, and explain the subgenres.

If you are starting out and writing romance is what you'd like to do, this would make a great first book. There's plenty of meat and very little fact, but don't stop with just this one book. Build a library of how-tos and learn from others.

Learning to Write Romance

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The cover of the book says it all:
Create a romance bestseller, write romantic scenes from start to finish, and get in on the big business of writing romance!

Writing Romance gives you all the ingredients for a successful romance novel, from writing powerful characters to opening the story with a question that stirs the reader's mind.

The book is divided into several different sections:
--Planning and plotting your book
--Researching
--Setting goals
--Selling your book

The author also gives details on the many different subgenres of romance: historical, paranormal, contemporary, fantasy, gothic and romantic suspence, just to name a few.

The sections of the book that helped me the most were examples of previously published works and query letters. After working hard to complete your manuscript, the query letter and getting published can be the hardest tasks to accomplish.

I also enjoyed the small essays that were included by some successful romance authors: Carole Dean, Kate Frieman, Daphne Clair, Robyn Donald, Kathi Webb, and Jo Beverly.

If you are interested in writing a romance novel, then Writing Romance is a good reference book to help get you started. It also includes a CD-ROM full of useful information.

Writing Romance worked for me!

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When I first received this book as a gift, I sat down immediately and read it cover to cover. Being an avid writer of romance fiction, it was the book I had been looking for. Writing Romance is a great source for writers just venturing out into the world of romance fiction, but offers all writers great tips and techniques. Not only does Vanessa explain her techniques in this book, but she also offers examples of how she used the techniques within excerpts of her own published novels, giving the reader a better understanding of how and when to use the technique. When I wrote my first romance novel, I used her book as my 'bible'. In the end, it proved to be an extremely helpful companion to me, and I completed a novel of 75,000 words. In this book, Vanessa provides her reader with a wealth of information as well as samples of query letters, manuscript formats, synopsis, character sketches, data sheets, as well as internet information for romance writers, publishers, agents, and more! If you're a struggling romance writer hoping to see your book hit the shelves, this is the book for you.

but Vanessa Grant can't write!

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This book was entertaining, but pretty useless. Most of the "advice" consists of personal accounts of Ms. Grant's own writing experiences, with very specific details as to how she came up with all her plots (and very minor attempts to translate this into beneficial knowledge for the reader). It could serve as a decent catalog if you were shopping for her books. She manages to make some useful points about designing characters to produce conflict, but she misuses vocabulary words on more than one occasion, lacks focus and flow, and really doesn't include any other valuable content. I finally had to quit reading when she started explaining how to use the "omnipotent" viewpoint (which is presumably one where the narrator can do anything?). "How To Write Romances" by Phyllis Taylor Pianka is the way to go for books of this sort, despite it not having quite as cheezy a cover as this one.

A good solid read.

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I had ordered the book with some misgivings. When it arrived, I expected to work through it laboriously chapter by chapter. To my surprise and delight it was a very enjoyable, easy read.

I found the information helpful and instructive. I really like the fact that Ms. Grant gave descriptions of how she came up with some of her characters and scenarios. It was also interesting to read how some of her characters and plots progressed, changed, then took further twists and turns!

Most valuable for me, however, was the validation that I am not going about this all the wrong way! It is nice to hear from someone who has done it, how they did it. You may not do the same, but it gives you a point of reference--that alone makes it worth the money.