How to Write a Christian Romance Novel (Part 3)
by Sandi Layne

You Need a Goal!

Now, we get to the real fun part of any novel: Plot Development!  If you were to start on a trip, it would be helpful if you knew where you were going before you got too far from home, right?  This is especially true, in my humble opinion, when writing fiction.

Now, there are highly successful and stunning writers who choose not to have an end before they begin.  They like the creative process and want to be character-driven in their writing. This is great, but for me, it isn’t reliable and I like to have limits and boundaries, even if I don’t care for outlines.

So, have an idea of where Jack and Jane will end up.  Yes, if it’s a Christian romance they’ll end with a wedding or marriage proposal and both of them should be in harmony with the Lord. Of course! But how will that happen?  You have to know!

To Outline or Not to Outline?

How much control to give a character?  This may seem like a strange question, but you have to answer it.  I once gave my characters ‘free reign’ in a story.  I just wrote wherever they took me…not as rare as you might think…and the novel turned out to be incredibly long and complicated, but not at all coherent.

I decided then that heroes and heroines are like children: they need guidance. 

To this end, then, I outline.  My outlines are very vague.  I generally start out by saying something like:

  1. Jack and Jane meet at the airport when she picks him up for her friends Roger and Rhonda.
  2. Jack is confused by Jane’s standoffish personality. Jane thinks he’s an arrogant twerp.
  3. At a party at R &R’s house, they first avoid, then speak to, then avoid each other. Conflict…?
  4. Tentative truce dissolves when Jane misinterprets Jack’s …..?

And so it goes, chapter after chapter.  Sometimes, an outline can be highly detailed. Other times you might only require the most general notion of what to put in a particular chapter.

Plots and Chapter Breaks

I am occasionally asked:  How do I know how long to make a chapter?  How long should one be? Is there a ‘length requirement?’ 

I will share the most helpful advice I ever received about chapters, courtesy of Mrs. Tension, from the Roundtable.  She told me that each chapter needs to have a conflict in it of some sort.  A small peak to which the action directs itself, then moves from if applicable.  This might be mere suspense that can carry an ‘intermediate’ chapter from beginning to end.

So how long should a chapter be?  As long as it takes to do this.  Now, in many of the mainstream romances, you will find approximately fifteen to twenty chapters.  Their word counts, per book, will range from 45,000 – 75,000.  So…you do the math.  I personally shoot for about 3,000 words per chapter, and that generally keeps me at a reasonable length for both the tension in the chapter and the length of the overall work.

How Many Storylines?

Plotting is tricky.  You want your main romance, of course.  Then, there’s any character-type issues to deal with.  Do we have an arrogant man who needs to be taken down a peg? A woman with a secret that needs to be aired?  And, in the Christian romance, there has to be the element of growth in the spiritual realm.

The trick is weaving these strands so that they progress with equal precision and interest, so that the culmination can come in the last chapter…or two.  I have one book where the heroine gets her spiritual life together in the penultimate chapter, while her romance takes another 3,000 words to complete.

Next!?

Now that you’ve got characters, a place to go for ‘happily ever after,’ and a rough idea of how to get there, we’ll begin the writing of a book…next week! Above all, remember to pray for your work every day.  Unless God is in your work, you won’t make the impact that he wants you to make for him! 

Copyright 2003 Sandi Layne

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