So what are the elements of a good romance - I would like to know what other members think the best ingredients are for a good romance novel.
There are a number of different starting points that work well. You can have the immediate attraction, the slow-burn, the unrequited love, or even loathe-at-first-sight.
Romance books definitely need some
will they, won't they tension - the sort that Sybil Shepperd and Bruce Willis did so well in Moonlighting.
As a reader, I enjoy the anticipation, like having the dessert to look forward to at the end of the meal. The stories I like least are those where the two main protagonists are forced together at the beginning of the book - usually some kind of forced partnership, a marriage of convenience, or forced marriage in a historical - and then have to learn to love each other. I much prefer having the wedding at the end of the story, but that's my personal preference.
To me, the thing that makes a good romance is when it you have one of those mush moments.
What's a mush moment? It can be a word, or a phrase, or an action where you (as the reader) sigh, and you get those butterflies in your stomach. You get them in films as well. Quite often the event that triggers it will be unexpected, coming at you out of nowhere. It's the point where you desperately want to be in the book, being the heroine, rather than just reading.
It's also the one thing that's very difficult to spot as a writer, because you are too familiar with your own work to be able to tell whether your mush moment works or not.
I like to see a well written rivalry, although that's not necessarily the same as jealousy. I don't mind an element of mystery, if it compliments the romance. Some writers include a mystery plot to flesh out the book, because the romance alone isn't enough, but unless the two share some common ground they don't always work.
Conflict is necessary, but it has to be realistic and fair. I read one book where the heroine spent most of the book rejecting the hero's advances, because she didn't think he was serious. She was putting forward the same objections over and over again, and it wore thin after a while, particularly when the same author used exactly the same trick in her next book. The other thing I'm not keen on is lots of little incidents, coming one after the other, which all serve to keep our lovers apart. She's in a car crash, then he gets mugged and loses his memory, then just as she begins to walk again her father dies and she has to travel five hundred miles away for the funeral. Meanwhile the hero falls for the nurse who is caring for him. How much bad luck can one couple suffer?
Because they have hugged a lot before, she forgets about his feelings toward her and embraces him too with a long, loving hug. She regrets it immediately, and is frightened that she has made Chris fall deeper in love with her.
Emma, reading about your Eleanor, my first question was: Do you intend for them to end up together? If not, where will the happy ending come from?
If yes, what will make Eleanor change her mind about Chris? Jealousy might work well in this scenario. (it's human nature that you don't always appreciate what you've got until it's gone) Is Chris going to be a bit of a doormat, always prepared to do what it takes to make Eleanor happy - even if it means walking away - or is he going to grow a backbone and attempt to win her love by fair means or foul? He's tried the nice guy approach and it isn't working. How far would Chris be prepared to go to get Eleanor taking him seriously?
I wrote a three-way love story once, where girl A loved man B, and man C loved girl A. (and man B only loved himself) Unfortunately, the heroine had to find out the hard way that man B was a rat, at which point man C was there to pick up the pieces. Of course, when she found out how man C felt about her, she couldn't all of a sudden 'see the light' and fall in love with him. That can't happen at the drop of a hat. It is much easier to grow to love someone who you know loves you, but there's got to be something there in the first place. It can't materialise out of thin air. In my case, I decided that girl A would have been attracted to man C all along, if man B hadn't been there to draw her attention. That made them falling in love at the end of the story more believable, because she wasn't just liking him out of gratitude.
So perhaps you need to somehow draw Eleanor's attention from Chris at the beginning, so she doesn't
see him like that.
Since I started writing this, you've added more information, but I'm not going to edit what I wrote above. The only thing I'll add, from a readers point of view, is that you need to point us in the right direction of who we're supposed to be rooting for. It can be difficult to get into a story if you're not sure who are meant to be together. So, for example, if I began reading this I might be hoping Chris can win Eleanor, but then later you give Eleanor the love of her life. So that might then leave me wondering about Chris. If you set him up as a main character, you've got to make sure you give him a good resolution too. Don't leave the poor guy hanging, particularly if we've grown attached to him.
