u/Diylion

I think I've found the voices I want on ACX. One woman and one man and the man will just do the male voices.

Do they record it together? Or do I have the man do his parts and then have the woman edit them in? Or do I have to contract a pair that already does duets together?

While affording it is still a question, I'm struggling to decide if I should pick a male or female narrator. I don't listen to audiobooks at all so I just am not sure.

My book is third person omnipresent so I feel like there's more of an option. It rotates pretty evenly between male and female leaning perspectives.

I guess a part of me is afraid that the MMC "deep voice" being narrated by a female will sound really cringe but apparently women are more likely to narrate in this genre?

What you would consider descent for a first time author? My release is a month and a half away and I have 50.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Okay I cried now I'm going to go rewrite it.

I've always had a hard time with the whole alpha wolf thing but I feel like I could be it the FMC wasn't the super badass trope.

Preferably one with forced proximity.

Thanks

I have a modest budget (~1000) and I'm stuck between booktok, buying books and sending them to arc readers, Facebook, Instagram, advertising directly on Kindle/Amazon or going old school (billboards)?

I'm writing a romance book where a woman age 22 with a weak constitution (just frail) gets hypothermia. This happens in something like a 15th century.

In the book, her clothes are soaked, her lips are blue, she is shivering uncontrollably.

They bring her into a tent. They have a campfire, hot broth and hot stones. They also have dry wool clothing and fur cloaks and fur blankets at their disposal.

So my question is, would skin to skin contact be better than dressing her? Or is that dangerous somehow? What would be the fastest safest way to get her warm?

I am not asking for medical advice.

Im writing my first romance novel. There is a minor character that was inspired by Jacqueline White's Souls in Ruin.

It's a little girl that lives in the same castle as the main FMC at the beginning of the novel. In both books the girl represents hope.

In both books, it's a short chapter. The main FMC visits a little girl in her nursery, the girl is excited to see her, she has to explain that she's leaving because she's going to be married off, the little girl takes it well, she reads her a bedtime story, the bedtime story is foreshadowing. The girl falls asleep.

The story is very different from there. In her book, she helps the little girl escape before her evil future husband sieges the castle.

In my book, the future husband is the good guy so the story changes significantly from there. Also my character is injured so she's dealing with that.

None of the imagery, the names, or the bedtime story itself are the same. Her bedtime story is about two silver foxes that are killed by a poacher. Mine is about a wolf that falls in love with a rabbit.

I guess what I'm wondering is, is this a generic enough concept where it wouldn't be plagiarism? I have no issue admitting that the character was inspired by hers, because it undoubtedly was. But I don't want to plagiarize her work either.

We started dating when we were 15. We are now 33. We had sex pretty much the entire time. He is Catholic, I am atheist. When we were younger when we first started dating, he told me that he was done asking for forgiveness for our sexual acts because he didn't feel right apologizing for an act of love. It was a big deal for me. He wasn't going to feel bad about having protected sex, we used both condoms and birth control pills.

Now we are 33. We have been in some state of trying for children for the last 4 years. Getting pregnant is very difficult for us. We have one daughter. I am a stay-at-home mom. He has a great job is a great dad but we are both tired. We were trying for a second for about a year and I started to get panic attacks. I just don't want to go back to the newborn phase and start over. It wrecked my mental health the first time and I'm pretty sure it will be worse the second time. I always knew that I would be done with children before him because he came from a big family and he likes the idea of it. The problem is I don't really think either of us want to do the work. Most days at the end of the day he comes home from work and all he wants to do is watch anime. All I want to do is hide under the covers in a dark room from my daughter.

Now here's the problem with religion. Suddenly he's flipped on it again and now it's a sin for him to have protected sex, or sex that doesn't lead to children. Which of course works out fantastically well for him because it means he doesn't need to wear condoms and that he gets more kids. He has admitted that he knows it looks bad.

Of course, I have not allowed him to have unprotected sex with me since I decided I didn't want kids. He has never forced me into anything. I am getting an IUD this week and he is going to take off the day to help me with that.

The problem is now there's guilt. Every time we have sex there's big puppy dog eyes from him because I made him sin and I'm not giving him more children. And if I bring it up to him, it's just sort of like a shrug "too bad that's my religion."

I told him last night that I need a religion out of the bedroom. He is allowed to be upset that I don't want more children, but he does not get to punish me for it in the bedroom, turn sex into a guilt trip. We had sex with a condom yesterday. It was shitty sex. He still complained about the not having kids. So there was still guilt.

I have told him that maybe I will want kids again one day. But until it starts feeling like want and not like guilt it's going to be a no from me.

I don't know what do here. I'm hoping the IUD will help because really sex with condoms sucks for both of us. But I don't want to have to feel guilty every time I have sex until I go through menopause.

I would really like to hear from people who had experience where one partner didn't want to have kids anymore and the other did.

Nothing is more awkward than editing a smutty scene in a coffee shop while the men at the table behind you are discussing the Sermon on the Mount in their Bible study.

I see it too many times.

It's not hard to write a sex scene. I see authors pepper random sex scenes throughout their books that don't actually do anything for the story. Sometimes they're hot scenes, but if you removed it from the book it would have no impact on the story.

I think a lot of authors think they need to spray spice across their book to keep readers hooked. Some authors just had a scene in mind they wanted to write and shoved it into a fantasy novel.

Spicy scenes should reflect the progression of the story, build their characters development, create romantic tension, and actually do work for the story.

Personally I'd rather read a series that had entire spiceless books scattered through it but had good romantic progression than ones that are drowned in useless spice.

Thoughts?

I'm trying to define a relationship as slow burn but I'm not sure if it qualifies.

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First book: Flirting/kiss/near miss.

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Second book: sleeping in the same room(comfort not sex) more serious flirting, MMC has taken over financial and emotional obligation.

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End of second/ early Third book: marriage then seggs finally

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I think it's slow burn but with enemies to lovers trope seems to muddy it. Is it disqualified if the MMC is immediately taken?

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Something I've been trying with chat GPT is using the AI model to help with the pacing of a chapter especially for a rough draft.

For example, I'll have it write a similar scene to what I want to describe.

The first paragraph will be a description of the place, the second will be a description of the location of the character, the third will be the action and so on. Usually I end up editing the pacing later, but its pretty good at creating an okay paced rough draft and I never actually copy over any of the verbiage.

Bad idea or ethically okay?

Looking for some good romance novels. Which ones stuck with you?