I'm working on a few stories with romantic subplots. I'm just wondering how best to describe the female characters without being posted on "men writing women".
For example, one is a tall and muscular battlemaid. She has rather large breasts (I know, I have a type) and I want to describe but not objectify, especially during combat.
Was doing this for an urban/modern fantasy and wonder how should it be written?
Would the 28 year old be seen as trying to be young or would the 23 year old lose part of their youth trying to catch up to them?
is this what would usually happen?
So a little background: I've been deep in editing my finished manuscript for a while & let me just say this is absolutely the worst part of writing (for me) lmao. Anyways I've got the idea next book written down and I WANT to write it but I can't seem to get back to the point where I feel motivated to actually write/begin. Ultimately what I'm trying to ask is what helps you get that motivation/set the scene for you to write? Honestly I'll take any advice at this point!
How did you choose yours, and is there any story or strategy behind it?
I’ve been thinking about something recently and I’m really curious to hear other people's perspectives on it.
I know race and representation can be a fraught subject, so I want to say at the outset that I’m totally not judging anyone’s reading preferences or trying to catch anybody out. I’m genuinely just interested in whether other people have noticed the same pattern and whether they think it has any effect on marketability.
Growing up, I consumed a lot of Asian media alongside Western media. If I watched a Japanese, Korean or Chinese drama, an Asian woman being the romantic lead was simply normal. She was the heroine, was a "normal" person and she got the romance. Her ethnicity, of course, wasn't pushed forward.
In a lot of the Western media I consumed growing up, the pattern was VERY different. Asian women were comparatively rare as leads and when they did appear, I kept running into the same cluster of stereotypes: the generically named “Mei Ling/Mei Li”, the sex worker, the maths genius, the martial artist, the exotic love interest, the tragic victim blah blah blah. Quite often she either died or if she didn't, she certainly didn’t get the guy and misery ensued for her or all. Some of the stories I have in mind were The Dream Traders and The Blue Dress Girl by EV Thompson, Madama Butterfly, Miss Saigon, Sayonara, South Pacific, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, The World of Suzie Wong, The Quiet American, Indochine. Trying to avoid more recent ones so I don't give anyone the snots :P
Later, there seemed to be a move towards the Asian best friend in a lot of stories. Hallmark movies, I’m looking at you. These Asian characters generally survived till the end, which was progress I guess, but often didn’t have much of a storyline or backstory of their own, let alone being the person whose romantic story we were actually following. A lot of the time their job is to hang around while the FMC is packing and ask her questions like: "Oh my God - are you really going back to the Christmas tree farm? What if Todd is still there? You know he's still into you and looks totally hot in plaid."
Obviously Western media is so much more diverse now, including romance, and there are tonnes more Asian female leads in books, TV series and movies. One thing I’ve sometimes noticed, though, is that when an Asian woman is the heroine, her ethnicity is quite often foregrounded as part of the premise or marketing in a way that a white heroine’s ethnicity generally isn’t. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a problem. Cultural identity can obviously be an important and valuable part of a story, I just notice it for obvious reasons as Asian FMCs rarely get to just be a Normal Person. So it got me thinking about what readers and publishers regard as the “default” romance heroine.
Recently, after I started publishing on amazon, I began lurking in some of the more niche parts of romance. I mean I get why you're not going to fall over Asian FMCs in a small town romance novel, but I also noticed it in why choose/reverse harem and poly romances, too. This is totally anecdotal and based only on the books and recommendations I’ve happened to see, but the FMC seems to be overwhelmingly white. The group of men may be more racially diverse, although even there I seem to see Black and Latino men considerably more often than Asian men, but women of colour seem way, way rarer at the centre of the relationship.
I’ve noticed something similar in some sports romance spaces, especially hockey romance. There definitely are Asian and other WOC heroines written by eg Kate Willoughby, so I’m not saying they don’t exist, but the default FMC still seems to be white much of the time. Hockey romance is not very diverse generally because hockey itself is not very diverse.
So I started wondering about this specifically from a writing and marketability perspective: to what extent, if any, do you think the ethnicity of the FMC affects how readily readers will pick up a romance?
I’m interested in both conscious preferences and the less conscious assumptions we all acquire from decades of seeing particular kinds of people presented as the romantic default. Do you think an Asian, Black, Latina, Indigenous or otherwise non-white FMC changes how a book is positioned or marketed? Does it affect cover choices, discoverability, click-through, reader uptake or how easily an unknown author can attract new readers? Does it depend on whether her cultural background is central to the story, or whether she is simply an Asian/Black/Latina/etc woman having a romance in which ethnicity is not the main point?
If I’m writing fan fiction, I stick to a character’s canon ethnicity, but when I create a FMC myself, she pretty much always shows up as Asian. That is not something I’m going to change depending on the answers here, I’m just interested in whether other writers think that choice has any market effect, particularly in genres where a white FMC still seems to be the norm.
On sites such as Romance.io there are tags for things like an East Asian MC, but as far as I can tell you can’t simply sort the catalogue by the heroine’s ethnicity in the way you can filter for a lot of romance tropes. So it’s quite hard to tell whether readers actively seek this out, actively avoid it or mostly don’t think about it at all.
From my own reading experience, because white FMCs were overwhelmingly the norm in much of the romance I encountered, I never expected the heroine to share my ethnicity in order for me to identify with her, like her, care about her romance or be interested in her journey. I honestly don’t know how much other readers notice the heroine’s ethnicity when deciding whether a book feels “for them”.
I have had people tell lme I should try to “hide” the ethnicity of my FMC on my covers if I want more people to read it, which made me laugh because I was basically thinking, “Err, I think they’ll figure it out pretty fast from her surname...” :D But it did make me wonder whether some writers have actually encountered pressure, explicit or otherwise, to make a heroine more racially ambiguous or to foreground or downplay her ethnicity for marketing reasons.
I’d be especially interested to hear from people who write in niches such as why choose/poly, sports romance, dark romance, historical romance or small-town romance, where some subgenres seem to have a stronger visual or demographic “default” than others. Have you noticed any difference in reader response, discoverability or marketability when the FMC is a woman of colour?
I’m trying to find a small group of romance writers who actually want to talk about their stories.
I have eight stories in various stages and three are finished, so I definitely don’t have a shortage of ideas. My problem is more that I can see everything in my head way better than I can always get it onto the page.
I love coming up with characters, storylines, emotional moments, plot twists, all of that. I’d just really like a few other writers to bounce things off of. Like, “Would this character actually do this?” or “Does this scene work?” or “I know what I want to happen here but I have no idea how to write it.”
I’m not looking for some huge Discord with 900 channels and a bunch of rules I don’t understand lol. I also don’t want a super serious critique group where every paragraph gets dissected.
I just want a handful of people who like writing romance, enjoy brainstorming, don’t mind talking about spicy scenes or messy characters, and want to help each other get better.
I mostly write adult romance/contemporary women’s fiction.
Basically I’m looking for writer friends who actually like talking about writing. If that sounds like you, say hi.
I’m writing a slow-burn romance and I feel like my current chapter is missing something. I don’t necessarily want to add a big romantic scene or have the characters suddenly become overly affectionate, because that wouldn’t really fit where they are in the story yet.
I’m looking more for those tiny, familiar, almost mundane moments that somehow make your heart skip a beat.
Basically, what are those little moments that make you think “Oh my God. They’re so in love and they don’t even realize it yet”?
I’d love to hear your favorite examples, especially ones that work well in a very slow burn where the romance is still mostly subtext. I’m looking for inspiration for the chapter without making it feel like I’m rushing their relationship.
I’m working through some feedback on my novel and would love some advice from other writers. Background info: I had my mmc go through a pretty big shift in behavior (suddenly). It coming suddenly felt like a good decision since I wanted the reader to experience some of the confusion/betrayal that the fmc does. I want to make the sudden shift work in my story but based on some of the feedback I’ve gotten the shift might have felt a little TOO sudden/confusing. I’m trying to find the balance I need to make this shift be surprising for the reader while still seeming believable. I laid small eggs for the reader to get the feeling of suspicion but evidently, it wasn’t quite enough lol. For those of you who have written a character who has a sudden change in behavior, how did you handle that? (Sorry for any typos lol!)
I'm trying to get my new Threads author account off the ground, but Meta keeps removing my comments accusing me of being a bot. It's beyond frustrating to be accused of being a machine. by a machine. I've asked a for a review but am not holding my breath.
Has this happened to anyone, and if yes, what's the best way around it? My instagram is doing better, thankfully, so I really would like to keep this id.
If you have advice, I can DM you the author profile for you to take a look. Thanks in advance for any help.
Blurb
Jen Bailey has rebuilt her life after divorce. She has a career she loves, good friends, and no particular desire to complicate things — until a chance encounter brings her face-to-face with Adam Todd, the newly appointed manager of Newcastle’s Premier League football club.
What begins as an unexpected connection gradually becomes harder to keep casual. But Adam’s high-pressure career, family responsibilities and an unresolved marriage mean that whatever is growing between them is anything but straightforward.
Set in Newcastle, this is an adult contemporary romance about two people navigating attraction, independence, complicated adult lives and the uncomfortable point where something casual starts to mean much more.
About the manuscript
Approximately 85,000 words, complete. Written in UK English and set primarily in Newcastle, England. Football is part of the setting and Adam’s storyline, but no knowledge of football is needed.
Content notes
Open-door sex; themes of grief/parental loss; the MMC is separated but still legally married while the central romance develops.
Feedback I’m looking for
I’m particularly interested in natural reader reactions rather than line editing or proofreading. I’d love to know whether you’re invested in the characters and romance, where the story pulls you along or loses momentum, whether the relationship and character decisions feel believable, and how the emotional payoff and ending land.
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who regularly read adult contemporary romance.
I’m happy to start by sharing the first 2–3 chapters so we can both see whether it feels like a good fit before committing to the full manuscript.
Timeline
Ideally within 4–6 weeks for the full manuscript, although I can be flexible for the right reader.
Critique swap
I’m not currently looking for a full manuscript swap.