Subject: Hmmm.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-07-17 07:10:00 UTC
Well, my one cardinal rule for romance is that the characters should exist outside the relationship. I find it's a good exercise (in my admittedly limited experience) to write short scenes, totally separate from the romance itself, focusing on the hero and heroine each alone. Just hero or heroine, no other half, maybe not even any of the supporting cast. It helps to develop their characters. They need to be individuals who fall in love. Two halves of one soul sounds romantic, and it may work in a fantasy context, but it can get really creepy really quickly if the writer doesn't know exactly what they're doing.
And this may be a stylistic choice, but I think first-time writers should probably avoid first-person POV. It just makes it way too easy to turn the romance into a whiny monologue. Third-person singular gives you all the strength of a viewpoint, including the emotional connection, but prevents chronic Twilitis. (Inflammation of the thesaurus. :D)