Hello Shiloh, I’m reading one of your novels now, and am enjoying it. I’ve read romance before, but not often and so I’m basically new to reading and writing the genre. I have a tendency in short stories to keep to one viewpoint, and in fantasy and science fiction that’s often plenty to tell the story.
Does that work in romance short stories? Have you any short stories published? And do you know where I can read romance short stories? It helps to know what’s about there, to learn from it.
I’ve read plenty of romances from just one characters POV, so yep, it works. Actually, I think telling the romance from both the hero and the heroine’s POV is a fairly new thing, not new as in a few years, but just in the past twenty years or so. I could be wrong. But yep, just one POV will definitely do it.
I tend to tell both POVs because I like learning the story from both sides and I like reading the story for both sides.
I’ve got a number of short stories published, ‘quickies’ or novellas, through Samhain and Ellora’s Cave.
The stories from EC, that I can think of offhand that are shorter…
Whipped Cream and Handcuffs
Silk Scarves and Seduction
One of the Guys
Drastic Measures
One Night with You
I’ll be Hunting You
His Christmas Cara
Every Last Fantasy
Hunter’s Pride
Malachi
The Huntress
There are two novellas in anthologies from Berkley as well. *G* Yeah, I tend to do a lot of short stories and novellas.
I’ve found that I really don’t like reading short stories because so few people seem to be able to do them WELL. Typically I end up disappointed and it’s almost always because of the lack of character development or contradictory actions made by poorly developed characters.
Writing a shorter story doesn’t mean it can just be phoned in. It actually means tighter writing and closer attention to detail to me.
Your topic caught my attention because I’m currently battling a character development problem in a novella I’m writing and I needed someone else to remind me of the other options out there for making my characters real. Thanks so much for doing that for me!
Absolutely doing it well means tighter writing. I think too many people try to cram too much into a short story. They think they need the complexities to make the plot interesting, but the complexities too often make the story less enjoyable to read.
Good luck with your novella. 🙂