How to Write Short Romance...

A Daily Romance asked me if I would be willing to share a few points that I felt were essential to making a good short romantic tale. That did get me thinking...

What really goes into making a love story memorable? A lot obviously, but then what do you do when you are restricted by the word count as well?  How do you make your story stand out? These are some of the points I came up with..

1. I prefer the time frame in my short stories to be, well, short. An hour, a day, a week… a month at best. It allows me to focus more intensely on the conversations and events within that time frame and gives the reader an intimate birds-eye view of moments as they transpire.
2. Don’t overcrowd a short story with too many characters. Just use the number you need. At some level, that applies for events too. I like to keep the number of events less and instead focus on how my characters feel.
3. Dive right into the main part of your story. Let the characters evolve in the readers eyes as the story progresses rather than setting up a major backstory.
4. While romance is a genre by itself, do not forget that romance itself takes you in so many directions. So have a set theme in your head – which aspect of love do you wish to convey in this story – frivolousness? Hope? Anguish?
5. Speaking of which – don’t try to go for all those emotions at once! There are plenty of short stories within your heart waiting to be told. Let each story stand out for what they make the reader feel when the last word has been read.
6. Writing involves the heart so allow yourself to drown in the mood your story demands. Pathos? Add some melancholy music in the background. Joy? Let’s tap our feet to some jazz while we write.
7. Don’t underestimate how unique your personal influence to a story is. We have a finite number of starting and ending points… but an endless number of creative ways to retell a theme. Events in my story set in a typical South Indian village may seem ordinary to me but to the reader living abroad, watching my heroine blush as she makes the design of a heart while pouring lentil curry onto a big heap of rice served on a traditional banana leaf as her paramour watches would be something they would never have thought of. But then, can you not see the same heart-shaped design recreated in that cup of cappuccino served at your coffee shops every day?
8. Don’t publish your story as soon as you finish writing. Go, have a break… go out for dinner and get a good night’s sleep. Revisit what you wrote the next day. Is there anything you want to change after reading it again?
9. Ideas can come about anywhere and you may not always have a laptop handy. With apps like Evernote or Dropbox, you can quickly type down the gist of your ideas and develop them later at leisure. Some of my ideas for stories were hastily noted down on my mobile while standing in an extremely jam-packed bus that was being driven by a guy who had obviously missed his calling as a Formula One race car driver!
10. Keep your language simple. This is perhaps a bit more controversial… there are some wonderful writers who weave such magic with almost lyrical prose, aren’t there? Personally, I am a big fan of the old ‘Eric Segal in Love Story’ style of writing. Concise, to the point and focused. No time to describe the shades of the trees or the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings – we need to keep the readers eyes on the characters and their actions.
11. Short stories allow you the element of surprise which I love – you can lead the reader one way and then turn it around with a few words at the end.

Try it out and see how it goes. I sincerely hope that I have been helpful and that someday I will get a mail from you telling me how you got published because you either chose to 

a) try out this formula of mine or 

b) decided I was absolutely wrong, went the other way & succeeded and now just want to ask me for advice on a full-length novel or movie script so you can do the exact opposite once more!

Authors note:
This article was written for A Daily Romance, a budding site that looks to bring more happiness into the world with their love for romance, romantic stories and of course, romantics-at-heart.