Think, Write, Edit, Romance

From bestselling novelist and experienced editor KJ Charles, a witty, practical romance writer’s craft guide for drafting, revising, and publishing emotionally satisfying happily-ever-afters.

Written with KJ’s signature mix of sharp wit and no-nonsense compassion, Think, Write, Edit, Romance respects the intelligence of romance writers and their often-dismissed genre. This is a guide for authors who take romance seriously and want to produce structurally sound and professionally polished work packed with tension and swoon-worthy scenes.

The book moves step by step through the stages of writing:

• The Blank Page helps you get started. This part tackles coming up with ideas, narrowing them down, and developing your embryonic concepts and conflicts into the shape of a book.

• The First Draft is about the hard bit: getting words down. There is an in-depth look at character building and plot arcs, along with more specific discussion of sex scenes, arguments, settings, and endings.

• Getting Unstuck discusses why writers get stuck on manuscripts and how to unstick yourself, as well as advice on when to take the hint and step away.

• Revision, Revision shows you how to clean up your manuscript at development, line, and copy-editing levels, saving you editorial time, fees, and pain. It warns you of “writing advice” you can ignore, and tells you how to negotiate your edits.

Publishing 15 December in print, e and audio from Hay House

“I’ve long known KJ Charles as a mesmerizingly fine author of historical romance; what I now know, via Think, Write, Edit, Romance, is that she possesses not only an incisive understanding of her genre (which is not perhaps unexpected) but the ability to communicate, for the benefit of other writers, clearly and incisively, how her genre works (a rare talent), from characterization to plotting to, of course, sex. As well, she offers up here the sort of expert advice on the nuts and bolts of prose, from punctuation to grammar, that makes my copyeditorial heart sing. And if that weren’t enough, she does it all engagingly and wittily. I can’t imagine a writer, of romance or of anything else, who won’t find much that’s invaluable in these pages.”

— Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of "Dreyer's English"

“Think, Write, Edit, Romance is a marvellously straightforward, comprehensive guide, dripping with years of hard-earned experience. Everyone from fresh new writers to long-established authors will undoubtedly find it helpful.”

— Olivia Atwater, author of "Half a Soul"

• Credits

  Cover design: Julie Davison

  Interior design: Nick C. Welch

  Editor: Allison Janice

• Content Warnings

  Contains sarcasm, footnotes, and discussion of grammar including on-page gerunds