Editing Romance: Getting the Plot(s) Right
In a romance, the overt plot (what the story is basically about: finding the gold, winning the election, saving the family farm) and the romance plot (the two main characters falling in love) must work together to send the story on a specific trajectory.
The overt plot and the romance plot must intersect in ways that make the romance a driver of the overt plot and the overt plot a driver of the romance.
The two should be intertwined in such a way that removing the romance would make the overt plot fall flat. If you can remove the romance without affecting the overt plot, there’s a problem.
And that’s where you, as the editor, come in. You can help the AU find ways to connect the two plots more firmly together. (Readers will thank you!)
Meet Gertrude and Samuel
For example, suppose the novel is set in the Old West and Gertrude wants to open a saloon in town. Samuel objects because he already owns a saloon in town. The overt plot in that romance, then, will center on the Gertrude’s attempts to open her saloon, and this will drive the conflict between the two main characters.
But the romance plot will also drive plot events; as Getrude and Samuel get to know each other and fight each other over the saloon issue, their romance will also drive actions and plot events.
While the overt plot and the romance plot may both drive character actions, readers are really looking for the romance plot to be the thing that drives character change, for the love relationship to be what contributes significantly to each of the main character’s character arc.
In the case of Gertrude and Samuel, they will probably decide to do different things because of their romance (different than they would otherwise do without the romance).
For example, if Gertrude is getting a lot of pushback from Samuel, and she doesn’t care about Samuel at all, maybe she’ll just go to the next town to open her saloon. But she doesn’t want to go to the next town. She wants to stay in this one. She may say it’s because she isn’t going to be driven out, and she may even feel that way, but at core it will be because she doesn’t want to leave Samuel.
Similarly, Samuel might have punched anyone else who tried to open a saloon in his town, but because he cares for Gertrude, he’s not going to punch her.
Love Affects Character Arcs
Maybe this means that Gertrude learns to stand her ground, something she wouldn’t have learned without Samuel. And maybe Samuel learns to share instead of fighting, something he wouldn’t have learned without Gertrude.
In other words, just the way the overt arc will collapse without the romance arc, the character arcs will collapse without the romance plot. That’s the ideal.
Now, that is a tall order and to be fair, many romances do not successfully fulfill this order and they can still be considered “good” or appealing or entertaining romances; readers may still enjoy them. But it is almost always better for the connections between the two plots to be firm and for the connection between the character arcs and the romance plot to be equally firm.
In other words, people who think romances are easy to write have no idea what they’re talking about.
