{"id":8277,"date":"2026-07-19T21:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T21:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ryleykennedy.com\/?p=8277"},"modified":"2026-07-20T16:38:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:38:51","slug":"a-day-in-the-writing-life-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ryleykennedy.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/19\/a-day-in-the-writing-life-day-1\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day in the Writing Life – Day #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Craft time: 25 minutes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I read the Introduction and Chapter One of Writing a Romance Novels for Dummies<\/strong> (2023 version). I\u2019m not exactly sure what I\u2019m looking for but maybe I just want to pretend I am coming at this exactly like a brand-new wannabe writer. And a Dummies book seems like the perfect introduction back into this industry. Should I start here or go with something that focuses on story architecture first?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thoughts: <\/strong>So far my biggest issue with this book is how narrow the teaching focus is. The romance genre encompasses a crazy range of subgenres and diversity (and the author acknowledges this in the about section). However, on page 7, in the Everything starts with characterization<\/em> section, the author states: “Let me note here that while there are other types of romances, this book focuses on heterosexual romance, with one man and one woman. This is an important distinction as we move into talking about characterization in later chapters.” Now, the romance world has aliens, vampires, shape shifters, and a whole plethora of other character types that fall in love (and a lot of them don’t fall neatly into a male\/female category). But what happens if a wannabe romance novelist wants to write about 2 women or 2 men or a whole group of folks that want to fall in love with one another and live happily ever after? I understand that a Dummies<\/em> book can’t be all things to all people, but it feels to me like this could have been handled much more gracefully and inclusively. Like, “Hey, in this book we use a man and a woman as the primary characters to show how a romance novel is developed, but don’t let this limit your imagination! True love knows no boundaries, and we’ll suggest other resources as we go along to help you write the best love story possible for your readers.” How hard is that? Good stories are good stories, and a book like this should focus on teaching that rather than a limited definition of “romance” that doesn’t work for everyone. I’m interested to see how the authors acknowledge (or ignore) the diverse range of relationships that romance novels celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing time: 25 minutes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I worked on the One-Sentence Story Summary<\/em> exercise from BIAM: Day 1<\/strong>.  I didn\u2019t really feel ready to tackle the exercise with one of my own story ideas yet so I used Lisa Kleypas\u2019s book Again the Magic<\/em> (which I\u2019m currently reading) as my practice material. It was a lot harder than I thought (and hard not to try and have AI do it for me). I came up with two versions I like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Version #1<\/strong>
An earl\u2019s daughter deliberately breaks the heart of the stableboy she loves to protect him from her father\u2019s wrath. Twelve years later, he returns, determined to have his revenge by seducing her and walking away, leaving her to suffer as he has suffered all these years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Version #2
<\/strong>An earl\u2019s daughter deliberately breaks the heart of the stableboy she loves and when he returns twelve years later, he is determined to have his revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT<\/strong> (I cut and paste both versions and asked it which it preferred. It said Version #1 but then it came up with this even more precise version which I like best of all).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To save the stableboy she loves, an earl’s daughter breaks his heart. Twelve years later, he returns determined to make her suffer the same fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actual Tag Line (pulled from Amazon)<\/strong>
A forbidden romance where a man’s revenge meets the passionate love that defies fate (Wildflowers). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thoughts<\/strong>: There is plenty of good SEO keywords packed into this tag line. Mentioning her series title (which has plenty of juice) is a good idea as well. I don’t know if I like it better than the version ChatGPT came up with but I can see why it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next steps:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n