Part #3 of our chat with author, Rochelle Alers @roclers LUV: What is the best thing about being a romance writer? What is the most challenging thing about being a romance writer? The best thing about being a romance writer is that I get to indulge in make-believe, without being called delusional, and when my fantasies come to life on the page. It is also empowering that as the master puppeteer I can create characters to make them say and do things that I want for them. This is something that is totally impossible in the real world and with real people. What I do find challenging is coming up with new plots for different characters while adhering to the rules of the genre. An idea will pop into my head for another novel or series, and it will stay with me for weeks until I am able to jot down ideas for the characters, settings, conflicts, and the eventual resolutions. However, once I can fully flesh out the characters using a dossier for each of the major ones, I’m ready to write the proposal. There was a novel when I did encounter writer’s block, and that’s when I realized I actually did not know my character well enough to move him forward. I wanted him to do and say things that did not adhere to his personality, so that’s when I decided to create a character dossier, and once I complete it, I know exactly who the character is without having to go back and review it. What I also find challenging is not becoming repetitious. I don’t want to use a boilerplate plot and just drop characters into situations readers are familiar with from my previous titles. Another challenge is not reintroducing a character or characters who had had their own stories within the same series. I wrote seventeen novels in the Hideaway series and the result is each book is a standalone. I am also going to confess about the challenge of writing love scenes. I have written so many over the past three decades that I find it difficult to come up with new ones, which is why I prefer writing women’s fiction where sex isn’t as relevant to the plot. Some of my more recent romance novels will contain no more than two love scenes.

Posted by LUV Team at 2023-01-25 16:00:02 UTC