Awesome! I mean, aside from the rare male romance career writer like Leigh Greenwood, and the small number of male authors writing M/M erotic romance, most authors writing traditionally categorized romances and erotica (including M/M) are women.

Serious roadblocks ahead, though, guys. First and foremost, let’s address the biggest elephant in the room. Men tend to suffer from overconfidence more than women do, so you might come at this prospect thinking that writing romances for a bunch of ladies will be easy. After all, you’ve written literary books, or mystery, or horror, or action, or, better yet, fantasy, so switching over to write romance, maybe an erotic paranormal, should be a piece of cake (you have actually baked a cake from scratch, right?). Unfortunately, if, like a lot of people, you see romance as more pulp than art, you’re probably not going to experience much, if any, success. This post isn’t designed to discourage you, because I do believe men can write good romance, with some conditions. But it does hope to clarify the challenges you face coming into this field.

If more men read and write romances, the genre might finally shed some of its long-suffering public scorn and abuse. But even with more male authors and public respect, I’m still not completely sure how more men will be enticed into reading romances. Male authors like Nicholas Sparks, who write angsty love stories without HEAs (thus not romances), still predominately attract young female readers. The challenges for male writers new to this genre, especially those who’ve been raised as, well, typical guys, are notable. Becoming a male writer who writes M/F romance, often from the female point-of-view, is bound to be challenging, but not insurmountable. Here’s my brief guide to doing it right. This advice presumes that you’re already a male writer who reads voraciously and has studied and practiced the craft of fiction in one or more genres for years. If you haven’t, don’t assume writing romance is the gateway to becoming a famous, successful author. The field is crowded and already has more writers producing more books than there are readers to read them. (If you’re completely new to the whole writing game, I recommend studying general fiction first. A ton of excellent books are available.)

But if you’re an experienced writer, read on for those aforementioned conditions to writing romance:

LOVER’S SOUL. If, by chance, you don’t flat out respect and love women, just stop now. Go back to writing action and spy thrillers. If you don’t consider yourself a feminist, go back to writing horror or fantasy. On the other hand, if you’re fully aware of (and unsettled by) your ongoing, socially-cultivated negative prejudices towards everything feminine, and you work actively to raise your own consciousness about gender inequality, then continue on to point number two. You have the inherent gender-blind soul necessary to write romance. Romance is about love, pure and simple. It generally transcends gender, race, and age.

HONORABLE MOTIVATION. If your top reason to write romance is to get rich, you might want to reconsider. The market is replete with experienced, talented authors, both traditional and indie-published. Seriously. Even writing the most popular-selling genre in fiction, only a small percentage of romance and erotica authors earn a living wage from their work. Sure, a handful of writers have made it big—E. L. James, for example. But don’t believe James sets the standard for most writers’ experience or for the quality of writing in the field—many professional writers in this business find her erotic romance 50 Shades of Grey series substandard on a number of levels, both in craft and its problematic content. Also, remember that James has a background in journalism, so she had experience writing and publishing before a major publisher picked up, printed and shelved her series in every book store across the world.

The writers who make a living in romance fiction write prolifically and steadily, building a backlist and a readership. It’s slow but steady work—definitely not a get-rich-quick experience (or a simple 1-2-3 trilogy to stardom). Going into it for the money is not a good reason to write romance. Maybe, you think it will make you famous, well-loved, attractive to the gals? Sorry to disappoint, but currently the general respect for romance and the writers who produce it is pretty low (even within the larger publishing industry). Frankly, you’ll gain little prestige or recognition writing these kinds of books. More likely you’ll be ridiculed and disparaged, just like the rest of us. In fact, be sure you yourself fully respect the genre and its readers. Society likes to mock romance and erotica as mommy porn and trashy fiction. Consequently, you’ll be called upon to defend your decision to write romance on a continuous basis, whether you write under an androgynous name like Greenwood or go by first name initials or use a pseudonym. If, though, you’re already a seasoned writer and you decide that you love to read romances, don’t care about money or fame, then continue to point three.

RESPECT FOR THE ART. Although the first novels ever written were called romances, today’s romance is not the early literary work of writers like Hawthorne or the Bronte sisters. Things have definitely changed. The modern romance genre has even changed dramatically since its rise to popularity in the late 70s and early 80s. If you haven’t been reading romances, then read several well-written romances each week for at least six months to a year before you start writing them. Don’t imagine that your experience as a writer of other genres has prepared you to write romance. Set a goal of reading 100 acclaimed romance novels (see recommended author list at end of post). Study the genre. Familiarize yourself with the popular tropes and teach yourself the lingo (alpha and beta heroes, HEAs, HFNs, TSTLs, the meet-cute, etc.). Read award-winning work and cringe-worthy, amateur efforts. Read across the sub-genres, historical romance to paranormal to BDSM. Figure out why some stories work and others don’t.

In essence, don’t assume that writing romances will be easy. Just as in every other genre, including literary fiction, there are far more mediocre duds written and published each year than there are stellar stories. Search out and destroy any personally cultivated arrogance you may have about how easy it’s going to be to write “trashy” novels. A surprising number of top-selling (as well as generally unknown) authors have advanced university degrees in literature, writing, and history. These writers can and do write well. If romance didn’t carry the stigma it does, some of them would be contenders for national fiction awards. Bottom line: respect the genre, study it, love it. Then, once you start writing, keep reading. When you are reading romances compulsively, you’ll know that you are imprinting them on your writer’s brain. Already surfing online for enticing romances to read? Continue on to point four. If you find yourself scoffing at the language, the style, the storylines, the tropes, please, please don’t write romances. Instead, go back to point number one.

OTHER GENDER AWARENESS. Study human nature and personality. Romance is predominantly a character-driven genre about emotions and the desire to love and be loved in return. Any knowledge you bring as an experienced writer in terms of crafting plot is great, but in the end, character triumphs in romance, and if you don’t understand why people, especially women, do what they do in intimate relationships, then inventing the most exciting external plot to carry your romance forward will do you little good. Yes, romance readers crave action, history, science, and fantasy as much as readers of other genres. But if your foregrounded story arc isn’t devoted to developing an authentic, meaningful love connection between the principal characters, your novel will fail as a romance.

The majority of readers of romance are women. Unfortunately, as a man, you have a disadvantage (just realizing this truth will make you a better writer, and person in general). First, unlike your female author counterparts, you probably haven’t been raised to take care of and attend to other people’s feelings and needs since birth. You might not have “tuned” into and paid a lot of attention to people’s motivations and fears since birth. Depending on your age, this life perspective has presented a significant relationship handicap since birth. It doesn’t mean you’re insensitive or incapable of feeling things as deeply as women. Sometimes, you feel them even more potently because you may have been taught to suppress that part of your personality. It’s just that you haven’t walked the life of a female–a female that has been raised to instinctively and continuously pay close attention to other people’s, especially men’s, feelings and actions.

As you know, women generally live under different social standards and expectations than men (significantly more restrictive ones), so they have learned to approach the world differently (while fantasizing what it would be like to be a guy as well). In short, while women and men are both human beings with feelings and challenges, they walk different paths from the minute their parents dress them in pink or in blue. Until society starts raising boys and girls to be truly equal in all ways with equal opportunities and expectations, a lot of men will come at writing romance with some blind spots. Few men ever really understand what it’s like to be slut-shamed, or threatened with rape by a stranger on the Internet, or to lose out on a work promotion because he chose not to attend the strip club show with all his male co-workers while in Atlanta on a company sales trip. If you call yourself a feminist, are in a relationship with a feminist, and raising your sons and daughters to be feminists, then you’re ahead of most men in this regard.

Try this challenge: read Anna Karenina by male author Leo Tolstoy and The Awakening by female author Kate Chopin. Both are stories in which the central character is a woman who is neither fulfilled by her marriage nor motherhood, who then has an affair, and who ultimately commits suicide. Figure out why Tolstoy’s story is clearly written from the “male gaze” (what is the theme and message of Anna Karenina?) and why Chopin’s is clearly written from the female point of view (what is the theme and message of The Awakening?). If you can’t see how vastly different these two works—one written by a man and one written by a woman–are regarding women and their relationship with men and love, then you probably aren’t ready to write M/F romance for the contemporary female romance reader. But if you totally get the difference, then go for it! Continue forward to point five.

FEMALE FICTIONAL POV. Understanding your audience is critical. Unless you’re a man planning to write M/F romances for male-only readers (a sure way to guarantee few sales in the current market), you need to expand your fictional viewpoint. At the moment, the majority of romance readers are women. Learn what women want and how they see the world, via fiction. It’s good and necessary to have real life experience with falling in love, but fictional characters live in the world of…fiction. Fiction adheres to different standards than real life. Yes, definitely, interview women and get their personal takes on love (female authors talk to their male spouses, boyfriends, and male friends to deepen their understanding of the male POV all the time); but you also need to respectfully read romances (and other genre books) written by women to see how gender is constructed and expressed within the pages of a book by women authors. Though lots of romance novels alternate point-of-view between female and male characters, the majority of readers are still women, and likely to remain so for some time. They like to have at least some of the book presented in the female POV.

Women writers have the other gender POV advantage here. From kindergarten on, female readers have overwhelmingly been required to read male-produced male-centric texts. So, in addition to developing hyperawareness of men’s feelings (Is he scowling because he’s angry with me or because he needs to eat?) as they grow up, females also master reading fiction from the male-constructed point-of-view. The majority of stories and books taught in language arts classrooms across the country and into college are written by male authors about male protagonists. Female students have to learn to read the fictional world from that POV early, often before they even learn to read it from the female POV. Females who love to read eventually seek out female-centric books by female authors to read on their own, but few male students ever make that gender reading jump. Most male readers and writers simply don’t have the life-time experience reading female-centric books that female readers and writers have had reading male-centric books.

So, not surprising, it’s less of a challenge for a woman writer to construct an authentic male perspective in fiction than it is for a male to construct an authentic female perspective. (I recommend further research in classic Feminist Literary Criticism if this concept is confusing or difficult to accept). Women writers have always been modeling their constructs of male characters based on a long history of reading male-constructed male characters. I recommend, as a male writer, that you begin constructing your female characters based on a dedicated effort of reading female-constructed female characters.

STYLE APPRECIATION. The tendency of the male-dominated traditional publishing world and academia to devalue women’s writing as plotless, flowery, and self-indulgent may have impacted your own ability to appreciate the style of writing that has evolved and thrived in the genre of romance. Some people insultingly call it purple prose (okay, some of it is excessively…purple). Really reading and appreciating romance requires the ability to appreciate different styles in voice and different purposes in storytelling.

If you’ve been academically-trained to model your writing as closely as possible to, say, Hemingway, you’re going to struggle writing romance. Dry-as-bone sentences with minimal description might suit some literary fiction, some particularly hardcore science fiction, and it definitely suits hardboiled-detective crime fiction, but it won’t work as well in romance, a genre that demands luscious, luxurious, and playful description. It’s hard to describe the hero or heroine’s appearance and personality without adjectives. It’s hard to create a sensual love scene without adverbs. Romance celebrates language in all its deeply evocative ways–by using all the parts of speech.

Ever since Strunk & White published their reductive writing bible fifty years ago, largely banning the use of most adjectives and adverbs in good writing, the West has valued spare text over descriptive text. The approach of praising one style of writing over another is a problem if you want to appeal to readers who relish details. Listen. Romance celebrates the decadent seven-layer chocolate cake, not the tasteless prepackaged energy bar with no expiration date. If you can’t expand your sentences enough to include a few descriptive words here and there, your books are going to function like an hour on the treadmill instead of a stroll through a dense and beautiful forest. You don’t have to overload your sentences with description, but you’re going to need some imagery–sound, texture, smell, taste, visuals.

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Bottom line: if you haven’t consciously worked to read as many works of fiction by female writers as by male writers (remember, society doesn’t make you do this so you have to do this on your own), it’ll take concerted effort for you to bridge that gender gap in your reading in order for it to show up in your writing. Until the number of male authors and readers in the romance genre rise significantly, if it ever does, you’re writing for female readers. Broadening and deepening your understanding of the female perspective within fiction is essential.

Good luck! As a romance author, you’ll be invited into one of the most welcoming communities of human beings I’ve ever met: romance writers.

An abreviated list of recommended authors for men (and anyone interested in writing romance) to read:

Historical Romance: Sabrina Jeffries, Elizabeth Hoyt, Tessa Dare, Lisa Kleypas.

Paranormal Romance: Kresley Cole, Karen Marie Moning, Gena Showalter, JR Ward.

SFR (Science Fiction Romance): CJ Barry, Angela Knight, Linnea Sinclair.

Contemporary Romance: Tessa Bailey, Julie James, Susan Mallery, Jill Shalvis.

Action-Thriller: Cherry Adair, Suzanne Brockmann, Lisa Marie Rice, Roxanne St. Claire.

Erotic Romance: Cherise Sinclair, Lorelei James, Sabrina York, Tielle St. Claire.

Finally, don’t write in isolation. The Romance Writers of America is a fantastic organization dedicated to helping writers succeed as romance writers. Go to the RWA website for more information.

 

Selene has been writing and crafting her art in romance fiction since 2012. Before that, she spent decades teaching, reading and writing literary fiction. FOLLOW her on Amazon for information about her books and new releases.