Chapter Spotlight: Rose City Romance Writers

Spotlighting RWA chapters
Posted 4/10/2024

Rose City Romance Writers was founded over 25 years ago and is still a happy place for romance novelists to find their tribe.

Message from the President - April 2024 RWR

RWA President Clair Brett shares her thoughts for the month of April and recognizes the contributions of volunteers.

Writing Across Generations

By Jenna Grinstead
Posted 4/10/2024

Nothing takes a reader out of a story faster than characters behaving in ways that don’t feel authentic. In my own reading I’ve run into the following situations in contemporary novels:

• A hero in his twenties with a tough reputation heads home after a stressful day and makes himself a hot cocoa instead of grabbing a beer.
• A heroine with a teenage daughter whose entire friend group acts like it’s the 1950s—from their clothing to the way they interact with their parents.
•  A grandfather in his 60s who lived through the Great Depression and World War II.

How Copy Editors are Like Mechanics

By Nan Reinhardt
Posted 4/10/2024

Copy editors like me are the mechanics in the publishing process. We’re the ones who come in after you’ve worked out your story with your development editor and finished your revisions.

Don't Be Too Hard On Yourself

By Alessandra Torre
Posted 4/10/2024

Tell me if this sounds familiar... you read a novel. A great novel. One that makes you look at your current work-in-progress and want to drag the entire thing into the digital trash can.

Dragging Prose: 7 Ways to Cure the Sagging Middle of Your Romance Novel

By Adrienne deWolfe
Posted 4/10/2024

Even if you’ve never heard the term, “sagging middle,” the Reader inside you is well-acquainted with the warning signs:

• You grow impatient.
• Your mind wanders.
• You begin to skim.

In essence, the author has lost your interest.

Failing Forward with S. C. I. E. N. C. E

By Siera London
Posted on 3/14/2024

I self-published my first romance book in March 2015. Back then, I could write for 10-14 hours a day, fueled by the words in my head and the clawing need to give my characters their hard-earned happily ever after.

The Complicated Concept of Pacing

By Timothy Robare
Posted on 3/14/2024

Quick, slow, quick, slow, medium? Pacing may be one of the most complicated concepts in writing. As an author, judging how to pace a story is either natural or very planned. Don’t get pacing and speed mixed up, because pacing is all about the movement of the story, the flow. If the flow or pace is jumbled or not fluid, then it will cause many issues for the reader. Keep in mind that different genres use different flows.

Message from the President - March 2024 RWR

In the March issue of the RWR, Clair Brett shares a message for Women's History Month.

Plot and Pacing Pointers for Today's Commercial Fiction

By Jane Porter
Posted on 3/14/2024

In the thirteen-plus years it took me to sell my first book, I learned a lot about the craft of writing, and how to develop characters and focus my dialogue, but I continued to struggle with pacing, receiving nice rejections that loved my heroes, and the sexual tension, but editors weren’t pleased with my “uneven pacing”, or “sagging middle”, and so I stopped submitting and spent a year studying my craft.  Now pacing is one of my strengths.