Hellooo, everybody!
It's officially April which means it's the month of The Savior's Champion’s book birthday!
A few years ago this month, I released the first book of The Savior Series into the world.
Since then it has hit number one on multiple Amazon and Audible bestseller lists,
and it was voted one of the best books of all time by Book Depository. I still cannot believe
how much you guys have rallied around Tobias and Leila’s story. It means so much to me. I
am so honored by your support, and I can't wait to release the third book in the series:
The Savior's Army.
In honor of this very special month, I am breaking down my ten best tips for writing
fantasy romance. The Savior’s Series is a dark fantasy romance series. Fantasy romance is one
of my favorite multi-genres, and I have so many tips to share with you. I also have some super
exciting news that may involve a contest, maybe some prizes. There's good shit comin’ your way, and
you're gonna wanna know about it. Let's get into it.
(The sound of a pen scratching. LOGO.)
Before we get started, thank you so much to everyone who bought goodies from my merch store.
For the entire month of March 100% of my profits from my merch store went directly to United Help
Ukraine. And thanks to your support, we raised a ton of money. I am honestly so proud and honored
that so many of you got involved. And I hope you like your writerly merch, and I hope you
know that your purchase went toward a great cause. Additionally, in case you missed it,
The Savior's Champion is on sale right now for just 99 cents! This sale is open internationally,
it's available across multiple platforms, but it's only available for a limited time. So if you
haven't read my best selling, dark fantasy romance novel, now is the time to do it. Pick it up while
it’s cheap! I've got it listed below. And now for some exciting news. For the entire month of April,
I will be hosting The Savior Series fan art contest. You probably already know that the main
character of The Savior's Champion, Tobias, is an artist. So what better way to celebrate TSC’s book
birthday, then via art. You have one month to whip up fan art for The Savior Series. This could be
character art, it could be different scenes from either The Savior's champion or The Savior Sister,
it could be head cannons, it could even be aesthetics or photo manipulation,
it could be memes. You can enter as many times as you want, there are zero limitations,
and this contest is available internationally. If you want to submit one piece of art or ten,
It's totally fine. And this is not about creating the best, most perfect piece of art. This is about
having fun and getting creative. Three winners will be walking away with massive TSC themed
prize packages. We're talking signed copies of The Savior's Champion and The Savior Sister,
we're talking TSC themed merch, as well as some exclusive merch that is not yet available in my
merch store, so you will be getting it first. I have the entry form in the description below. It
has all the details available. So get to drawing, or photoshopping, or whatever else. Get to work. I
cannot wait to see what you whip up. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I post new videos on
Wednesdays, and if you wanna be alerted as SOON as I upload, ring that bell. You definitely wanna
be alerted. I mean, we host contests here. It's awesome. And now I am breaking down my ten best
tips for writing fantasy romance, so that you can whip up a wonderful fantasy world, and add
some fancy-dancy romance into the mix. Number One (1): Understand the genre, or in this case,
genres. Before you start writing a fantasy romance you need to understand the genres you're working
with. Fantasy romance refers to a multi-genre book, which basically means that your central
plot is half fantasy, half romance. Fantasy is a very broad genre of speculative fiction
that involves magic or adventure or both. It's usually set in a world different from our own,
but if it is set in our world, it's modified with fantastical or magical elements.
Romance is a genre where the main plot revolves around the romantic relationship between your
main characters. Not the supporting cast, the MCs. What separates romance from other plots revolving
around romantic relationships, is that a romance has to end in a happily ever after or happy for
now. This basically means that by the end of the story, the lovebirds need to be together
and they need to be happy. If you're writing a fantasy romance your central plot needs to
combine these two elements. Your story is about your main characters falling in love
and living happily ever after, while existing in a fantasy world or dealing with adventure,
or dealing with magic. Number Two (2): Fantasy romance is not the same thing as fantasy with a
romantic subplot. “But Jennaaa, how do I tell the difference between a fantasy romance, and
fantasy with a romantic subplot?” That's obviously what I'm about to talk about. Come on. Imagine the
book with the romance removed. Can the story still be told? If yes, it's a romantic subplot. Let's
take a look at my favorite read of 2021: Ashes by Iona Wayland. Ashes is a dark fantasy novel that
revolves around Angela, a woman whose brother has died tragically. Angela learns that her brother's
soul is in turmoil, and in order to bring it to rest, she needs to travel through the magical
and deadly hollow forest, and sprinkle his ashes in the appropriate place. Along the way Angela
develops a romantic bond with her guide through the hollow forest. If I were to remove the romance
from Ashes, sure it might be less entertaining, but the plot could still 100% work, because
ultimately it's about Angela's quest to free her brother's soul. That's how we know that Ashes is a
fantasy with a romantic subplot. Number Three (3): A fantasy romance can't exist without the romance.
Unlike a story with a romantic subplot, if you remove the romance from a fantasy romance,
it completely falls apart. Let's take a look at my novel The Savior’s Champion, which
follows Tobias as he enters a magical and deadly tournament. If Tobias survives the tournament,
he's going to be married off to a woman he doesn't love, which is extra shitty because
he's falling deeply in love with someone else. Is Tobias doomed to either die in the tournament
or marry someone he doesn't love? Or can you find a way to survive the tournament and be
with a woman he truly adores? As you can see if we were to remove the romance from the story,
it wouldn't work. The story is about Tobias’ romantic relationship, without it, it becomes
a completely different plot. This is how you can tell The Savior's Champion is a fantasy romance.
If the romantic storyline is central to your main plot, then congratulations, you've written
a fantasy romance as well. Number Four (4): You're not the exception. “But Jenna, my fantasy romance
doesn't end with a happily ever after! It ends tragically, cuz I'm a rebel.” You're not a rebel.
You're just a dumbass who doesn't understand their own genre. Romance is not the only genre that
features a romantic relationship as its central plot. A romantic relationship can be the central
plot of many genres including dramas, tragedies, and of course love stories. What separates romance
from these genres is they're designed to be uplifting at the end. Which means you absolutely
have to have a happily ever after, or a happy for now, if your character's romantic relationship
ends tragically, then it's likely you've either written a drama or a tragedy, or maybe even a
thriller. If it ends with one of the characters dying, or they grow apart but gosh darn it,
they learned some valuable lessons along the way. Then you've probably written a love story,
but again, and I cannot stress this enough, it's not a romance. This is not gatekeeping or
thought policing. It's literally the definition of the genre. A romance without a happily ever
after makes about as much sense as sci-fi without science or futurism, or a ghost story
without ghosts. And yes, this applies to fantasy romance as well. Just because it's multi-genre,
doesn't mean you're off the hook. Which brings us to Number Five (5): Know the difference. As
we already covered, fantasy is a broad genre with a zillion sub genres like epic fantasy,
contemporary fantasy, and my favorite: dark fantasy. Each sub-genre has its own expectations,
and multi-genres are the same deal. Because of this, you can't write a fantasy romance in the
exact same way as you'd write straight fantasy or straight romance. Let's start with how it differs
from fantasy. A lot of fantasy subgenres, especially epic fantasy and high fantasy,
are very plot focused with a heavy reliance on world building. All fantasy is going to have some
plot focus, seeing as we're dealing with magic and adventure, but fantasy romance also needs to have
a heavy reliance on being character driven, since we are following the romantic bond between two or
more people. Additionally, most fantasy is going to require world building, but if you are spending
hundreds of pages describing the trees, and the economy, and the politics in your fantasy romance,
readers are gonna get pissed. They’re here for the love in the face sucking, give ‘em enough
of the world to set the scene and move on. On the flip side, the difference between fantasy romance
and straight up romance is, well, the fantasy. If you're writing a contemporary setting with
contemporary resources and contemporary problems, that's fine, but it's not a fantasy. You have to
weave the fantastical elements into the romance, otherwise readers are gonna feel bamboozled. Which
brings us to Number Six (6): Weave ‘em together. It's not a fantasy romance unless you have an
equal balance of both. Fantasy presents itself in at least one of four ways: a fantasy world,
fantasy characters, magic, or adventure. The way to weave fantasy with your romance is to combine
one or more of these elements into your romance. Let's start with a fantasy world: this could be
as easy as a prince and a princess from dueling kingdoms being forced into an arranged marriage,
they don't like each other at first, but eventually sparks fly.
Next, there's fantasy characters: this could be as simple as one of your characters being an elf,
and the other one being a wizard. Next, we have magic: maybe one character has magic and the other
doesn't, this creates a rift between them that they have to battle together, or maybe some kind
of magic separates the lovers like a curse or an omen. Lastly, we have adventure: this could be a
hero battling grave dangers to save their love, or it could be two or more lovers escaping grave
danger so they can be together. These are just a few very simplistic examples of how to combine
these genres into a cohesive unit. I'm sure you can think of some amazing alternatives.
Number Seven (7): The genre balancing act. “But Jennaaa, how am I supposed to make sure the
fantasy and romance and my story are equal?” Okay, so it's not as deep as that. Your plot
needs to be roughly half romance, half fantasy. However, if this answer isn't sufficient for you,
look at your story on a chapter by chapter basis. Was one chapter focused on adventure,
magic, or a fantasy world? In that case, we'll label it a fantasy chapter. Was another chapter
mostly focused on blossoming love? If that's the case, we'll label it a romance chapter.
Was it an equal helping of both? Then we'll say it's half and half. Go through all your chapters
and see how many cumulatively are fantasy, and how many are romance. While the results don't
have to be 50/50, it should be close enough. Number Eight (8): Intimacy is a progression.
If you're not used to adding romance to fantasy, think of it as a step by step progression. Show
how intimacy progresses between your characters. This does not have to be sexual. It could be
hands brushing against one another, that evolves into hand holding, that evolves into an embrace,
that evolves into a first kiss. Readers read romance for this progression, so don't go straight
to the big bang from the get go. Give readers every step of the evolution. This will draw out
the suspense and get them asking will they or won't they? Additionally, be sure to tease the
intimacy. This can be done through the characters maybe-sorta about to hold hands, but then someone
walks into the room, and they dart away. And of course, we've all read the kiss fake out:
you think the characters are finally gonna lock lips, but then something happens and no dice.
Readers eat this shit up. I've got an entire playlist on my channel devoted to writing romance,
so if you're not sure how to add romance to your fantasy, definitely check that playlist out.
But consider this your pivotal first step. Number Nine (9): Study the tropes. Romance features some
of the most popular tropes in fiction, and lucky for you, a lot of them fit seamlessly
into fantasy. The most obvious one is enemies to lovers: this fits so well into fantasy because
your characters could be from rivaling kingdoms, or rivaling fantasy races. You could also utilize
the opposites attract trope, or the wrong side of the tracks trope in a very similar fashion.
The next obvious choice is the royal marriage trope: particularly the arranged marriage,
or the marriage of convenience. These sorts of relationships are extremely common among royalty,
so it's really easy to fit this into your fantasy setting if you have royal characters. And lastly,
we have my favorite trope, the forbidden romance, which is when characters are deeply in love, but
they're not allowed to be together for whatever reason. This is so easy to fit into your fantasy
setting, for the same reason as the enemies to lovers trope. The characters could be from
rivaling kingdoms or races, and thus they are not expected to be together. Going back to the
arranged marriage trope, one character could be promised to someone, but they are in love with
someone else. There are way more tropes you can utilize. This is certainly not an exhaustive list,
so do your research and make sure you're utilizing the tropes that work best for you.
And Number Ten (10): Don't fuck it up. There are certain trends in fantasy romance that are really
popular, and really shitty. What do you think, Butters? Do you like them? (Butters) “I don’t like
them at all!” Butters knows what's up. It may be tempting to fall into these trends because you see
other authors doing it, but as someone who sells a whole lot of fantasy romance books,
I'm telling you, it's not necessary. The first trend to avoid is the unhealthy power imbalance.
That's not to say you can't write a character with a lot of power that's really common in
fantasy. Maybe they're magical, or they're royal, that's totally fine. But things get
problematic when one character has a lot of power over their love interest. For example,
they're using magic to control their partner, or they literally own their partner as a slave.
Please don't do this. It eliminates the concept of consent, and we don't like this shit. But the
most obvious problematic trend in fantasy romance is romanticized abuse, particularly romanticized
sexual abuse. One character forces themselves on to another, or threatens to hurt them, or
actually physically harms them, and this is portrayed as sexy and powerful and desirable. You
can write powerful characters without making them sex offenders, and you can write enemies to lovers
without resorting to physical abuse. You are a competent creative writer, I have every confidence
that you can tell an amazing story without all that crap. So that's all I got for you today.
Don't forget The Savior Series fan art contest is going down right now. Three lucky winners are
gonna be walking away with huge TSC themed prize packages, including exclusive merch that's not
available anywhere else. I have all the details to the contest linked below. Definitely check it out.
Get on it. I cannot wait to see what you whip up. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I
post new videos on Wednesdays. And if you wanna be alerted as SOON as I upload, ring that bell.
The Savior's Champion is on sale right now for just 99 cents! So if you haven't checked out my
number one, best selling, dark fantasy romance yet, what are you waiting for? Get on it now,
it's linked below, you'll love it. And be sure to follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram,
Tumblr, Facebook and BookBub. And of course you can tweet me @JennaMoreci! Bye!
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