Well, give it a shot? But you can describe locations and people in real life fiction as well. Together with emotional feed, it usually adds up fast.
It’s hard to stretch romance to 50k
I usually come around 80K range for romances. It actually disqualifies me from Harlequin submissions, who want 50K for just romance and 70K for Suspense. Historic is okay, at 80K
This would definitely be me too! Everything has to be neatly arranged and in order! So if I do change the chapters within the current story, I would basically have to do it all at once, probably starting with unpublishing all chapters (keeping the author’s notes as placeholders to not lose reading list adds) and then pasting new chapters into the old chapters, unpublishing discarded chapters, and adding new chapters, before publishing it all again.
At least I would keep my 17k reads though ![]()
It’s totally worth it to keep the reads!
How do you manage 80k for romance?
Well, I decided to actually check, and here are the exact word counts for my real world books, no magic/sci-fi elements:
Winners Don’t Have Bad Days–78K, there is a lot of growth the lovers do, he struggles with ED, she is trying to get her careers back on track.
Rivals and Revels is 70K, lots of ups and downs and rivalry between the two brothers.
Trapped by the Mafia is 75K to 90K depending on the draft (I guess I cut out a lot???)
Raised by the Mafia is about 85K
Obviously, both mafia romances have a lot of adventures accompanying romance.
So, yeah, I am staying above 70K consistently.
Do your characters have goals outside romance or an external layer of plot against which the romance unfolds? Are you working on both lovers? Is there obstacles like antagonists or triangles?
I’m making progress for the contest. If I keep going at my rate, I’ll be able to finish to 70k by my target date at end of August.
Nice! That’s a HUGE achievement!
Thank you. Feels good to write freely again.
Just tested positive for COVID. I didn’t lose my sense of smell, but man, sodas taste like sugared crud and canned pineapple tastes like can.
I guess my diet will change.
mostly reading. my class graduated today! i got moved to part-time so i didn’t get to walk with them but i got to watch and cheer for them!
watcha writing?
yis, protected by autotranslate, perfect >:) nobody on twitter has the braincells for a second language mwahaha, safe forever
indeed, in English. it might be different in other languages/cultures.
that sounds fun!
a mess, you?
it was!
fuckin same my guy
This is coming from French-English and Greek-Hebrew-English-Latin translating for fun:
What often happens is that there’s about 3 translations of the same phrase. Literal translations can sometimes take 3 words from one language and make them into 1 in another. Dynamic equivalents take similar concepts and pairs them together. For example, in the Bible:
2 Timothy 2:17 NKJV
And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort,
ISV
and what they say will spread everywhere like gangrene. Hymenaeus and Philetus are like that.
The word cancer and gangrene: gangrene is the accurate translation, but the dynamic equivalent is cancer. It’s a better choice to use a word that people will directly relate to, and fewer people are exposed to gangrenous spread anymore.
But it’s funny because I was looking up how to say a woman has a big rack in French (which is already slang), and the French slang is something like their balcony is packed with too many people. What in English is 2 words was a complete sentence in French: more accurate to French speakers, but NOT something that packs a punch.
I mean, you already have a native speaker helping on this one, so it’s not like it’s necessary. I’m just starting to think that sometimes the question shouldn’t just be accuracy, as I look at all of this. Lol
not as punchy but not necessarily less effective. Culture would play into how it’s interpretted so while short and snappy play well to American culture, something long and more descriptive might roll better with the French. Just like how British humour is quite dry whereas American humour is… wet? lol you know what i mean.
I thought I replied to you, apologies.
Yeah, I figured that mafia would have some action/adventure added to the romance because of the nature of the stories. I still find pure romance hard to write, though. It’s just I can’t stretch a romance plot long enough to actually make it work. I’m not an emotional person naturally, I’m more technically minded but I don’t think it’s impossible to write solely pure romance.
Maybe they will all need goals, or I need to structure a different story to have different goals or something. I don’t work on them both, and I don’t have love triangles but I have an antagonist.
big hot mess?
glad u had fun!
Out of curiosity, why is one in Greek? I get one being in Spanish because your story is set in Latin America, iirc.

