Video Transcript (computer generated - may contain errors)

Sara Gentry: Welcome writers. I have got Rona Gofstein here with me. Welcome, Rona.

Rona Gofstein: Hi! Good to see you.

Sara Gentry: Likewise. I am always delighted to talk with Rona, because she just knows a whole bunch of stuff about writing and books, and plus, she's just a great conversationalist. So I think that this is gonna be super fun, but for people who may not know Rona very well yet, let me introduce you. Rona is a romance author and an Author Accelerator certified fiction book coach with a specialty in romance and women's fiction. She has been a published author since 2007, but you have to work with her to find out what her author name is. And Rona loves working with writers who have longed to make their book writing dreams a reality. She describes her style as intensive feedback, combined with compassionate enthusiasm, because she knows that on this journey writers need both clarity and support. She has spoken on writing craft and business across the country, and is the past president of the New Hampshire, Rwa chapter and Broad Universe. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and sons, misses the 24 hour diners of her home state in New Jersey, and is always up for getting coffee or talking about books, writing, and where to go out for dinner. Yes, the infamous mug! I hope you have, like I feel like you need a whole cabinet of those mugs, just so that you can always have one on hand.

Rona Gofstein: I always have mics on hand. Coffee, big thing. Yes.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, absolutely alright. So writers, as you heard in the bio, Rona knows a lot about all forms of writing, but particularly this extra focus in romance and women's fiction. And so today, we are going to talk about writing the happily ever after, because we definitely need that in a romance story, but I do want to make sure that we are establishing some firm footing here for some writers who might be newer to this genre. So I know there's a lot of confusion sometimes between what gets counted as romance and maybe what does not that maybe people think is romance. So can you help us out here with how? How we can describe the romance genre?

Rona Gofstein: I can. Romance as a genre is the genre of a relationship. So everything centers everything that happens. The relationship is always going to be at the core. And please. No relationship right now can be one man, one woman, 1 2 women, 2 men, one woman, 4 men. There's a lot of play in what a central relationship can be. But everything is focused on that. Everything comes back to that. If you are writing in another genre. The focus is different in mystery. Well, mystery kind of tells you right away. The mystery is the focus, even if there is a romantic aspect, and a romantic relationship happening in fantasy. It's the genre of a world, you know, and what's happening in that world and science fiction. It is the genre of a concept, an idea, generally a scientific idea. Romance is the genre of a relationship. That's where the core of the story must always return to.

Sara Gentry: So I think sometimes we automatically assume that if there's love in the story it must be a romance. 

Rona Gofstein: There is romance in the story, but if it is genre romance, then the one hard and fast rule is, it ends happily. Yeah, for the central couple no matter how many people are in that couple. Unless there's Cliffhangers. By the way, there are Cliffhangers in the genre. There are duologies and trilogies, so you can do that. But the story overall must end happily for the people in the relationship.

Sara Gentry: Yes, you you will see all the rage at writers on, you know, goodreads or whatever. If you've had a romance, you've advertised it as a romance, and it turns out it's a tragedy like.

Rona Gofstein: Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy with romantic elements. It's not a romance. Everybody's dead.

Sara Gentry: Spoiler. Yeah.

Rona Gofstein: I actually had somebody submit a story to me. Once in an anthology I was editing, and she asked me the rules, and I said, it needs to end happily for the couple. And it did. It just didn't end happily for them together. He was happy this way, and she was happy that way. But they weren't together. I'm like, Oh, I needed to be a little more specific. Apparently they must be together at the end of the story.

Sara Gentry: And happy about it.

Rona Gofstein: And happy about it.

Sara Gentry: Okay. So so that's what we're going to talk about here writers, because this is like the, I feel like it is the critical piece of the romance genre.

Rona Gofstein: Yes, and inevitably, every few months, at least once a year, somebody comes up and says, Well, I still think it's a room, you know, I want to write a romance where it doesn't end happily, or I don't. Why do they have to end up together? And the answer is simply because that's what the genre is about. And that's the genre expectation. And it's not that you can't write a story with a lot of romantic elements where the couple doesn't end up together. But that's a different genre. Yeah.

Sara Gentry: Then we're looking at contemporary fiction, or maybe fantasy, or whatever. If you've said it.

Rona Gofstein: In women's fiction you frequently, you may end up with the relationship that the woman gets into, ending happily at the end of the book. But the more important aspect of the book is her journey, and how she's grown and changed. Which is why, for example, Danielle Steele, was always mentioned when I 1st started reading it. Certainly, as she's so big in romance, and if you read her books, most of them actually don't quite qualify as romance, because usually heroines frequently have more than one relationship over the course of a book. And if that's the case, it's women's fiction with strong romantic elements, so.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, yeah, alright. So I know there's like a couple of phrases here. We've already kind of tossed out one here with the happily ever after. So, writers you might see that as an HEA for short and we've also got our happy for now. Can you help us distinguish the difference between those, because it kind of sounds like they'd be doing the same thing.

Rona Gofstein: They kind of are doing the same thing, whatever whichever one you want to call it as a writer. It means that the couple is together, and, as you said, happy that they're together. They're happy that they're together happily for now to me generally tends to mean that the couple is together, but there's nothing specific about the forever after, so they are not married. They are not having children yet, or whatever it is, but there's nothing sort of clearly permanent that would suggest ever after. Yeah. But in this moment and in this moment that the book ends. They're happy. So they're definitely happy. For now we're not going to predict 20 years out. We're not going to predict 6 months out, but in this moment that the book ends, they are happy, whether that's for now or ever after kind of could be either. Most of the books I write, and I would say more happily, for now that it doesn't end on a wedding, those tend to happen later on. But it's clear that they are destined for each other, or that they're thinking in those terms. I also have a tendency to write kind of in short timeframes. So if I have a couple who's been together 6 or 7 weeks suggesting they're going to be together forever. It seems like, I mean more of a stretch than you know than some people think romance already is.

Sara Gentry: But yeah, for sure. And I know that like for the writers who are writing for young people, YA is like a happy, for now, because it's a little creepy if we're talking about 15 year olds getting married. So yeah.

Rona Gofstein: Yeah, I mean young adult romance generally the character’s a little older, I would say, probably closer to 17, 18. But yeah, in other words, it's for now for what the characters want. In this moment the relationship looks like it's on solid ground, and they have every intention of it continuing so.

Sara Gentry: Yes, yeah. Okay. So what is it about the Hea that we need to like? Make sure that we're, you know, securing here to have a good happily ever after, or a happy for now what is it that readers are looking for? Besides, yes, we can say it's a happy ending. But are there certain expectations that readers are gonna have for reaching this point of the book?

Rona Gofstein: Well, you you don't get to this point in the book without trouble. I mean, I think it's 1 of the biggest challenges in some ways about writing genre romance is that our readers know how the book's going to end. I mean, before they even open it. And the whole reason they chose it. It's because of the ending in many ways for many of them. So now we have to keep them turning pages and keep them interested until the end, which they already know is what it's going to be, which is a much bigger challenge than you might think if you've never tried, but somewhere along the line, something is going to go wrong. These people probably very rarely will. You have a romance that opens with I can't wait to fall in love like it's just not what these people are necessarily looking for. Maybe one of them is, you know, maybe one of them is like all my brothers have gotten married, it's my turn, and so maybe they do. But then you end up usually with a heroine, is like Nope, so you have characters with goals that are not necessarily about the relationship. They want to prove something to somebody or themselves. They are looking for acceptance externally, but what they really needed is internally so. They, in addition to this romance that's complicating their lives usually in one way, shape, or form. They have their own character arcs that are the goals they want and the reasons they want them and the things that are getting in their way frequently. What's getting them their way? Is this relationship or this person? You know they are in a situation where he wants to buy the land that she wants to build her dream house on, or her dream business on, or whatever it might be. He's her landlord, she's his sister's best friend, whatever it is. There's something in the way. So they've had to work for this. Some of my favorite romances are the ones where I'm literally like 20 pages from the end, and I'm still going. How? How are they going to end up together? And please tell me this isn't a cliffhanger? Because there are writers who do it so well that you're like really other than like an act of, you know, a magical fairy. I can't see how this is going to work, and of course something does. Somebody breaks, somebody cracks, somebody opens up. The grand gesture is a favorite phrase, and a favorite beat in romance, which is where he realizes, or she realizes that they've been walled off holding back thinking that being vulnerable makes them weak, and they realize. No, it makes them strong. And now that they can do this now, they can also have this great love, and this great love is what showed them that this was possible. So you, you need that arc. You can't just be. It's not a series of dating scenes that does not constitute a romance novel. It's still a story of 2 people's character arcs. Although more, there are a couple of authors out there who focus with 1 point of view. Emily Henry, most recently. Is one of the better known for that. It's still 2 people in going through this, and if you choose to complicate it by making it 3 or more. I will help you through it. But just know you've made your life a little tougher. But it's their growth and change, both because of and sometimes in spite of the relationship. So that's what's going to keep people turning and rooting for the happy ending like. Will he get through his fear of abandonment? Will she get through her belief that nobody will ever really love her? Because she's XYZ. You know. So you know their backstory and their their lie and their wound, which is something I I end up coaching a lot on and once they get through that. Not only do they get to have whatever their goal was, and whatever their dream is, they also get to have this awesome relationship that's going to support them through that. 

Sara Gentry: Yeah. And you mentioned, like, sometimes getting to a book where you're getting really close to the end. And you're like, I'm not sure how this is all going to come together, and I'm sure that you've also had the experience of reading a book where you're like, I'm not sure how it's going to come together. You turn the page, and it's like, and now they're together, and you're like, well, I feel like I just got jipped.

Rona Gofstein: Yeah. Yeah. And your readers will tell you really fast if they feel like, well, that just, you know happened, you know, that's like Glinda, coming down and going here. You go home. You go here, but happy. Good! I'm off. Yeah, no. You won't get the readers to read your next book if that's what you do. These are very character driven stories and they're not just love driven. They are character driven. The character changes. The growth, the struggles, the miscommunications. Then you know. He's just going to be grumpy forever, and she's going to be sunshine forever, and if he doesn't learn to accept that, well, you know, and then you have to have a reason for him to go. Okay, maybe sunshine is kind of wonderful. So you know this is where you play with our tropes and make them work for us to tell this story. She's got to get through her negative attitudes about billionaires, because one of them destroyed her father or whatever it is.But the payoff has to fall in line with the goals and the arcs that you've that you've written.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, it's such an interesting thing, it's almost like this paradox, because the readers are picking up the book, because, as you mentioned, it's like, you know, that happy ending is a guarantee. And so a lot of readers will go to this genre specifically to know that there is a happy ending in store for them. And yet, if you give them a reading experience that is just happy, happy, happy, happy, like people are. Gonna put that down.

Rona Gofstein: Yeah, no, you still need as much conflict and change and growth and backtracking like, you know, in real life. You know, no growth is just sort of linear. You're like, yeah, I'm making progress. I think I'm making progress. Yeah, so we do. We have those moments of setback and you know, at the end, when just when they think they've they figured it all out. Nope, they haven't, you know. His ex comes back and all her issues around. Jealousy comes back up again. She's willing to believe the worst again. He thinks this, you know, being vulnerable, is too frightening. He's shutting this down only to realize that he can't go back to the way he was so. Like down, you know, and then you have the. You have the grovel, whatever it may be. 

Sara Gentry: For the writers who are, I imagine that most of the writers here are going to be working on either planning their novel or perhaps writing the 1st draft, are there any things that they can think about from the beginning to help them to make sure that the happy ending is sticking the landing?.

Rona Gofstein: Well, if you if you do like planning, Gwen Hayes has a wonderful book called Romancing the Beat, which gives you a really good idea of the things you need to hit, including, you know, phrases that people have come to learn like the meet cute and the adhesion thrust. Because again, this is not like real life. Where you just go on dates until you decide you like somebody. There needs to be a reason for these characters to keep running into each other. They're forced to work together. They're forced to share a space together. I have a reality show setting once where you know they have to work together. So you want to think about the things that are going to bring your hero, your 2 main characters together. What's going to keep them together? And what's going to get in their way like, there's a reason these characters have not found love prior to the start of this book. They've come with baggage, so what is that? That baggage? What is that's gotten in their way in the past, or what is it they're finally feeling like, I'm going to get through it this time, I'm you know, the next time I meet somebody I am going to be honest about. My love of sardines, which is really not a conflict. But yeah. You know that I feel like I'm never good enough that you know all that stuff. My current heroine was raised by a narcissistic mother. Needless to say, she comes with some wonderful baggage I get to get her through. So think in those terms. Think of like, who are they when the story starts? But who were they prior to the story, starting like what brought them to the moment they're in. And then look at how these 2 things don't quite work together yet, and it's gonna take some time before they do I like to think in terms of what is it my characters bring to each other that nobody has ever given to them before. So there's usually my, that's usually where my theme is. So things like acceptance or bravery, understanding connection. All these sorts of things that make good themes, you know. Even a theme like love conquers all which, ironically, you tend to see even more in non romance books you tend to see that, you know in the hunger games. It's all about love conquering things, even. You know, science fiction. You'll see it. That's what's driving them, that you know this connection and found family and all of that. But it's who these people are that's both making it work and making it not work. So think about those things before I think, before you write, knowing that and then having them have the Gmc the goal motivation conflict that's not relationship based. But that's something about them and their lives that they want. Sara Gentry: Well, writers. Rona has all sorts of helpful writing tips and just as a wealth of knowledge. And so I wanna make sure folks can find you. Where is a good spot for us to connect?

Rona Gofstein: You can find me at ronagofstein.com. And then in the notes we'll send you a link if you wanted to sign up for my newsletter, and you'll hear from me twice a month. There's ways to just chat, and also for those of you who are watching, who don't write romance, but who are trying to get a romantic subplot in there. Please reach out because that can come across as forced, or and for some reason it just feels uncomfortable. They're not sure how to write it, and I'm happy to talk with you about how you might want to layer that into any kind of book and make it believable, because sometimes it's not.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, awesome. So, writers, we will have links to all things that Rona just mentioned. And Rona, I wanna thank you so much for your time and for this fabulous conversation.

Rona Gofstein: You are so welcome. I'm so glad you're doing this for writers, because there is so much out there. This is a tough job. You guys have decided to write a book. It's not easy and the more places we can get support and encouragement the better. So thank you.

Sara Gentry: That is well said, thank you. Alright, writers, we will catch you next time. Bye.