 Where am I here I am. Okay, so welcome everyone to how to craft a successful romance with Margot DeRue. My name is Taryn Edwards and I am one of the librarians here at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. This event is held in partnership with the San Francisco writers conference, with whom we work closely to provide learning experiences for writers. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mechanics Institute, we are an independent membership organization located in downtown San Francisco that houses a wonderful library. The oldest in fact designed to serve the general public, not just those of you who wield wrenches. We also are a cultural event center and a world renowned chess club that is the oldest in the United States. Right now, due to the pandemic, many of our events are virtual but we are slowly transitioning to in person events. And our library is now open to members five days, five days a week. I encourage you to consider becoming a member with us. It is only $120 a year and with that you help support our contribution to the literary and cultural world of the San Francisco Bay area that happily is starting up again. Our speaker today is Margot DeRue who is the author of The Lost Diary of Venice. In returning to fiction she worked in Silicon Valley as a strategic consultant to purchase her novel and support independent booksellers. Please consider going to our favorite bookstore, which is Alexander book company on Third Street, or you can visit bookshop.org, and order it. So for coming out to share with us your knowledge about how to craft a successful romance. I think all of us are eager to hear more about that. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it and thanks for spending your, your lunch hour with me everyone. I am going to try to share my screen now. You can let me know if that is that everyone can see. See the visual. Yeah, I guess you're all muted sorry. Okay, I'm assuming it's working. So a little bit about me. Thank you for the introduction Taryn and just a little bit of background I'm represented by ICM. My debut came out. The best year to debut a book, which is actually I'm joking but it came out with Valentine Penguin Random House it's a indie next pick. It's out now in paperback. I, the impetus for me doing this is, I'm assuming that everyone here is either working on something or maybe has a, you know, a seed of an idea and wants to explore the possibility I'm assuming you're all writers and you're all in the trenches. For me, I didn't come to writing with an MFA background and so I did have to do a lot of research and and study to make sure that the structure of my book worked. And so the impetus for this presentation is just to share what I learned and what was helpful to me in the hopes that it might also be of service to you. So that's my goal here and I hope that what we cover today is useful to you in some way. A quick snapshot of what I'm hoping to cover is a little bit about the romance reader, and then puzzle pieces layers, the threads whatever metaphor you want to use but the different pieces of your book that will be woven together to make that's structurally sound and satisfying for the romance reader so we'll talk about sub genres and your characters motivations settings familiar tropes. I'm hoping to characterize a little bit the scenes that your reader might expect common conventions and then we'll touch on no pun intended but we'll touch on intimacy, and then hopefully have some time for Q&A at the end so I hope that sounds good it's a little weird I know you're all muted so it's a little weird to be speaking to a silent audience but I hope that sounds good to everyone. If you I think we have a chat feature folks want to have notes in there. Yes, just to break in. If you have a question go ahead and put it in the chat space, and we'll get to it at an appropriate time or at the end. So fear not your questions will all be answered. I packed quite a bit in so I'm going to try to try to be zippy. And so let's start with what makes a romance. There's two basic elements that comprise a true romance novel which is obviously that it's a central love story, you can be aliens fighting a galactic war. But as long as the aliens are falling in love and that their their relationship is the central piece and focus of the story you've got yourself a love story. And the other thing that is typical and expected is that they'll be an emotionally satisfying and usually optimistic ending. You want to see you know if these characters have really struggled to be together throughout the whole book the reader really, you know they want a happy ending they want to see them rewarded for their emotional risk and it also kind of creates a little bit of a sense of, of justice. Romance novel formats. There's usually two formats series or like a category romance. And these will be numbered sequentially and come out, you know usually at pretty regular intervals and you'll see these from like Harlequin or silhouette. And then you have your single title romances which are stand alone, usually released in hardback first. This is necessarily part of an of a numbered sequence. So from a publishing standpoint that's sort of how how things are organized. Who's going to be reading your book. This is useful and kind of interesting for me this is all data from the romance writers Association. It's a few years old. So we are seeing some shifts, but I trust this data because it was done from a pretty large survey demographic wise, primarily a female readership, and the average age is specifically 35 to 39. You know, emphasis on average there, but you're going to have a lot of moms, you're going to have a lot of women who are potentially in marriages already in relationships reading this these books. When we get into the ethnicity of the reader this is where we're seeing some great shifts. Publishing has not been as diverse as it could be and that's changing and as more diverse offerings are hitting the market we're seeing the readership change so a lot of the the Democrat that a lot of the statistics here I think might be influenced by by what was being published and, you know, we're fortunately seeing a lot more voices being published and hopefully we'll be seeing a lot more diversity in the executive level of publishing as well I'm just going to throw that out there. The same goes for sexual orientation of the reader. A lot of what was being put out to the market was heterosexual romances and we're seeing a lot more diversity of offerings and so you're going to see readership expanding as well and for me this is really exciting. So these are new new areas of the market and I think there's a really a hunger on the part of the reader for more diverse stories, a wider range of stories. When it comes to reading habits so the, the most frequent readers are going to be a little bit younger, and they still are reading print. I'm not saying you obviously tablet audio book but print is still really really strong. And the one thing that I do want to say about romance is that romance pairs so well with other genres and we're going to get into this, but romance, you can link romance with anything and my book is historical historical fiction romance it's squarely at that intersection and romantic suspense is hugely popular so if you're at you know you you you don't have an idea yet you're thinking about an idea. I might suggest romantic suspense. It's very very popular, as is historical romance and, and more erotic romance. Younger readers. We see young if you're looking to do a YA story younger readers have been loving paranormal romance and we'll dig into the the definition of that as well. Let's see, there we are here we go. And how is it changing. We're seeing more diversity in the readership as more diverse offerings are coming and more men reading romance which I'm all for you have a nice selection of photos here. More people listening to audio books and YA is just huge and as to be expected extreme engagement on social media willing to try new authors and shop from different types of online online retailers. A really quick look at who your reader might be and it's just something to bear in mind as you start putting your story together. So, let's dig into what are the pieces of the story, what's going to create a strong structure for you. And the first thing is identifying your sub genre romance is a huge umbrella term. And I think it's really helpful to know what the various shop sub genres are. Whether you've already identified what category you're in or whether you're choosing it. It's also clear on where your book fits really really helps you especially when you go trying to look for an agent trying to trying to get published having that clarity is is hugely helpful. So let's just go through these real quick contemporary romance tends to go from 1950 to the present. And it's often in the time that the author is writing. So, you know, if you're wanting something with, you know, a empowered heroine who doesn't fit the beauty standards. A contemporary romance might be a really great fit for you your heroine's going to have a lot more possibility than she would have had in a more repressive setting. A contemporary romance is anything that is set prior to 1950. I'm going to be really honest and say that World War Two is probably the most popular time period right now there's been a huge, huge demand for World War Two novels. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It might be kind of at the tail end, but it's still a really strong, a really strong part of the market and if you do a World War Two historical romance, you will have almost like a built in readership because there are definitely people who that's their interest and that's what they buy and they're looking for the next book that's coming out that's the World War Two book. Regency romance. Regency romance specifically is also really popular. And so that does have a little bit of a built in readership. And that, you know, you think of Jane Austen to their erotic romance. This is where, you know, obviously the sexuality is front and center, often pretty explicit, and it's part of the love story. It's a paranormal romance, sometimes called speculative romance. This is sci fi meets romance. You have fantasy worlds you have, you know, the paranormal of science fiction, and this is again really really popular with younger readers so if you're doing a YA romance. I would encourage you to kind of look at this subgenre. You know, I would say to keep in mind here is that if you're doing extreme world building, just remember that the world building is the backdrop for the romance and keep keep that love story front and center. Romance with spiritual elements. Again, huge built in readership. Christian romances are very popular and you have readers looking for the next Christian romance coming out. And this is where you're going to see, you know, the counterpoint to erotic romance, the hottest thing in a romance with spiritual element might be just, you know, a kiss, everything might be leading up to that moment of intimacy and, and it's kind of chased, but it can still be really passionate. The highlight was written by a Mormon and I think those first books were, were pretty tame, but still very passionate. Romantic suspense is, is huge as well. This is where the mystery or the thriller is a huge part of the plot, and then YA. I think it's just that the main characters are, are younger, and I would really recommend if you're doing YA to spend time with young people I think one of the biggest issues with YA is that the language doesn't match how young people speak or the behaviors aren't how young people speak. So if you're doing a YA romance, try to get young beta readers if you can, and try to be as authentic as you can to what young people are going through today. Another way of categorizing your, your love story is really identifying what is the motivation behind the relationship, what is driving, what is driving this key love story. And it typically falls into these three big buckets. This is from something called the story grid. I have, I'm going to share a bunch of resources at the end. And I really like the story grid workbook. And I'll share that. I just want to make sure I'm kind of citing where some of this is from so that you can dig into it more if it is helpful. And so the three big buckets you have obsession, right. And this is obsession to the point of life or death often. So you see Romeo and Juliet here. It's an overwhelming and intoxicating passion for this other person. And these obsession love stories can sometimes be cautionary, cautionary tales. They don't typically progress beyond that desire. And sometimes they can end in death. Again, like Romeo and Juliet. And the great Gatsby is another really good example of the obsession love story. And you have the courtship where you're driving completely towards commitment. Pride and prejudice is sort of the gold standard here and I'm going to refer back to pride and prejudice because it's such a great structural example of kind of a bread and butter romance. Everything is driving towards marriage towards commitment. And then you also have the marriage love story where they're already in a relationship they've already committed. And that's happened. There's usually a negative inciting incident here. Somebody cheated. You know, something else occurred to where the marriage and the intimacy are threatened, and they need to figure out, are we staying together. And that's the, the, the psychological driver behind this story. I think through I'm hoping that you can kind of, if you already have a story in the works, you can start to figure out, okay, where, how am I categorizing this how does this fit. And if you, if you're just putting the pieces together, these are all things to keep in mind and kind of guideposts. So I would say that setting is so hugely important to a romance story, because romance is so often in series, or at least sequels trilogies readers love to escape into romances. And if you have a successful romance, your editor, your agent is going to say, let's keep exploring the space. And so you want to make sure that the setting that you choose is one that, that you and your reader are going to want to return to. You know, you want to, it's important that you want to keep writing in this world too. So this is the Scottish Highlands from Outlander, as an example of that. And another, another note is that if you have a really rich cast of characters in your romance, you can always explore the relationships of those of those secondary characters in the next book that you write so it's the same, the same setting. It's just a development of it. So, you know, if you, you're doing a YA, you know, maybe it's, I keep thinking Gilmore girls right where it's like this super cozy setting and there's excuses for the characters to bump into each other and the library in the bookstore. Historical romance, you know, I would love to spend several books in 1950s Paris. You know, again, World War two is also really, really popular. So the setting can really set you up for kind of long term success, just something to bear in mind. And then I really want to talk about the tropes. These are huge, huge parts of the genre, and your readers are going to expect them they're going to be familiar with them. And you don't have to. It's just so helpful to know which tropes you're working with you can subvert them. You can color outside the lines. Absolutely. But it's nice to know what lines are coloring outside of. And also really is. I think your readers. It helps your readers to dive right into the story if if you're using some of these tropes that they've come to kind of know and love and expect your most common one, the one that you're going to see really in everything is is the love triangle. Minimum the rival, right. And part of the reason why readers love the love triangle is because they like to you know they like to figure out which relationship they are rooting for. Is she going to go with him or him, your readers, you know loves to sort of assess and evaluate and judge which, which partner, your main protagonist should choose. It's really fun for them and they get to play matchmaker. Hunger games I think is a pretty good read more recent example of this secret billionaire, right. Someone's tired of their, their lifestyle they run out in disguise and they meet someone and fall in love and then it's, you know, it's a little more complicated than than the just meet cute story. I think of crazy rich Asians Asians here. He wasn't necessarily a secret billionaire but she just had no idea what his world was really like, and that provided such a fun backdrop and really great obstacles friends to lovers. This is not a book but I always think of Ross and Rachel and friends, but just the idea that they've known each other and now they, they've already bonded, and now something has changed, and they are shifting, and the, the book can explore that shift. I think Eleanor and park was a good example of this. The stuck together is a really common trope, and it can be paired with any of these other tropes, whether they are snowed in at a cabin, whether they are, you know, forced to work together forced to go on a road trip maybe they're even in an arranged marriage. However it happens, the pair are stuck together and they have to work through things. This stuck together trope is really often paired with the enemies to lovers. This is the pride and prejudice is a perfect example of this enemies to lovers. And it's where, you know, two people, they hate each other and they kind of have to overcome their differences or overcome their own internal conflict. And they find out that they're just made for each other. The taming of the shrew by Shakespeare is also a wonderful example of this, and then forbidden love. No matter whether it's, you know, forbidden because of politics or one of them is a vampire, you know, whatever the reason, the two characters that have really strong feelings for each other are. It's written and it creates immediate tension and dynamism. I think the notebook is also a good example of that one. And just a few more. The second chance. This is the trope that will usually be paired with the intimacy motivation driver so potentially they're in a marriage and they have to come back to each other. They broke up 10 years ago and now they're, they're rekindling something. And then you have soulmates. Here I have the princess bride, one of my favorites. And these are meant to be together, but they're, you know, huge obstacle, whatever the obstacle needs to be. And then finally the fake relationship. I think to all the boys I've loved before was a good example of this one. They're, they're pretending they're in love to get out of an awkward situation, or they, you know, they are pretending a marriage for a green card something they're creating a fake relationship. This, again, intertwines with the stuck together trope right. So you can see how these things sort of start to layer on top of each other and work together. And that's why it's so important to go and map out your story and see, you know, what is working together what is linking up. And then before we go into the scenes and conventions. I'm saying develop your characters first. So we've talked about setting we've talked about tropes we've talked about the world that your character is inhabiting and the structure of it. And now before we talk about the action. This is where you really want to know your character inside and out, because all of the action should be compelled by who, who that character is and how they would behave. So I think it's great to, you know, just on on paper, map everything out in terms of, of the structure that your characters are working in but before you go through the whole plot. Pause, take a second. Make sure that you really know your characters, because then you can always be quizzing yourself the whole way through. Is this what he or she would do. He she or they right. Is this how this person would behave. And they can kind of lead you lead you down the path themselves. When it comes to developing your characters. You're always asking the question is, do I, what I want to read about this person is this person interesting to me. Donald Mass has a wonderful workbook on characterization that I'll share at the very end. But these are some of the bullets that you can hold up against the characters that you're developing. Quality of character, this is often called your character strength, right. So we read fiction, not just to see ourselves but also to imagine ourselves as we might be right. It can often take the whole book for your character to understand their own qualities their strengths. But that journey is the one that we really love to go along with as readers. Strength can be a lot of different things for different people outspokenness, loyalty, perseverance, cunning in a romance, it can also often be their emotional depth, their capacity for vulnerability. That reads to your reader as that character's true strength. But there's usually always inner conflict, you know, no one wants to. We hate the characters have everything figured out right we envy them or we're bored by them, but we're not in love with them. And so we do want some sort of inner conflict because that is what allows your character to change over time to transform and that transformation is where you get the satisfaction. So the plot conflict plus the inner conflict is what equals that transformation and that characters arc. And so the one note I would have here is that you can have a really dark character you can have a conflicted character but readers don't tend to be super patient with willful self destruction. So the character has to have some some sympathetic qualities and they have to seem to want in some way to get over this inner conflict. And in romance in particular this inner conflict is usually what manifests as the obstacle to the relationship so their inner conflict can be maybe a past experience that left them heartbroken that left them closed off. And they have to get over that to open themselves up to love again. And, and then that provides a really nice moment of tension for the relationship. And then these two sides of the coin which are self regard and humor. In romance the characters don't dismiss their experiences they are appreciating the depth of what's happening to them. They're considering events they're considering their own responses to these events they're taking themselves seriously. And that allows us to as readers to really follow along with their arc. If you take yourself super seriously you have to have something that kind of counterbalances that so that's usually a sense of humor or a way or a spontaneity or something light. And so when you're looking at your main character. How, how was that balance falling with them. And then usually for giving a giveness and self sacrifice, come up in, in a romance relationship again. I think of pride and prejudice where Darcy helps the benefits without any hope of, of getting with, you know, getting to marry Elizabeth, he's just sacrificing for their greater good and not as always, you know, the reader always loves those moments in the characterization, and then apply the same principles to your antagonist whoever your rival is, you know, if you give them these qualities as well, and these aspects will be really compelling they'll be really complex, and it'll be really exciting for your reader to try to understand that antagonist. And usually villains also have their own sense of morality and justice it's really twisted it can be very twisted but they usually are have a have that sense of, of their own type of justice their own own breed. So, now let's dig into these expected scenes and again this is from the story grid which I just, I love but honestly these expected scenes are you're going to find this wherever you do your research these are just the really common ones. And I would really invite you to map out whatever you're working on. Go and find where are these moments, they don't necessarily have to be in this order, right, your first kiss or intimate connection can be when they reunite can be, you know, even when they break up maybe so they don't have to be in this order, but you're going to find all of these must have scenes in any really great romance and so go through your work see where you can map these out. So obviously there's a meeting there's an exciting incident they get together somehow. There's a first kiss there's that first intimate connection, a confession of love, and then there's usually something that breaks them apart. The Pride and Prejudice is the gold standard because it's so clear to be it's it's these beats are so clear in that story. The confession of love, the breakup, and then that proof of love that proof of love is usually linking up with that element of forgiveness or self sacrifice that we talked about. And to show how much they care, and that usually leads to the lovers coming back together. So, however, however, whatever order map these out. See, see where it's at. And then, if you don't believe me go through all of your favorite romance stories, and you're going to find these moments and guarantee it. If not, we can talk about it, but I think you're going to find all of these moments. And then you're also going to find these really common conventions. So always the rival this links up with that idea of a love triangle. And this also often links up with the courtship, the courtship romance. There's the third real character, one of them is usually also involved with the with the lovers. If you can say that the rival could be a personal ethic or some sort of outside opposing force. But most often it's a person. And then you have your helpers and your harmers, the people who are really for the romance and helping the relationship and, you know, conspiring with the protagonist and those opposed to it. You know, I'm from much to do about nothing right, the folks who will do everything in their power to destroy this, this match. And there's usually an external need. This is something outside the romance that is driving the actions of the main characters and, you know, it could be creating a deadline, it could be a trip or there's something outside that is driving the plot forward and compelling the main characters to action. Romance stories are often morally loaded. And in to be happily ever after they have to get over this moral failing. This is, I don't know that I this is usually how this convention is expressed. I think you can also call it the internal conflict that they have to get over. But in terms with there's something within the. Yeah, I guess moral but it doesn't necessarily have to carry the way of idea ideology with it, but it is something within the character that they have to get over by the stories and opposing forces. These are separated out from the hammer because the opposing forces can be outside the characters control like family values or social rules. It could also be something within the characters control like a belief or a bad habit that they have to deal with, but there's usually another opposing force to the relationship outside of the physical character of a hammer. If that makes sense, I hope that makes sense. There's rituals. These are little moments of intimacy. It could be private language. It could be a shared inside joke in pride and prejudice. You know, they're, they're, they're like witty banter, they're teasing is their ritual. And so you can think about what in my in the story that I'm working and what are the little things that they do together and you're going to see that every really great romance has this this shared intimacy between the lovers and then secrets and there's about four kinds of secrets. There's secrets that society keeps from the lovers. You're related, you know, but you know something like that. There's secrets that the couple keeps from society. So there's a secret relationship, whatever. There's secrets that the couple keeps from each other. So this could be the rival, the, you know, the main protagonist is dating the rival as well and not telling the other love interest. It could be a past, you know, a past in if you're doing a mystery romance, and you have a flawed detective in the center of it they could have some sort of of past sin that they've done but typically there's some sort of secret. There shouldn't be secrets that the lovers keeping from themselves. So, or that they're not consciously aware of so if we go back to pride and prejudice as our example, Darcy's pride. Elizabeth's prejudice would be these subconscious character flaws that they have to bring out into the open and realize and get over in order to have a successful relationship. I think we're actually doing okay on timing here. And so I really just want to touch quickly on intimacy. Typically x rated scenes are going to be in erotica or really specific sub genre work romance authors do tend to stay PG, especially if you're doing why a it's maybe that's changing but that's what you're going to see. And so there's these kind of classic substitutions that tend to be done. Right before the moment of intimacy there's going to be the fade out and I'll give you a good example of this next or other elements of intimacy take the place of anything erotic so like very passionate kisses very passionate touches, and I've included this photo here from the movie version of pride and prejudice where Darcy is holding Elizabeth's hand, and it's this incredibly charged scene in the movie. And, yes, as a viewer you're just like, yeah, they touched, and it carries all of the weight of true intimacy, even though it is literally just them holding hands. And so you can do that really successfully. And I have a few examples here. So, carrying with pride and prejudice as our kind of, you know, standard example. This is a retelling of it by Curtis Sidenfeld, and includes in one of the scenes of fade out. She unfastened and shrunk off her bra which was her last remaining article of clothing and joined him in the bed. And hours later her plane landed in Cincinnati so you see that just it jumps you know and we, we know what happened. And this is also nice because it really keeps the plot moving really quickly. There's also other elements of intimacy taking the place of that eroticism so their faces met and they kissed at such length that the kiss contained multiple phases, including the one in which they both were smiling, practically laughing, and the one in which she was. So we're seeing that the depth of that kiss communicating to us, the reader, the depth of the emotion and the attachment between the main characters. And then I'm including a little blurb from James Salter here. This is just my personal opinion, which is that I think he's a fantastic writer. And some of his work is more erotic. I'm thinking of a sport in the past time. But I think he does such a good job at intimacy. And he wouldn't be who I would, you know, there's other romance writers that I would recommend reading but his, his language and his treatment of intimacy I think is really worth looking at and learning from at least what it was for me. And so this, this is a bit from light years. He was moving unheardly like a man setting a table plate by plate. There are times when one is important and other others when one almost does not exist. She felt him Neil she could not see him. There was no movement none at all except for a slow distending to what she reacted as if to pain. She was rolling sobbing her shots were muffled. There's nothing more of it and more. So there's nothing x rated there. But it's, it's so intimate and it is so the strength of the writing is just wonderful so I would recommend checking him out if you're looking for inspiration. And I was hoping to save about 15 minutes for Q&A. Maybe I hope that that's a right amount, but I do want to end on a few resources. These are books that really helped me. And I would highly recommend. So the story grid what good at it. This is a book what good editors know by Sean coin. This is a book. And they it's become kind of this whole ecosystem where they do offer all kinds of services editing services. He's really, he's really kind of taken an entrepreneurial stance. But I would just start with this book it's a really great. A great place to start and it's an editor who worked on so many books and started seeing these patterns in what was successful and what wasn't and really does a good job of breaking it down structurally. You can get into the weeds and so you do need to know when to when to pull back from this world, but it's a great book to start with, kind of a classic is writing the breakout novel. The workbook that is included with this book is fantastic. The workbook gives you character prompts writing just plot prompts. It's a wonderful resource and so it does come with a regular, you know, book that he talks about his experiences but it's really the workbook that I would get my hands on and go through and use as you're fleshing out your own story. Save the cat is probably one that most of you have heard of. It's a book on screenwriting, but the principles in it can be applied to a novel as well and it's so helpful and pretty fun. And I'm throwing in a swimmin upon in the rain by George Saunders. This is focused on short stories, but it doesn't matter that the the teachings in it are going to be useful to you, no matter what. And it's such an approachable book. It's Russian story short stories that George Saunders then analyzes and breaks down so that you can see how they are put together structurally and why they're so successful and why they're so moving. And then you have some classics and I could go on and on a huge list here but these are just a few. Again, many of you probably have heard these but it's bird by bird. And then writing down the bones and then Stephen King's on writing is just such a such a wonderful book to read. So, I was hoping to save time for Q&A. And I hope I didn't go too fast. But there's the presentation and I'd love to answer questions and chat about what you are all working on and see if there's anything, any other way I can be supportive. Fantastic. Thank you, Margo. There were a few questions in the chat so why don't we start with those and then we can open it up further. I think I have to stop screen sharing to see the chat. Okay. There we go. Oh, there we go. I'm sorry folks. Yeah, this chat wasn't popping up for me. Okay. I can read them to you. Mark has a question. Can romance be incorporated into a young adult book? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, again, the, you know, if we go back to that first slide of what makes a romance, it's just, is that central love story that going to be the access or the the thing that your whole story orbits around. And if that's your focus, then, you know, you've got a love story on your hands. And YA romance is really popular. And there's some great ones on the market right now. Karen, did you want to ask your question? Do you want to turn your mic on and ask your question? I'm just so impressed. At the beginning, you mentioned that you haven't studied, you don't have an MFA. And so I was just wondering, how did you get the confidence to write? Like I see the list that you gave us of books to read. But is like, was there more resources that you use in order to get to that point? And then also I'd like to know, you did the, you wrote, you shared some stats on romance genre. I wondered where you got that because I'd love to get that for other genres. So the stats were from the romance writers association, RWA, and they did a huge survey. And that's why it's several years old. So we are seeing some shifts. But so I do trust those stats, but I don't know that they have done that for other genres because it's the romance association. So you just dig around. There should be other stats. But are you curious about, is there something in particular that you're curious about? I'm just wondering if I might be able to No, not necessarily just temporary books or something like that. But I guess that's a huge genre. I would just research trends. Like it sounds like you're interested in just in what's happening in the market and in readership. I would just, you know, if you if you research trends in the genre that you're most interested in, everyone's trying to figure it out all the time. And so you should, you should get some good hits from that. And yeah, I know I don't have an MFA and this is actually the first piece of creative writing I ever did. I did not write a short story. I did not do any creative writing before doing this. And so I did not have confidence and zero confidence. I had confidence in my research because that's what my background is. I spent probably potentially too much time. But I, I, I had, and I still have confidence issues, right. And that's why I'm continuing to, you know, try to educate myself and my, my suggestion though would be that if you feel compelled to be a writer, you're a writer and, and that you have just as much right to write to that as anyone else. Like you have, you deserve to be an author just as much as someone who was privileged enough to go to a fancy MFA program or, you know, have a, have a great degree or a pedigree. So that would be my two cents on that. The workshop was brilliant. Thank you so much. Well, I'm, I'm very happy at Hopton. I'm also, you know, I'm always around if people have other questions or if there's a way I can offer any support. Let's see. Yeah, James Salter, I do love James Salter. Character want and need. So, you know, I think it is, you know, I want coffee, I need water, you know, like it is, it is what, what is the, what is critical to the characters survival and then what is it that they, they truly desire. And there can be conflict between those two, and that can lead to a really interesting story. I just wanted to point out that I put a couple resources in the chat that will help those of you who are looking for statistics or looking for expert commentary on the publishing industry, regardless of genre, or on specific genres. You can look at Publishers Weekly, which has a nice website, but they also have a print magazine, or at least they did pre pandemic, and then book list, which is also in the chat is a great way to keep tabs on the genre that you're looking for. Emily had a question Emily do you want to turn your mic on. Emily, this is so helpful. Thanks so much and great to see everybody. Yeah, so I'm actually a screenwriter and I'm writing a romantic dramedy limited series with multiple couples. And so I was running any advice about like if you don't have love triangles we just have multiple couples and like how many is too many or like, kind of how to balance that. That's really interesting I mean I feel like that's a whole long conversation over coffee but I think it has to do with with your structure like are you doing you know I think of the movies that came out where there were multiple couples. I'm forgetting the title it was like Val it was Valentine's Day was one and it was New Year's I forget it was. Yeah there was like a New Year's like so many different couples one yeah. And then there's been recently a modern love one. And so I think the. I would have a lot of questions around the, how you want to structure that. Is it, is it. Each is it episodic where each episode focuses on a different relationship. Is it where there's some sort of organizing structure for the group. Like, I think of, you're doing screenwriting so I'm trying to think of TV and stuff like I think of friends where it's, you know, we do see the love lives of different people or sex in the city like, you know, there's multiple love lives happening. But there's the friendship core is is the organizing principle for the story. So I think, I think figuring that out. There, there just would need to be some sort of, of easy way for the viewer to organize what's happening, so that they can keep it clear. And then I figure out pretty quickly. Oh, each episode is a new story, or, Oh, this is, we're not just going to follow this friend we're going to follow all of the, you know, all of the group and I don't know enough about what you're working on or, or the other details of it, but I don't know if that helps or not, or like in four weddings in a funeral. Actually, love actually is another one that I see people. But yeah, and so I think, you know, and that actually brings up like the thing that helped me so much was just, you know, looking at what was out there and what had been successful and how did they do it and, you know, grabbing, they're all grabbing from Shakespeare so everyone's everyone's kind of borrowing. And, and sort of the same with I see this other question about female romantic lead who is deaf. When I was working I was constantly surprised at how much people wanted to share and to help. The main character in my book is a book restore, and I reached out to book restores and I asked, you know, tell me everything what are the tools you use what is this like, let's take a deep dive into this world. And so if you're working on a female romantic lead. I would do interviews, you know, reach out and there's, I'm sure that there are support groups on Facebook of people you know I'm there have to be support groups of people who are in the process of losing their hearing of people who are, you know, have always been deaf and living with deafness. So, I think people are in representation matters so much and so I love this idea. And I love that, you know, more people are being given love stories now, because they deserve love stories and so I just would say make it really authentic and and honest to the experience by reaching out and asking people and, and I think you'll be surprised at how much people want to share. Thank you. And great great workshop today, it's been really interesting and and so helpful and practical as well so thank you. I hope it helped. I was trying to pack a lot in so I hope I didn't talk too fast. Yeah, I just, you know, I had to dig around in the dark and so the more I can just try to help other people who are working on it not have to spend all that time, you know. I also list and we're coming up on time so. Taryn did put some links here for other writing activities in the mailing list. And they also have some upcoming classes so if you want to make sure that you're signed up. And you can stay in the loop. So, I'm on Instagram. That's probably where I am the most and so if you think of questions after this and want to reach out feel free to shoot me a message and I'm always happy to to chat and with you. Does anyone have any, I know where I have one more question. Oh yeah. I'm curious about you choosing this antique book binding restoration as this topic. Did you literally have no connection to that before, and you had to learn from the ground up or did you take something that you'd already paid a certain amount of attention to just wondering about choosing a topic that you're familiar with versus just choosing something that you're completely unfamiliar with and then you have to start research from ground zero. Yeah. And so for me personally, I, the, and I shouldn't try to plug my book more and be a better marketer but the book focuses on book restore, who's working through a palimpsest and it's a treatise that has a document that's been scraped away over and she's uncovering what that bottom layer says it turns out to be a diary and that's the vehicle by which we jump back to a historical love story so it's a dual narrative contemporary love story historical love story and that's kind of the structural framework there. For me, the treatise was an actual treatise that I found. And so I was doing. I was in grad school and I came across this treatise on art from the 1500s, and it was wild. It was so cool and I was just like I have to. I have to learn about this and figure this out and then when I started uncovering the time period, it was just as like this is a story this is a book and it just wouldn't leave me alone and I had to write about it and so for me. I was seeing that actual document, the physical thing, and then, but I'm not a book restorer, and I, you know I don't have a background in antiquities so it was a lot of research, and so I think the thing there is just is the thing that you're thinking about writing, not leaving you alone. Is it just tapping on your shoulder all the time and if it is, don't worry if it's not your background, you can research it and you can reach out again I can't emphasize enough. People love talking about their jobs. If you're, you know, you're doing something in a field that's totally unrelated, then you reach out to someone who's doing it and they will tell you everything you need to know people. You know nobody gets to talk about their job and that's exciting for them, and it's, and it's fun. And then, oh yeah, Faye having people love reading about bookworms to like we love reading about ourselves. So, yes, I think, and you're going to have if you do something based in a bookshop again you're going to have some built in readers who just love reading about bookshops. So, yeah, I think, you know, people like talking about their worlds and they like reading about their world so. I mean the biggest thing is just, is it, is it, is it something that is keeping you up at night, because that's going to be the, the fuel that you need to keep going and keep working through it, but don't be intimidated if it's outside of your, your realm. Well thanks so much Margo, great content great conversation afterwards. And thank you all for attending. We aim to have the video of this event up on our YouTube channel in a few days, and you'll receive an email from event bright or from the Mechanics Institute via event bright with a link to that video and the pertinent chat space. So thanks so much and I hope you all have a great weekend. Thank you. Good luck. You can do it. All right, bye bye.