Pageturn Publisher: January 2011

So you have decided that you want to pen that romance that has been playing out in your head for Red Romances. Before you do, remember:

1. Clearly understand what you want to write – you want to write a book with a happy ending, a story, that however much there is conflict, you want love to surmount all. So you need to believe in the happy ending yourself.

2. Do some homework – pick from a range of romance novels and read up so you understand the genre.

3. Finally, remember that the story that you will tell has to be yours, not inspired. You need to write from your imagination about two strong characters who fall in love, and how they reach that understanding of being in love. Your story has to be unique and compelling, for your reader to want to pick it up.

Basics
1. 30,000 words

2. Story set in India, with Indians as protagonists – or abroad, with Indian characters and Indian ethos.

3. The two main characters have to be strongly delineated – for we are telling their story.

4. Keep other characters in the book to minimum – try not to crowd your story with too many and complicate the plot.

Your story:

1. The synopsis is important not only to us, but for you as a writer. It will help you sequence the story from an overall perspective. When you are in doubt or the story does not pan out, return to the synopsis to see if you need to re-work it in any way.

2. Your love story cannot be simple – it man meets woman, they fall in love and everything is hunky dory, well... that’s just too boring. To make your romance interesting, there has to conflict. Conflict can be from within the characters or from situations that create problems for the characters. You can have either or both in your story.

3. Set your story in a milieu that you are familiar with and can describe well. It cannot be a flight of fantasy but has to be grounded on terra firma – with settings, situations, and people that your reader can empathise with. Remember that your reader is Indian and would like to read about familiar people and familiar situations. The romance COULD happen to them – and that’s the thrill of the read.

Steps to write:

1. Break chapters into segments you can handle easily.

2. Plan how your plot will travel from chapter to chapter. A chapter ending and a chapter beginning should have reasons why.

3. Since we need an overall 30,000 words, plan to write say 15 chapters of 2,000 words each, or 20 chapters of say about a 1,500 words or so. Of course, it will be difficult to stick very strictly to the chapter word count but this is a loose guideline and you can give or take word counts for your chapters. You need to overall meet the word count we require.

4. Create strong dialogues between the characters. The interactions should be interesting and stimulating.

Your reader

Your reader loves romantic fiction for a reason, and you as a writer are fulfilling that need. Remember that your reader is important to you and is taking you seriously – all the more reason why your story and plot should be interesting keeping in mind her/his sensibilities.

Our story

Red Romances, the imprint from Pageturn Publisher Private Limited’s aims to bring a fresh narrative to desi romance writing in English. We are looking for new talent and good story-tellers.
While we do encourage new writers, please remember that yours will be among many other submissions. If the standard of writing does not match our expectations, you will receive a reply from us as to the same. If however, we do think you have potential, we may send you feedback that you will need to take constructively and apply to creating a manuscript that will match our publishing programme. However, Pageturn reserves the right to reject a manuscript at any stage.

Some basic rules

Red publishes only desi romances, and not any other genre of fiction.
What you send to us must be your own original work and should not be ‘inspired’ or re-written from any other work published or otherwise. These will be in infringement of the copyright law.

Every synopsis is required to be accompanied by a signed statement that the work is the original writing of the author and has no resemblance to characters living or dead.

Red reserves the right of evaluation of manuscript according to its programme guidelines.
Evaluation will take place at our end according to our set guidelines and timelines. No assurances will be given to the author on the same.

When you submit a manuscript to us, it has to be on an exclusive basis. Never submit a manuscript which you have submitted to another publisher and which is under consideration already.

Once your manuscript passes our guideline standards, you will be offered a writer’s contract which will be confidential.

For any queries you may have, please mail pageturnpublisher@gmail.com.

Monday, January 3, 2011

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING A ROMANCE

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