On the Road to Forever

by Marcella Robinson from the June 13, 2022 issue

Tagline: After popping a tire on a country road in her hometown, Merrilee is sure she's out of luck...until a familiar face arrives to save the day.

Observations: This story left me feeling warm inside. Robinson set the scene of a country road on a warm summer day so well. And when she got to the hero's "grand entrance," I was a goner.

The truck door slammed, the driver coming toward her, the sun at his back, casting him in a golden glow.

I mean, come on! That's such a perfect image.

Also, there are so many warm fuzzies regarding her dad's garage and her feeling the nostalgia of returning to the place where she'd made so many happy memories with him just added to the perfection of this story. 

Then there's the ending. I'm literally getting goosebumps reading it again.

They climbed into her car, rolled down the windows and, just like old times, drove down the country road into the sunset with wind in their hair, and the promise of love in their hearts.

If you want an example of how to craft a perfect Woman's World 5-Minute romance, read this one again.

Photo by Kumweni via Flickr Creative Commons License

Melody of Love

 by Rose Ross Zediker from the June 6, 2022 issue

Tagline: When Katherine and her old flame, Logan, meet in a piano bar, will their love build--or go flat?

Observations: I've not seen a story set in a piano bar before, so yay! I love seeing new settings for these stories.  

This week I wanted to focus on this excellent first paragraph:

"Thank you for driving me to the opening of the new piano bar. I didn't want to miss it," Aunt Molly said. "I like to support my former students' musical endeavors."

It's excellent because Zediker gave us a lot of information via natural dialogue. It can be challenging to do this without having the characters sound stilted. I see this once in a while when I edit stories and I always think of it as the "As you know, Bob" syndrome, as in...

"As you know, Bob, Uncle Barney didn't like you as much as he did me, so when he died, I was the prime beneficiary."

All of this information would already be known to Bob and the only (painfully obvious) purpose of this line of dialogue is to inform the reader. It's not usually this blatant, but it can be something you want to be wary of.

A Day Worth Remembering

 by Mary Ellen Main from the May 20, 2022 issue

Tagline: The last thing military widow Pam is expecting at the senior center is a second shot at love...until a handsome stranger shows up in the lunch line.

Observations: I didn't think it was possible to write a romance related to such a somber holiday, but Main succeeded. I liked Pam's posse of friends at the senior center. They were adorable. And notice that only one of them was named--Georgia. It's not necessary to name every person who appears in your story. 

The time you use to describe characters should be in direct proportion to their importance to the story, and this goes double for Woman's World stories. For instance, waiters, fellow passengers, people in the elevator, these "movie extras" needn't be named or described unless necessary. You only have 800 words. Best to use them developing your story. Even the main characters probably don't need much description. (Pam didn't get any at all.)

Here's what we got about the hero, Kevin:

Thick brown hair with a slight wave stood atop his broad,handsome face and his arm rested across his mom's shoulder, creating a picture of warmth that made Pam's heart glow. As he took his place in line, his deep brown eyes, crinkled gently at each corner, caught Pam's.

It makes sense that she took sometime to create a picture of him in the readers' heads. This is the man we're going to vicariously fall in love with. 

However, if you need the space to develop the love story and the emotions and the character arcs, I would absolutely choose to use the words for that over a physical description of the characters. You can usually get away with just mentioning that they have brown hair or green eyes. :)

Photo by Denise Krebs via Flickr Creative Commons License