allaboutlove online romantic fiction courses

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  • A Flirtation with Romance:
    This course is free. Don't even think about it. Jump right in and start today.

    It's about writing romance. In fact, it’s about writing anything - well, perhaps not manuals on automobile maintenance - but anything in the fiction line.

    We will teach you how to find your own voice and write with fluency and conviction. Perhaps, most important of all, we will confirm your power to make the hearts of your readers beat that little bit faster.

    Romance isn’t just about heroines and heroes. It’s about using the power of your unique voice to make your reader believe in the world you create for them.

    A Preparation for Writing Romance consists of four short sections. We’ve designed it so that you’ll have fun trying a number of writing drills, while equipping yourself with skills.

    The exercises will free your inner writer, develop confidence, banish self-conscious writing and grow your own writer’s voice.

    Cost: Free


  • A Relationship with Romance:
    Now you’re ready to get serious. Our 10-module Basic Guide will introduce you to everything you need to know about writing romance. We’ll discuss what romance is, who your readers are and what expectations they have of you.

    We’ll also equip you with all the basic writing skills you need to write a novel:
    • Creating believable characters.
    • Showing off your characters – what they’re like and who they are - without reams of explanation.
    • Revealing your characters’ pasts, without boring your readers to tears.
    • Writing authentic dialogue.
    • Building a story, with both conflict and romance.
    • Maintaining suspense.
    • Writing a good climax and resolution, while keeping the tension taut.
    • Structuring your story and keeping up the pace.
    • Writing love scenes.
    • Choosing the best possible viewpoint.
    • Creating a world for your characters to live in – setting and background.

    Modules will be released once a week. Each will end with an exercise. We will respond to each with helpful and constructive advice.

    Click here to view our sample course.
    Start immediately or on the date of your choice- sign up now.
    Cost ZAR 1250
    Prices are in South African Rands. Use this currency convertor to convert to other currencies.
  • A Relationship With Lesbian Romance:
    Our 10-module course will introduce you to everything you need to know about writing lesbian romances. This course will give you the same writing skills as the straight Basic Guide. But it has been geared specifically to lesbian love stories.

    These differ from straight romances, in that your readers have different expectations of your characters. We’ll discuss what romance is, who your readers are and what expectations they have of you.

    We’ll also will equip you with all the basic writing skills to write a novel:
    • Creating believable characters.
    • Showing off your characters – what they’re like and who they are - without reams of explanation.
    • Revealing your characters’ pasts, without boring your readers to tears.
    • Writing authentic dialogue.
    • Building a story, with both conflict and romance.
    • Maintaining suspense.
    • Writing a good climax and resolution, while keeping the tension taut.
    • Structuring your story and keeping up the pace.
    • Writing love scenes.
    • Choosing the best possible viewpoint.
    • Creating a world for your characters to live in – setting and background.

    Modules will be released once a week. Each will end with an assignment. We will respond to each with helpful and constructive advice.

    Click here to view or sample course.
    Start immediately - sign up now.
    Cost ZAR 1250
    Prices are in South African Rands. Use this currency convertor to convert to other currencies.
  • A Commitment to Romance:
    Now you’ve learned the basics and worked at your romance skills. This is the time to commit yourself to your first novel. By investing a couple of hours each day, you should have completed a 50 000 word novel by the end of our six-month course.

    Building on the foundation already laid in the Relationship course, this programme runs you through the practical application of your skills. Using the Relationship course as a reference, we add to what you’ve learned and help you put it into practice. We will guide and support you as you turn your idea into a working novel.

    Modules will be released once a week while you’re still in the planning phase. Once you’ve started writing, you will receive a module every two to three weeks, to give you enough writing time.

    The steps of the journey:
    • Coming up with the idea and preparing for the writer’s life.
    • Creating your hero, heroine and subsidiary characters.
    • Creating the world of your story.
    • Plotting their journey, and deciding where to begin telling it.
    • Deciding which point of view tells your story best.
    • Creating the map of your journey – the beatsheet.
    • At this point you write your first chapters, with guidance on baiting your hook. How to introduce your main characters; the conflict that will complicate their lives and their love. Writing first lines that matter.
    • How to write in compelling scenes and arcs.
    • You’re now into the heart of your story. How to balance the romance and drama, maintain suspense and keep the story moving forward. Avoiding the sagging middle.
    • Writing convincing dialogue, that reveals character and drives the plot forward.
    • How to “show”, rather than “tell”.
    • Writing sex that doesn’t embarrass the pants off you. Using sex to take the story forward.
    • Memory and flashback, and how they help you get over the past.
    • You’re on the final stretch. How to maintain suspense to the very end. Happy endings - keeping them believable. How to end: the cliches vs the surprising, quirky finish.
    • Assessing the work. Getting constructive feedback. Revision, light and heavy edits.

    Allaboutlove.net undertakes to consider every completed manuscript for publication and sale.

    Click here to view our sample course.

    Registration for this course will begin mid July.

    Price ZAR 2250

  • This four-module short course looks at how to write sex well. It invites you to explore your purpose and intention in using sex. It looks at different ways in which sex can be used in different genres, and what it can do to advance the plot and develop characters. Sex is not always pretty or even pleasant – in real life and fiction.

    We investigate the reason some sex scenes work and others don’t. Then we move into the realm of sex to turn the reader on: how to do it without invoking the ghastly cringe or, perhaps worse, the hysterical giggle.

    Finally, we deal with sex in Romance writing – what it should and shouldn’t do, and how to use it well.

    This course is intended for use beyond the Romance genre. And we have designed it to be helpful, whether you’re writing straight sex, gay or lesbian. We hope it’s useful, no matter what type of fiction you write.

    Some of the aspects of sex this course will deal with:

    • What else a sex scene must do (besides the obvious).
    • Why sex should jostle for its right to be there
    • What sex can do that other scenes can’t
    • Examples of sex used for different purposes.
    • Does it always have to be the full monty?
    • Different levels of explicitness – to achieve different effects
    • How to write sex designed to turn readers on
    • The terms to use (or, more to the point, not to use)
    • Point of View
    • Why sex scenes don’t work
    • Sex and Romance – what to consider, your readers’ expectations, how to build up to the point
    • Romance and celibacy – how to build your emotional intimacy and sexual tension, even without explicit sex
    • Setting
    • This is an extract from the module that deals with plotting a romance novel.
    • This is an extract from the module on building characters in lesbian romance. Please note that the female lead is referred to as the "hero". Her romantic counterpart is her "love interest".
    • This is an extract taken from the module dealing with ideas - where to find the initial scrap of an idea, and how to tease it out into a full story plan.

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    allaboutlove offers a range of online romantic fiction courses. We provide everything from foundation writing skills to advanced support while you write a complete novel.

    All our modules are intended to take between two and five hours a week to complete, depending how many of the optional exercises you choose to do. In this way, we hope our courses will suit any schedule and all lifestyles.

    The provocative and inspiring introductory course is completely free.

    Our basic and advanced courses are interactive, providing students with a constant flow of feedback and advice. We promise to tell the truth, but we’ll always be kind.

    As a launch special, we are offering our courses at generously reduced prices. Take advantage of them while the Sale tag remains!

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