This is a combination of different posts I've made, and I had to rewrite some things to explain them better. I really hope it helps.
Character creation is plot creation. You should start with your characters and build your plot around them, because romance is a character driven genre. Now obviously knowing your niche is going to play a part in this, but no matter what your characters need to have a few things:
1. Internal flaw: Start with this. What is preventing them from looking for love or being truly happy? Common ones are things like having been burned badly in the past by someone they loved, not believing in true love because their parents relationship is/was a fucking mess, not feeling like they deserve love, etc.
2. Redeeming quality: For some reason nobody on EA talks about this, but you need to offset that flaw with something that makes them actually want to be around each other and shows the reader that they're not just a good person, but good for your other character. If she's working on something important to her and people in her life keep standing her up instead of coming to help, then he's the one who shows up every time. If she needs to be protected but doesn't want to ask for help then he's there looking out for her without even being asked to. If he's some badboy who feels like an irredeemable fuckup then she's a naive optimist there to find the silver lining in his rocky past. This not only shows their good side, it shows them softening each other's flaws, which is essential to making readers feel that they could be a great couple.
3. Minor motivation: This is your plot. Obviously the main thing is how will they finally reach their happily-ever-after. But in romance you also have a minor motivation that pushes the external plot. This would be shit like him needing an engagement or marriage of convenience to soften his public image, or her having the town threaten to sell her farm that's been in her family for centuries unless she can get it fixed up (which of course she can't do herself, so she hires some drifter and oh look, he's terribly sexy and she really wants to have fun with him, but no! the farm is the priority right now!). This will also be used in your pinch points. They could be working hard on getting the farm fixed up and slowly growing closer as they live and work together, and then all of a sudden the town says they're pushing up the deadline to get it done, or a harsh storm ruins half of their hard work, and now she's kicking herself for getting sidetracked with romance when she should've been working harder.
4. Major motivation: Your minor motivation is the thing that your characters want *right now*. It's the immediate external stuff. Their major motivation is tricky because it shifts over time. If their internal flaw is that they don't believe in love, then they'll start the book wanting to live alone on their farm until they die a hermit who never married. Because marriage is for suckers, right? Except the introduction of the love interest changes things and makes them consider that love might exist, and along with this they're forced to look at their internal flaw and question what they really want. Their end-game major motivation is them realizing that they really do want a big family with lots of kids and dogs living on that farm. The love interest makes them realize that, and offers them the chance to have that, and when they lose that chance they're forced to fight for it because they now realize it truly is what they want in life.
Blend those together and you've got a romance book. Seriously. Your niche and whatever tropes are popular there will help you figure out which things to use as internal flaws, redeeming qualities, and character motivations.
Do NOT ignore your FMC. The old advice used to be that you should write a surrogate character for your readers. Usually these are bland FMCs with generic traits that don't really impact the plot. The Amazon market DOES NOT WANT THIS except with maybe a couple subgenres (PNR and Fantasy, usually). Loads and loads of reviews complain about FMCs who have no personality, don't do anything plot-wise, or are too stupid to live. Your male Love Interest may be the selling point of your book, but he's only one half of the couple. He's the fantasy, she's the reality. Your readers should relate to her struggles while enjoying her personality.
Play your niche (and its tropes) straight. I'm not kidding about this, when you're starting out you want to play them so straight that if it were a movie in theatres you would look at the trailer and go "ugh, another one of these?". Because romance readers aren't the people who groan when they see that. They're the people who lap that shit up, especially if they know it's using conventions of the genre they like. Romance books are all similar and that's fine. Because these people aren't reading to see how you bend or break the genre, they're reading to see what sweet scenes come out of the fun and games portion of your book, or what cute context surrounds your first kiss. When you have a few books under your belt and really get what the readers in your niche want *then* you can start subverting things. Until then play it straight and don't overthink it.
Romance has a natural pattern. Follow it. Not every beat is created equally. Readers expect you to spend more time on some than others, dedicating a whole chapter to something like the Meet Cute but only giving one line of internal dialogue for the first No Way beat. I see a ton of authors get tripped up on this. The thing that makes pacing tough is that it's different for each niche. If you're writing romantic suspense then things are going to be quicker and sharper. If you're writing a sweet slice of life romance then things will be slower.
Keep in mind, too, that the pace of a romance novel is like downhill skiing. Things start a bit slow and even, but as you get into act two the pace quickens, and again with act three. In the last act each scene should be a direct reaction to what happened in the previous one.
So let's do a sample outline from Romancing the Beat, since it's what most of you are using or basing your beat sheets off of, and see the pattern there:
Intro: Cassie just got off her shift at a shitty diner. She counts her tips, finds they're less than she hoped they would be, and thinks to herself that she's going to be late paying rent again. She goes to the hospital to visit her mom. They chat a bit but Cassie lies, saying that she's doing okay financially. Her mom tells her that she can't do everything on her own (attacking her flaw of being too proud to ask others for help) and says she should start dating. Cassie tries to change the subject, asking if the woman sharing her mom's hospital room groans like that all the time. Her mom says she does it often, but she can't really complain, and tries to find some good things about the room. Cassie feels bad that she can't give her mom somewhere nicer with better care. Her mom falls asleep and Cassie goes to the front desk to ask if there are any affordable private rooms. A sexy guy overhears and stops her as she goes to leave the hospital. He explains that he could help her out financially, saying he needs someone to give him a baby. He tells her that all her expenses would be covered, she wouldn't have to pay rent or buy anything, she would just need to give him a child. She laughs it off, thinking he's being ridiculous, but he insists on giving her his number in case she changes her mind. As she's about to leave she remembers she forgot to drop something off for her mom. She goes back to the room and takes it out of her purse, looking around as she does. Her heart wrenches again as she thinks about her mom living in a room like that. She goes home to her shitty apartment and decides to text Sexy Guy about his offer.
Meet Cute: Cassie and Sexy Guy meet up to discuss his offer. He asks her to meet him at his penthouse suite in a luxury building. She goes and finds herself feeling horribly out of place and under-dressed compared to the rest of the people there. She takes the elevator up to meet him. His name is Jake. He explains that he owns several very successful companies and wants a child to leave them to. She's attracted to him and can't stop noticing how handsome he is, but tries to focus. Â
No Way One: Every romance author I've ever spoken to has gotten stuck on this beat at some point. THIS DOES NOT NEED TO BE A BIG THING! Beats do not need to be whole chapters, sometimes they aren't even whole scenes. This could be something as small as her sitting across from Jake and thinking "okay, I'll agree to do this because I need the money to pay for my sick mom's hospital expenses, but I don't have time for love right now, so I will under no circumstances fall for this guy." That's still significant from a storytelling standpoint, but it doesn't need to take up a lot of room on the page. Your readers will catch it and they will remember that she wants to focus more on her mom than her heart.
Adhesion: Cassie already made the decision and you rolled it into the No Way beat above, so this will actually become a Leaving Her World/Whole New World beat. So with Jake she agreed above to do this, but decided not to get too close. This is her moving in with him, she's giving up her shitty apartment and packing her bags, and now she's in his mansion for the first time and he's taking her upstairs for mind-blowing sex that will hopefully result in pregnancy.
No Way Two: The first No Way beat can be quick, this one needs to hit a bit harder. Why? Because that sex was AMAZING and this mansion is AMAZING and she's starting to wonder what life like that would be like. Except her mom is still in the hospital and she still needs to be there for her instead of chasing love. So he tries to get closer to her and learn a little more about her because they're going to be around each other for a while. But she rebuffs this, reminding herself not to get too close. And that makes him think she's playing hard to get, which just makes him want her more.
Inkling of Desire: Now he's going hard trying to impress and woo her because of her rebuffing him above. This is usually a more lighthearted scene where he's showing her all his cool shit, taking her on private jet rides, offering her whatever she wants, and doing things to try to make her more comfortable. And it's kind of working. She visits her mom in the hospital and finds that she keeps wanting to talk about him. She starts to think that maybe she actually could open her heart to him right now, but doesn't make a concrete decision to do it just yet.
Deepening Desire: Something forces them to open up to each other. Her mom has a small medical emergency and she opens up to him about her mom's situation and why she's doing this. The next day she goes to visit her mom and finds out that he's taken that info and paid for her mom to be moved to a private room with the best care. They have dinner later and he tells her that his dad had gotten injured on the job, that he spent a lot of time working so his dad could get the best care after his accident, and he regrets not spending more time with him before he passed. Now he goes to the hospital and randomly pays medical bills for people who have been hurt at work and pays legal fees for the family to get a lawyer - that's why he was there when the met. She's touched by this. They commiserate with each other about the stress of having a sick parent, she thanks him for what he did with words and sex, and they fall asleep in each other's arms. When she wakes up he's brought them breakfast in bed and she's again thinking about how this could maybe work.
What If This Could Work?: The past few beats that attack her flaw of being too proud to ask him for help were mostly about him showing that he is interested in her and willing to help her even if she doesn't ask for it. This one is about her reciprocating that, choosing to do something for him or open up even more. Maybe he mentioned in the Deepening Desire beat that his dad used to love going fishing in a certain place out in the county, so she talks the chauffeur into driving them there. Now he knows that she's also listening to him and thinking of him in that way, and it acts as a sort of unspoken commitment to each other.
Midpoint of Love: Even though they haven't said it out loud, the two of them have committed to each other and are basically in a relationship now. This is the scene where she really decides to let him into her life and get to know her, so she takes him to the hospital to meet her mom. And he does an amazing job. He's polite, he's caring of her, and she starts to see that he really could fit into her life. This is usually the beat where they say I Love You for the first time (it's usually this one or during the Grand Gesture), probably after leaving the hospital when she thanks him for joining her there.
Inkling of Doubt: Her mom's health starts to get a bit worse. She starts thinking that this was the wrong time to start falling in love and introducing new people to her mom. Still, she agreed to give him a baby and he doesn't yet know that something is wrong. She tries to continue on as normal but the doubt is still there under everything.
Deepening Doubt: He flies them to his retreat by the lake so they can relax. He says that there's no cell reception and no internet, it's where he goes when he needs to get away from his work. She doesn't seem super into it and he asks what's wrong. She explains that she feels bad being so far away from her mom, that she's worried something will happen. He tells her that she's got the best doctors and nurses and that she shouldn't worry. She tries to go along with it but the nagging is still there.
Retreat: On the flight back she decides that this needs to stop, she can't be gallivanting around with him. She needs to be there for her mom since they're the only ones left in the family.
Shields Up: Her phone is blowing up with missed calls. The hospital tried to contact her, and she calls back to find that her mom is in a coma. Panicked, she goes to the hospital without explaining to him what's going on.
Break Up: He finds her in the hospital crying beside her mom's bed. He tries to comfort her but she lashes out at him, saying that she should've been there, she should have seen her mom before she slipped into a coma. He tries to apologize but she's not having it. She tells him that she wants out, she can't deal with having his baby right now. He says he still wants to help her. She accuses him of taking her away from her mom, just like he was away from his dad because of work. He becomes quiet. She yells at him to leave, and he does.
Dark Night: Cassie has no one now. Her mom is in a coma and the doctors are doing what they can. She's broken things off with Jake. She doesn't even have an apartment to go back to. By trying to do things on her own she has pushed away the one person who could have given her the emotional support she needs right now.
Wake Up: She keeps asking the doctors and nurses what she can do, but there isn't anything. She begins to realize that Jake wasn't trying to hurt her or take her away from her mom, and that he was right that she couldn't control what happens. She feels embarrassed about what she said to him. A new doctor that she's never seen before enters the room. She talks to him and finds out that he's the top surgeon in the country and was flown in by Jake to perform surgery on her mom. She asks if Jake is with him and he says that he was a moment ago in the hallway. She leaves to find him.
Grand Gesture: He's not in the hallway so she starts running around the hospital looking for him. Eventually she finds him outside the nursery looking through the window at the newborns. Without looking over at her he says that at first he wanted one with just anyone, but now he only wants one with her. She begins to cry and apologize. He takes her in his arms and says he knows how stressful it can be and that he should've been more considerate of her situation. She apologizes for what she said about his dad and asks is he could still love her. He says he couldn't love anyone else and they kiss. A nurse rushes over to say that they're prepping her mom for surgery. The walk together to the waiting room.
Whole Hearted: The surgery went well, her mom is out of the coma, and the three of them are living together in his mansion with doctors privately employed to look after her care. Jake arrives home from a quick business trip and Cassie hurries to him, throws her arms around him, and exclaims that she's pregnant. They kiss again, he's so happy. They hold hands and walk over to tell Cassie's mom that she's going to be a grandma.
Epilogue: If you decide to do one, or if you want to do a bonus chapter, fast forward to them with their baby and show how happy their family is.
