{"id":544,"date":"2009-09-11T11:56:20","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T17:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alannacoca.wordpress.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2014-08-01T02:38:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T08:38:26","slug":"coloring-inside-the-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/coloring-inside-the-lines","title":{"rendered":"Coloring Inside The Lines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-545\" title=\"rules_image\" src=\"http:\/\/alannacoca.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/09\/rules_image.png\" alt=\"rules_image\" width=\"280\" height=\"210\" \/>I like to think of myself as\u00c2\u00a0a pretty good person. I follow most rules. (Except that dumb one about speeding.) Maybe this is why I&#8217;m struggling with my latest Work in Progress.\u00c2\u00a0 There are some rules, whether written or just understood, about romance novels. Must have the relationship as the main component to the plot (obviously). Must be written in the heroine&#8217;s point of view for the most part. (I like a 60% 40% relationship myself.) Must have a happily ever after(HEA). (Some publishers are happy with a HFN-Happy for now though) Main characters must be introduced within the first two chapters.<\/p>\n<p>This is where I&#8217;m struggling with my work in progress. I just started chapter three, and am only now introducing my hero. Will readers put my book down at the end of chapter two, disgusted because they haven&#8217;t met Fabio? Should I care about the rules? Aren&#8217;t they tried and true, tested on millions of readers? Should one romance author from Little Town Wyoming really be the one to buck the system? What if I just go all out and make my hero into a pot-bellied homeless man who is ugly as sin?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll just keep writing. If it gets rejected for publishing, then I guess we&#8217;ll know for sure. I&#8217;ll keep you updated.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like to think of myself as\u00c2\u00a0a pretty good person. I follow most rules. (Except that dumb one about speeding.) Maybe this is why I&#8217;m struggling with my latest Work [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3WdCY-8M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alannacoca.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}