Book Blog- Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors II

 From Amazon:

Learn how to write your own romance novels or scripts by watching and learning from the romantic movies you love!

From award-winning author and screenwriter Alexandra Sokoloff: the second in her acclaimed Screenwriting Tricks For Authors series, with a special emphasis on writing love stories.

Whether you're a published author or a brand-new one, this  extremely practical and encouraging workbook will take you step by step through the key story elements  and techniques of crafting a romance, with examples from romantic comedy, romantic suspense, and romantic adventure, including ten full story breakdowns of popular romantic movies.

Screenwriting is a compressed and dynamic storytelling form that carries enormous emotional power, and the techniques of screenwriting are easily adaptable to novel writing. You can jump-start your plot and bring your characters and scenes vibrantly alive on the page - by watching your favorite movies and learning from the storytelling tricks of the filmmakers YOU love.

I've written about Alexandra Solokoff before.  I love her blog, which is an incredible resource for anyone hoping to learn more about plot and structure.  In  Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors II, Solokoff explores how the three act structure works in romantic stories.  Since every book I write features a romance in some capacity, I was interested to see how Solokoff applied the three act structure to romantic storylines.  The book includes some fantastic exercises and examples.

I come away with an "aha" moment every time I read one of her books, and this one was no exception.   It was full of tips and illustrative examples that really showed how romance can drive the plot or work as a subplot.  One of my favorites was a concept from romantic movies that one half of the couple is usually the pursuer and the other half is the pursued.  At the same time, one half of the couple allows him or herself to love someone else, and the other half of the couple allows him or herself to be loved.  But the pursuer is not always the lover, and the pursued is not always the loved. While this dynamic may not work out so well in real life, it does work well within the confines of a story.  And, thinking of my characters in this way really helped me to understand their conflicts, goals and character arcs. 

Alexandra Solokoff's books on writing craft are quick reads that I find myself coming back to over and over again.