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Hello everyone, with the 2023 contest on the horizon, I've started getting more reads on Cupid's BLAME!, I assume, by people that want to get an idea of what they're looking for in terms of romance.
Though I don't claim to have all the answers and I'm far from perfect, I'll help you with what worked for me, and hopefully this helps you out a little bit, too.
1) Good cover. Invest in a cover that would make you personally pick up a book from among many others from a bookstore. Forget about “don’t judge a book by its cover” - if the cover isn’t good enough, people won’t want to read it. People have limited free time and want to use it to read something they think is worth their while. A good cover isn’t just “bait”, it reflects the author’s confidence that the content inside is worth it.
2) Maybe this is just advice from an idol fan, but it worked for me: use the oshi method. We’ve all read/watched something that we consciously recognize as garbage yet we powered through because of our oshi (aka best boy/best girl, favorite character, a term mostly used for idols). Ensemble idol series give their characters different, recognizable traits - a favorite animal, a favorite food, a specific manner of speech, certain tropes on their upbringing or personality— the possibilities are endless. The point is, giving your characters traits that sharply distinguish them from the others in your cast is important, no matter how ridiculous. Don’t be afraid of clichés and don’t worry too much about making them realistic. Save that for a serious, non-light novel title.
3) For the romance part, pining and admiration are key. don't focus only on physical attraction, focus on the reactions the feeling of love evokes inside your character's heart. Put yourself in their shoes. If you think about it philosophically, love is always a one-way street: the feelings of love you feel for one person are your own; whether that person loves you back or not is irrelevant to the way you may feel about them. Your feelings are yours, and they're not the responsibility of the object of your affection. Loving someone and being loved back are two entirely different things, and that's what makes love confessions so scary: because you're baring your soul to them in its purest form. Even if they love you back, there's no way you will ever be inside their mind to gauge if their love for you is the same as the love you feel for them, and that's what makes relationships a leap of faith into the unknown. With this in mind, Make your main couple someone people will want to root for, someone they feel deserves to have their feelings returned.
4) Last but not least, short is best!!! This one was hard for me in particular to learn lmao. LN readers want something, well, light. Short and easy, quick to read. If you spend too much time describing details you’ll lose your readers pretty quickly. There’s a place for beautiful prose, like in novels or fanfiction, but LNs need to remain as light as possible. Your longest paragraphs shouldn’t be more than four lines long, at most. Do one-liners whenever possible. The space you put between one line and another gives your readers a breather - a natural pause, and it can create tension without explicitly writing it. Use your lines as well as your non-lines! Also, don't be afraid of being predictable. It’s not the destination that matters, but how you get there.
I ended up rambling way too much, sorry.
Anyway, good luck to everyone entering the contest, I'm looking forward to reading all your heart-pounding stories of love!
-Makech
Though I don't claim to have all the answers and I'm far from perfect, I'll help you with what worked for me, and hopefully this helps you out a little bit, too.
1) Good cover. Invest in a cover that would make you personally pick up a book from among many others from a bookstore. Forget about “don’t judge a book by its cover” - if the cover isn’t good enough, people won’t want to read it. People have limited free time and want to use it to read something they think is worth their while. A good cover isn’t just “bait”, it reflects the author’s confidence that the content inside is worth it.
2) Maybe this is just advice from an idol fan, but it worked for me: use the oshi method. We’ve all read/watched something that we consciously recognize as garbage yet we powered through because of our oshi (aka best boy/best girl, favorite character, a term mostly used for idols). Ensemble idol series give their characters different, recognizable traits - a favorite animal, a favorite food, a specific manner of speech, certain tropes on their upbringing or personality— the possibilities are endless. The point is, giving your characters traits that sharply distinguish them from the others in your cast is important, no matter how ridiculous. Don’t be afraid of clichés and don’t worry too much about making them realistic. Save that for a serious, non-light novel title.
3) For the romance part, pining and admiration are key. don't focus only on physical attraction, focus on the reactions the feeling of love evokes inside your character's heart. Put yourself in their shoes. If you think about it philosophically, love is always a one-way street: the feelings of love you feel for one person are your own; whether that person loves you back or not is irrelevant to the way you may feel about them. Your feelings are yours, and they're not the responsibility of the object of your affection. Loving someone and being loved back are two entirely different things, and that's what makes love confessions so scary: because you're baring your soul to them in its purest form. Even if they love you back, there's no way you will ever be inside their mind to gauge if their love for you is the same as the love you feel for them, and that's what makes relationships a leap of faith into the unknown. With this in mind, Make your main couple someone people will want to root for, someone they feel deserves to have their feelings returned.
4) Last but not least, short is best!!! This one was hard for me in particular to learn lmao. LN readers want something, well, light. Short and easy, quick to read. If you spend too much time describing details you’ll lose your readers pretty quickly. There’s a place for beautiful prose, like in novels or fanfiction, but LNs need to remain as light as possible. Your longest paragraphs shouldn’t be more than four lines long, at most. Do one-liners whenever possible. The space you put between one line and another gives your readers a breather - a natural pause, and it can create tension without explicitly writing it. Use your lines as well as your non-lines! Also, don't be afraid of being predictable. It’s not the destination that matters, but how you get there.
I ended up rambling way too much, sorry.
Anyway, good luck to everyone entering the contest, I'm looking forward to reading all your heart-pounding stories of love!
-Makech