Who Will Be My Valentine? Romance Books Not An Easy Way To Get Into Fiction

Debbie Moors, author of today’s installment of “Who Will Be My Valentine?” began writing romance novels three years ago “because I thought it would be an easy way to break into fiction.”

“But it’s not as easy as it looks,” says the 31-year-old editor of Appaloosa Journal, a Moscow-based monthly magazine for horse breeders.

Just like mysteries and westerns, she says, romances require plotting, characterization and conflict.

“I didn’t really learn about that until halfway through the first book,” says Moors, who has a degree in magazine journalism.

Now she spends 12 hours a week revising her first manuscript, set in the Middle Ages, and working on a second novel.

“It provides a nice balance to the non-fiction I write professionally,” she says of her hobby.

Moors doesn’t mention her novels to fellow journalists. “I get a little embarrassed because of the opinions people have. There’s a tendency (among romance writers) to worry about our image.

“There are some trashy romances out there,” Moors admits, “but the genre is becoming more sophisticated, and some very wellwritten books are getting published.

“Just like any other fiction authors,” she says, “we have to write well and tell a good story.”