How to edit the most common big-picture issues in a romance series

Many romance writers prefer writing romance series where they can expand their plot and characters within several books. Planning, writing and editing a romance series is hard work, and romance writers often need to improve a lot of big-picture storytelling issues during the editing stage.

This blog article will help you identify the 4 most common developmental editing issues that romance writers need to edit in their romance series (and you probably need too!) with tips on how to edit them.

Lack of GMC (goal, motivation, conflict)
Lack of romantic tension and pacing
Info-dumping
Unnecessary plot events

Lack of GMC (goal, motivation, conflict)
A common developmental editing issue that romance writers face when editing their romance series is that the main characters often lack a clear and compelling goal, motivation, and (internal and external) conflict.

The writer often has a clear picture of the main characters’ GMC in their mind, but the writer’s intentions are not clearly presented in the manuscript. As a result, the motivation (reasons) the goal is important to the main characters is not clear to the readers, or the conflict might not be important or big enough to sustain the whole story.

Editing tip: After writing the first draft of the manuscript, read the entire story and note down the main characters’ GMC as it actually appears in the story.

Compare your notes with your intentions about the main characters’ GMC during the planning stage (outlines, character profiles).

Write down the updated GMC of the main characters in your notebook or your writing software, and make a plan on how you will strengthen the GMC of your main characters.

Make sure that your revisions reflect a clear and compelling GMC, and the main characters’ actions are driven by their GMC.

Lack of romantic tension and pacing
Another common developmental editing issue is the lack of romantic tension and pacing. The lack of romantic tension happens for two reasons.

The first reason is that the main characters fall in love too quickly without sufficient emotional development.

The second reason is that the romantic tension is dragged out (especially in the second act) by subplots that overshadow the central story (the development of the romantic relationship between the main characters).

Both reasons affect the pacing of the story, where the plot events happen too quickly or too slowly.

Editing tip: After writing the first draft of the manuscript, read the entire story and note down scenes where the development of the romantic relationship progresses too quickly or too slowly, and the emphasis is given on the subplots or the minor characters of the story.

Make a plan and revise the necessary scenes to improve development of the romantic relationship, the emotional development of the main characters and the pacing of the story.

Info-dumping
Another common developmental editing issue is info-dumping. Info-dumping occurs when the writer spends too much page time describing unnecessary or irrelevant information to the readers.

For example, the writer spends too much page time describing every little detail about the character’s personality, appearance and backstory events or spends too much page time describing the politics and society of the world, specific locations, and how magic works (especially in fantasy romance and paranormal manuscripts).

Editing tip: After writing the first draft of the manuscript, read the entire story and note down the instances where a specific scene includes unnecessary or irrelevant information.

Have in mind that specific information might be generally important for the readers to know, but it isn’t relevant or important in a specific scene.

Make a plan and revise each scene to include only the most important and relevant information. Let your readers discover the characters and world of your story organically as they read it.

Unnecessary plot events
Another common developmental editing issue is unnecessary plot events. The writer includes unnecessary scenes in the first book to force important plot events (or plot twists) to subsequent books in the series.

The writer believes that this is the best way to keep the readers’ interest, but they often forget that if the readers don’t find the first book in the series interesting, they won’t bother reading the second one.

Editing tip: After writing the first draft of the manuscript, read the entire manuscript and create an outline by writing down the major plot events of the story. Then, create a rough outline for each book of the series by writing down its major plot events.

Make sure to include interesting plot events in each book of your series. Revise the manuscript accordingly and follow your outline to write the next books.

Conlcusion
The four most common storytelling issues that romance writers make when writing and editing a romance series are lack of GMC (goal, motivation, conflict), a lack of romantic tension and pacing, info-dumping and unnecessary plot events.

After finishing writing the first draft of your manuscript, read the whole story again from start to finish and make a plan to identify and improve these common big-picture issues. Happy writing!

Additional resources
How to self-edit the big-picture elements of your romance story
How to self-edit your romance novel from start to finish
How to effectively edit the main characters of your romance novel
How to outline the 5 major plot points of your romance story

---

About the author

Maria Georgiou is a reliable and supportive developmental editor and beta reader for romance authors. She specialises in editing contemporary romance, YA romance, romantic comedy, romantic suspense, paranormal romance, fantasy romance and romantasy stories. She is a member of the EFA, ClubEdFreelancers and ALLi.
Learn more about the author: About me
Get in touch: Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky
Learn about fiction editing: Resources Library and Blog
Get a quote for your writing project: Get in touch with me form