How To Write Romantasy: A Review
Apr. 29th, 2026 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penwallaI would like to preface this review with a reminder that reviews are for readers and that I am posting this on my blog, not on bsky with the author tagged, for a reason. I would also like to say, I obtained a signed copy of this book during a charity auction where the proceeds went to anti-ICE efforts in Minnesota, which the author provided, so like...this is not a personal indictment, okay? I just didn't like the book.
How to Write Romantasy by Jenna Moreci is a book about, you guessed it, writing romantasy.
I know I clowned on this book on social media because the author explicitly tells writers not to include non-human genitalia and says that if characters have too many animal parts they become unfuckable, and I stand by my clowning, that is hilariously prudish advice. Like, popular books in this genre will have the love interest just fuck a Nazi, okay? If readers will accept that I think they can handle it if a character has satyr legs or whatever.
But I do have some actual critique.
Everything this book does is done better somewhere else.
If you have never read any books about writing, and you really love romantasy, I guess this is a starting point? But better guides to fantasy, to romance, and to writing all exist. This is not a long book, so the author's treatment of every topic is necessarily brief, and I don't think it does the book any favors that she wastes so much of that page count on unfunny jokes. Most of the advice is fine, but even the best advice in this book is generic and surface level.
Like, there's a chapter about outlining that teaches you nothing about outlining except that outlining exists. There's a chapter about worldbuilding that is just lists of things a world contains, and this combined with the author's reminders that you shouldn't worldbuild too much make me think the author doesn't actually have any substantive advice about this topic. Frankly, every popular romantasy book I have read has had dogshit worldbuilding, so I think I would like authors to worldbuild a bit more. And I also think that if your romantasy novel is 400+ pages long and has multiple sequels, that is the word count of epic fantasy, the characters can only spend so much of the page count longing for each other, it is not unreasonable for the reader to expect a developed and thought out setting and magic system and whatnot.
And a good portion of this book is just reviewing what Freytag's Pyramid is, with romantasy themed examples. Which, again not bad advice, but would probably be of more use if it was twice the length.
If your book is specifically about romantasy as a genre, I think it needs to really lock in on what romantasy is, what makes it good, and how to create that blend of genre specifically. Really dig into it! Again, it's not a long book, why waste page count on generic advice about brainstorming and outlining, when there are entire books about this that are doing it so much better?
If you just need a romance beat sheet you can read Romancing the Beat, which even comes with a downloadable beat sheet so you can outline it yourself.
If you need a detailed breakdown of story structure there are so many books. John Truby's The Anatomy of Story is a favorite of mine.
If you just want a generic funny writing book How Not to Write a Novel already exists and I would genuinely call that my go-to writing guide, because it's pretty much always useful.
Overall I think the utility of this book is low and you'd be better served by reading a decent romance guide, a couple fiction writing guides, and then just committing to reading widely. I haven't read any books about how to write fantasy specifically but I'm sure they exist.
How to Write Romantasy by Jenna Moreci is a book about, you guessed it, writing romantasy.
I know I clowned on this book on social media because the author explicitly tells writers not to include non-human genitalia and says that if characters have too many animal parts they become unfuckable, and I stand by my clowning, that is hilariously prudish advice. Like, popular books in this genre will have the love interest just fuck a Nazi, okay? If readers will accept that I think they can handle it if a character has satyr legs or whatever.
But I do have some actual critique.
Everything this book does is done better somewhere else.
If you have never read any books about writing, and you really love romantasy, I guess this is a starting point? But better guides to fantasy, to romance, and to writing all exist. This is not a long book, so the author's treatment of every topic is necessarily brief, and I don't think it does the book any favors that she wastes so much of that page count on unfunny jokes. Most of the advice is fine, but even the best advice in this book is generic and surface level.
Like, there's a chapter about outlining that teaches you nothing about outlining except that outlining exists. There's a chapter about worldbuilding that is just lists of things a world contains, and this combined with the author's reminders that you shouldn't worldbuild too much make me think the author doesn't actually have any substantive advice about this topic. Frankly, every popular romantasy book I have read has had dogshit worldbuilding, so I think I would like authors to worldbuild a bit more. And I also think that if your romantasy novel is 400+ pages long and has multiple sequels, that is the word count of epic fantasy, the characters can only spend so much of the page count longing for each other, it is not unreasonable for the reader to expect a developed and thought out setting and magic system and whatnot.
And a good portion of this book is just reviewing what Freytag's Pyramid is, with romantasy themed examples. Which, again not bad advice, but would probably be of more use if it was twice the length.
If your book is specifically about romantasy as a genre, I think it needs to really lock in on what romantasy is, what makes it good, and how to create that blend of genre specifically. Really dig into it! Again, it's not a long book, why waste page count on generic advice about brainstorming and outlining, when there are entire books about this that are doing it so much better?
If you just need a romance beat sheet you can read Romancing the Beat, which even comes with a downloadable beat sheet so you can outline it yourself.
If you need a detailed breakdown of story structure there are so many books. John Truby's The Anatomy of Story is a favorite of mine.
If you just want a generic funny writing book How Not to Write a Novel already exists and I would genuinely call that my go-to writing guide, because it's pretty much always useful.
Overall I think the utility of this book is low and you'd be better served by reading a decent romance guide, a couple fiction writing guides, and then just committing to reading widely. I haven't read any books about how to write fantasy specifically but I'm sure they exist.
