Setting. Mood. Description. These are the elements that create the setting from which the world of our heroes and heroines come alive. Our favorite romance authors paint a reality that draws us into the passion, conflicts and adventure that make romance stories so inviting to read!

Wearing the hat of both an architect and skilled carpenter, an author carefully builds a stage detail by detail. Without a three-dimensional description of the town, home or environment, a story can not become "reality" to the reader. In the opening paragraph of Amanda Quick’s novel, Mischief, observe how she effectively uses detail to describe the house, which also mirrors the hero’s character.

"The weak flame of the candle made little impact on the flood of darkness that filled the interior of the deserted mansion. It seemed to Matthias Marshall, Earl of Colchester, that the vast house had absorbed the very essence of the night. It had the aura of a tomb, a place where only ghosts would willingly reside."

The romance author utilizes the three elements of setting, mood and description to set the real-to-life stage for the characters to "act out" the plot of the story.

One of the benefits of reading romance is the diversity of locations and time periods available to the author. Even though the author must select locations and time periods that are suited to her plot, hero and heroine, the challenge to the writer is blending in the details that will make the reader believe she is truly there.

Authors of historical romance must particularly recognize the importance of providing accurate detail to the setting and the mood for their story. Accuracy in writing about a time that has long since passed gives the reader the comfort level of living a reality.

In Lori Morgan’s Autumn Star, the reader can believe she has been transported almost 130 years to San Francisco in 1873 because we can "hear" the crowd, "smell" the dust and "see" the chaos.

"Gunshots sounded as men fired into the air…Buggies and horses packed the street. Drunken pedestrians ambled out of saloons and houses, venturing even from the hill to catch a glimpse of the scaffold where four ropes hung listlessly in the still air."

Descriptive details sprinkled with the facts make the location and time periods excitingly real for us.

Whether you enjoy a historical, contemporary, mystery or fantasy, the romance author is creating stories to take you to unknown and exciting places. The artful imagery in the creation of setting, mood and description will escort us through time, space and reality.

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