Class Description
The best romance feels effortless, but most novelists will tell you that their writing process is anything but, requiring skill, focus, and persistence. In this class, we'll come together to do the hard work of making it look easy, learning to be attentive to voice, stakes, and pacing as you outline, draft, and revise our way toward Happily Ever After.
Each week, we'll focus on a key component of a successful romance novel—from characterization to dialogue to intimacy (yes, that means sex scenes!). We'll read and study excerpts before turning our attention to our own projects, guided by prompts for in-class writing. After each meeting, students will be asked to write or revise a new scene, generating or polishing pages toward a novel in progress. During the final weeks of class, we'll workshop an excerpt from every student's project, offering constructive feedback and lots of encouragement for writers to continue onward toward a polished happily ever after.
Writers at any stage in the drafting process are welcome, and the class will enthusiastically embrace a range of subgenres. Readings will focus on commercial romance novels published in the last ten years, from authors including Sarah MacLean, Jasmine Guillory, TJ Alexander, Sonali Dev, Freya Marske, and many more.
Writing Roadmap: We've created a simple, goal-based writing roadmap to help you find the perfect GrubStreet course for your writing needs.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.