Class Description
If you love stories that make you swoon and want to write your own romance novel, this course is for you. Whether you have the germ of an idea or are already well into a draft, you'll discover what makes a page-turning, heartfelt romance novel by drawing on popular examples of the genre, identifying the rules of romantic fiction and highlighting key techniques that you can bring to your own writing. In-class exercises and generative writing prompts will connect our lessons, and we'll wrap up each week with a writing assignment and feedback on your work. We’ll review excerpts from published works such as Jasmine Guillory, Kennedy Ryan, Emily Henry, and Casey McQuiston.
Romance is for everyone. Whoever takes center stage in your story and whatever kind of love you want to explore in your novel, this class will equip you with the tools you'll need for character development and plot arcs. You’ll come away with an understanding of romantic tropes and how to use them, an outline of the basic plot beats of romance, familiarity with the sub-genres of romance fiction, and guidance on how to create the compelling characters we want to see in an HEA (happily ever after). By the end of this class, you'll have an outline for your novel and a plan on how to move forward.
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.