Let's Write a Romance Novel: Starter Documents

There's nothing more loveable than well-organized book prep

So you’re writing a romance novel. Congratulations! But you aren’t sure where to start. You might only have the items on your writer’s wish list to go off of, or a vague description of your two (or more, you cheeky thing!) lovers, and while you’re absolutely within your rights to start writing from there… it’s helpful to have a bit more to go on.

For a full-throttle breakdown guide and workbook of starting documents for romances of all kinds (including distinct world-building suggestions for historical, romantasy, and contemporary books), we’ve got those after the paywall for our paid subscribers. For a great starting point, though, read on!

My must-have documents when planning a romance novel

1. The dump doc. This is the starting point of everything- the kernel of an idea, the item that sparked joy from my writer’s wish list, the brain dump of things that interest me about this story. Once the dumping starts to organize itself (usually, when I name a character), I’ll spread out to the rest of the documents (see below), but until the shape emerges from the granite slab, I don’t put pressure on myself to stay in one lane or the other. There is no inherent structure- whether I’m starting with a character idea, a trope, a line of dialogue, or a scenario, there is no judgement in the dump doc. There is only sincere excitement and unfettered creativity.

2. Character templates. At LEAST for my two love interests, but also occasionally for important secondary characters or antagonists. You can find a lot of great character interviews online, or use the one Scrivener has pre-built for you; the point is, you must know your people before you torture them incessantly make them fall in love.

   1. Sub-document: GMC grids. I find doing a GMC grid for each primary love interest to be extra helpful when developing balanced characters, so that I can ensure their internal and external conflicts are aligned thematically, even if they’re on different ends of the spectrum. Ex: both characters have parental baggage, but one reacted by overworking herself, and the other reacted by fully giving up, therefore the book is about them finding balance together. If, in doing my initial grids, I find that their goals or motivations have no overlapping words or concepts at all, I know I’ve either got the wrong love interest, or one of them needs some redeveloping. GMC grids explained in more detail here.

   2. Sub-document: Character names. I can’t be the only one who used to scroll through 50+ pages to see if I’ve named my protagonists’ pet chicken already or not. So now, before I ever start writing, I make myself a CHARACTER NAMES document, and when I name someone (a best friend, a parent, a pet chicken, etc), and especially if I imbue them with a unique, important description (ponytail guy? Rat face? Big red eyes?), I can easily jot them down for reference later in the story for continuity and reader recognition.

3. Timeline. Similar to the character names doc, if your story is set during a strict timeline (“before Christmas”, “1 week total”, etc) and you need to keep track of what freaking day it is… as you write, a pre-made timeline doc (perhaps with days of the month already laid out) allows you to record how time is naturally passing… and advise on how much time can pass between chapters or scenes when you need SOME time to pass, but aren’t sure how much you’re allotted so the next scene falls on a weekend, or the week before a major national holiday.

4. Epistolary elements. I wrote my senior thesis for my BA in Creative Writing on epistolary novels, so maybe this is just me, but I have yet to write a novel that doesn’t include primary source documents at some point, at least not a novel I’m proud of having written. And even if they don’t make it into the book, proper, I’ve found brainstorming in an epistolary format to be a really great brainstorming mechanism for characters. This can include:

   1. Emails and social media

   2. Journals/diaries

   3. Texts to friends and family

   4. Work communication (how do they talk to their boss? Their coworkers?)

   5. Lists (grocery, to-do, bucket, etc)

   6. Letterbox/Goodreads (what are they watching/reading)

   7. Articles about them by other people (especially if the character is famous to some degree)

5. Questions I Need Answered. This is a kind of dump doc, but one for when I’m deeper into the process, where I ask myself questions about my concept/story that I don’t yet have an answer to but will need to eventually. This is things like- “why doesn’t Ivy agree to an interview if it will make her life easier?” or “Can fated mates on the planet Q’rris get divorced, and if so, what does that entail?” Sometimes, I’ll finish the full manuscript draft before these questions get answered, but it’s a good way for me to keep track of these questions, and then use them as prompts during writer’s group feedback sessions, or as a place to begin when I start revising. It’s also something I’ll work on when I’m experiencing writer’s block, because often the concrete question prompts are easier to ruminate on than conjuring full scenes.

Now is the best time to start curating these docs. And the second best time is during our Writing Community Hour over on The Rogue MFA YouTube channel every other Thursday evening at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST (next up- March 19th). We host on our YouTube channel, where we’ll be building routine and community with YOU. Subscribe to get notified, and if you’re even a little bit interested, please fill out our quick survey so we can expand these in the future with you in mind.

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