Romance Writing Prompts

How to shape a strong romance premise

40 original romance prompts

Use one as written, combine two, or take only the pressure point that catches your attention.

1. 1

   Two rival translators must finish the last book by an author who wrote each of them a different final chapter.

2. 2

   A wedding photographer keeps meeting the same charming stranger at ceremonies where one of the couples will not make it to the altar.

3. 3

   The new owner of a failing theatre needs the lead actor they publicly blamed for its collapse five years earlier.

4. 4

   Two astronauts chosen for a one-way mission fall in love after one learns there may be a single seat home.

5. 5

   A grief counsellor and a hospice chef work the same floor for two years without speaking, because each assumed the other found them unbearable.

6. 6

   Two people matched by an algorithm are told they are a 3% match. Both are competitive enough to want to know why.

7. 7

   A restaurant critic writes an anonymous review that nearly closes a bistro. A year later she is hired to save it.

8. 8

   He proposes. She says yes. Neither mentions that they met when she was assigned to investigate his company.

9. 9

   Two exes are the only qualified witnesses in a trial that requires them to describe their relationship honestly, under oath, in front of each other.

10. 10

    A locksmith and a woman who has been locked out of the same flat four times in one month both know the lock is fine.

11. 11

    Two rival wedding planners are hired by the bride and groom respectively, and the couple is clearly making a mistake.

12. 12

    A concert cellist loses her hearing gradually and does not tell the conductor she has been quietly in love with for six years.

13. 13

    Neighbours who have been passing hostile notes under the door for a year are seated together at a dinner where neither knows the other's face.

14. 14

    A man who ghostwrites apology letters for public figures is hired by the woman he owes the biggest apology to.

15. 15

    Two people fall for each other during a hostage negotiation training exercise, playing roles that require them to lie.

16. 16

    A widow rents her spare room to a lodger who turns out to have been her late husband's oldest correspondent, and knows a version of him she never met.

17. 17

    The village's two doctors are in love and cannot both stay, because the practice can only fund one.

18. 18

    A woman who cannot lie meets a man whose job requires him to. Both find the other restful for reasons the other would hate.

19. 19

    Two former childhood pen pals meet as adults, having each edited forty years of letters into a person who was never quite real.

20. 20

    A rescue diver falls for the woman whose brother he failed to reach. She has not connected the names.

21. 21

    Two candidates for the same promotion are told the winner will manage the other. They decide to sabotage the promotion instead.

22. 22

    A man leaves flowers on a stranger's grave every week. The stranger's daughter has been watching from the car park for a month.

23. 23

    A translator at a peace conference is falling for the delegate whose position she thinks is wrong.

24. 24

    Two people are trapped in a lift for eleven hours. Nine of them are silent, and those are the ones both remember.

25. 25

    The couple who run the town's only bookshop divorced three years ago and never told the customers.

26. 26

    A cardiac surgeon operates on the woman who broke off their engagement, and is the only person qualified to do it.

27. 27

    Two long-haul pilots keep being rostered together and have never once been awake at the same time.

28. 28

    A woman inherits her grandmother's house and the letters proving her grandmother chose the wrong man. The right man's grandson lives next door.

29. 29

    A stand-up comedian builds a set around a disastrous date. The date is in the audience, and is funnier than the set.

30. 30

    Two competing beekeepers discover their hives have merged, and the honey is better than either produced alone.

31. 31

    He teaches the class she failed twenty years ago. She has come back to pass it and did not check who was teaching.

32. 32

    Two people meet at a support group for people whose partners have gone missing. Both partners come home.

33. 33

    A ghostwriter is hired to write a memoir for a man she is falling for, which requires her to learn everything he has decided to leave out.

34. 34

    Two rivals for the same tenancy agree to share the flat rather than let a third party win it.

35. 35

    A woman who arranges other people's funerals meets a man planning his own, prematurely and cheerfully.

36. 36

    Two lighthouse keepers on opposite shores signal each other nightly for a decade, then the shipping lane closes.

37. 37

    A man returns a lost wallet and finds himself steadily returning things she has not yet noticed are missing.

38. 38

    The interpreter and the defendant fall for each other over eight weeks of a trial in which she must voice his every lie.

39. 39

    Two people booked into the same holiday cottage by a clerical error refuse, on principle, to be the one who leaves.

40. 40

    A marriage counsellor's most difficult clients are the couple who introduced her to her own husband.

Other full prompt collections

Each of these carries 40+ original prompts and its own craft notes.

• Fantasy writing prompts
• Horror writing prompts
• Science Fiction writing prompts
• Mystery writing prompts
• Thriller writing prompts
• Young Adult writing prompts
• Fanfiction writing prompts

Working from a draft rather than a blank page? The free writing tools cover character names, scene conflict, plot structure, and dialogue.

Frequently asked questions