In Jasmine Guillory’s Selling a Love Story, students will learn to create compelling romance narratives by exploring the foundational aspects of romance, including its rules, structure, and key terminology. Module 1: How to Start covers character introductions, their life goals, and crafting an engaging 'Meet Cute.' Module 2: Sell the Characters helps students identify what’s missing in their characters’ lives, their strengths and flaws, and how secondary narratives influence their growth and the romance. Finally, Module 3: Sell the Story teaches students how to depict the journey from attraction to true love, ensure a satisfying happy ending, and craft a believable resolution after the Third Act Breakup. This course provides applicable exercises for students to clearly tie story arc to characterization, and it’s discussion of how to make romance believable is applicable not only to the Romance genre, but strong romance B-plots as well.

Kristin Dwyer, critically acclaimed author of romance novels, takes on the mechanics of the “third act breakup” to analyze the key elements of storytelling that create the foundation for an emotional impact in the darkest moment of your character's journey. The Third Act Breakup is an examination and defense of one of the romance genre's most controversial story beats. In this course, Kristin destigmatizes the trope and emboldens romance writers to capture human emotion at its most sincere. Students will explore the rules of writing romance, strategies for cultivating and maintaining tension, and frameworks for earning a happily ever after. Using myriad case studies from her extensive study of the genre, Kristin will teach students how midpoints, tension, emotion, and tone all set the stage for a devastating story beat that truly earns a happily ever after.