There’s nothing quite like falling in love, and nothing better than a story that makes you feel the same dizzying, swoon-worthy joy. But how do you craft a believable and romantic relationship that your readers will believe in? How do you create sexual tension? How do you keep your lovers apart (and then bring them together) in a convincing yet propulsive way?
In this one day workshop, we’ll set out to find the answers. Looking at a range of romantic masters including Jane Austen, Elaine Castillo, Michael Chabon, Sally Thorne, Raven Leilani and more, we’ll interrogate the ingredients of a compelling love story across genres and styles. We’ll consider the power of tropes, the crafting of character, and that all-important task: writing a sex scene that’s actually sexy.
This workshop is suitable for all writers working across all genres. Whether your romance is a subplot or the whole point, whether you’re writing a relationship in literary fiction, harlequin romance or even YA, this workshop is a guide to writing romance that will keep hearts pounding.
Mikaella Clements is the co-author of The View Was Exhausting, a modern love story interrogating celebrity, identity and privacy which she wrote with her wife Onjuli Datta, due out in July 2021 from Grand Central Publishing and Headline Review. Her fiction has also appeared in Catapult, Hazlitt and Overland Literary Journal, and she was shortlisted in the 2019 Galley Beggar Prize and highly commended in the 2019 Bridport Prize. Her non-fiction has been published in the New York Times, the Guardian, the TLS and more.
