Links to sites mentioned in How to Write Romantic Comedy

The Romantic Novelists Association – the best place to find out about romance writing, if you’re in the UK (or elsewhere, there is an international membership option). If you’re unpublished, you can also join the New Writers Scheme, which is one of the best mentoring schemes around. If you want direct mentoring – I do one-to-one mentoring too. Just ask!

The Alliance of Independent Authors – Excellent curated resources on self publishing options. They offer free contract advice if you’re a member. If you’re traditionally published, it’s still a good idea to check out their blog for marketing ideas.

The Society of Authors – Essentially an author’s union. They offer free contract advice if you’re a member (you can join when you are offered the contract, before you sign it). They have great resources about author’s grants and advice about things like tax.

Dictionary.com and Theasaurus.com – these are self-explanatory. They are an online dictionary and thesaurus.

TV Tropes – this is a great place to find out about tropes. It’s useful to know whether you’re writing a trope (chances are, you are, even if you don’t know it) and how you could change things up a bit.

They fight crime – Very silly site that suggests unusual crime fighting duos. Included here only because I love wasting time there. Sometimes their suggestions can spark an idea (not the idea they suggested, because those are bonkers). For example “He’s a leather-clad shark-wrestling firefighter on a mission from God. She’s a provocative mutant advertising executive descended from a line of powerful witches. They fight crime!”

*Added 2021*

Victorine Lieske’s Trope List An excellent list of common romance tropes. This is an extract from her book How to Write a Swoon-worthy Sweet Romance Novel. The Writing Gals podcast is also interesting and informative.

WritingTheRom.com – a blog dedicated to Hallmark romance movies. The authors have a book It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Hallmark, that goes into more detail.

Useful books for romance writers

The links in this post are Amazon affiliate links, so if you click through and buy, I get a few pence (thank you!), but it won’t cost you anything extra.