A home for your romance, from the first spark to the ending it earns

Romance is the genre with a contract. Romance Writers of America defines it by two elements: a central love story, and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. In practice that ending is a happily ever after (HEA) or, often mid-series, a happy for now (HFN). Setting, era, heat level and subgenre are yours to choose. Break the ending and readers will say so.

Because the destination is known, the craft is in the route. Gwen Hayes' Romancing the Beat, a structure many romance authors plot with, splits the book into four phases: setup, falling in love, retreating from love, and fighting for love. The retreat is where drafts tend to sag. The wound that keeps each lead from love has to be real enough that the breakup, the black moment, feels earned, and the grand gesture has to answer that exact wound.

Readers also choose by trope and heat. Enemies to lovers, second chance, fake dating and forced proximity each carry expectations about pacing, and a closed-door romance and an open-door one are different promises. Many romances alternate the two leads' points of view, and many authors write interconnected standalones: one couple per book, the next couple glimpsed in the background.

1. Create the book and open Story Hub. Under Characters, set each lead's Role to Love interest and write what they want, what they fear about love and what went wrong the first time into their Background. Put the town they both left under Places.
2. Lay out the four phases as chapters, and note in each chapter title whose point of view it is. Draft in Focus mode, which hides the toolbars, when you want fewer distractions.
3. Halfway through, ask Robin: "In which chapters does Mara mention the night he left?" Robin searches your chapters and answers in chat, pointing you to where to look. You decide what, if anything, changes.
4. Before you write the black moment, run Reader Pulse on the retreat chapters (Premium). It estimates Tension and Emotional resonance for the chapter and names its weakest area: a preview of how readers may respond, before your first readers.
5. Choose Invite a beta reader and send two links: one with Can comment access, labelled "heat level", and one with Read only access for a reader you'd rather hear from in person. Notes land in your inbox grouped by chapter, where you can reply and resolve them.
6. Export EPUB for retailers or DOCX for your editor. When the town's next couple needs a book, on Pro you can create a series and add this one as book one.

• Robin never changes your manuscript on its own. In Edit Mode it can suggest changes, and nothing lands unless you keep it. Proofing runs when you ask it to, and changes only what you accept.
• There is no trope tracker or beat-sheet template. You build the four phases yourself, as chapters or in Free Notes.
• Reader Pulse scores are estimates made from your text, not reader data. Heat-level and sensitivity feedback in particular needs people.
• Creating a series, and the omnibus and bundle exports that come with it, needs Pro.