Page 54 of How to Write a Rom-Com

I turn to my computer and alternate between speech-to-text and typing. I start by taking notes, with setting descriptions, but soon I find my mind wandering into character profiles. Every small-town romance has a customary cast of characters. Once I start, I find it hard to stop.

Heroine

Hero—librarian, library assistant? Researching for grad school on Native American history?

Small-Town Head Bitch in Charge

Family—hero’s sister/brother? Kids?

Small Business Owner

Side character who befriends the heroine, shows her the town?

I type HEROINE on top of the page and HERO on the bottom. I add a table and label each row with a heading: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION, LIKES/DISLIKES, BACKSTORY, CHARACTER ARC.

I’m a bit hesitant to start with the heroine because I feel like Anne would definitely call me out if she turned out too much like me. I turn my attention to the hero section and get to work. I write pages of character profiles, setting descriptions, and plot charts.

Outlining is a lot harder than I imagined.

The problem is, I need to make the characters different from the actual people I met here.

Small-Town Head Bitch in Charge: shoulder-length gray hair, small brown eyes that can be daggers in the right setting.

Small Business Owner: coffee shop, café; happy-go-lucky guy, married to a strong-willed woman (HBIC?), father-figure for heroine.

Hero: tall, lean muscles, hair falls just below the ear; tragic past

Parent deceased?

Character Arc – learning to accept help/laugh again from heroine?

After typing and deleting on repeat for what seems like forever, I sit back and take my hands off of the keyboard, defeated.

As much as I try, I can’t escape the similarities. Because it’s them. It’s May and Max, and Liam and Jill, that make this story. It’s May with her megaphone. It’s Max with his big belly laughs and overgrown mustache. It’s Liam and his grief, his loss, and big heart. It’s Jill with her kindness, her determination. It’s what makes them…them. That’s what this story is.

Without them, there is no story.

Who was I kidding?I can’t pretend that the characters I came up with are any different from the people in Hudson Hollow. I can’t sketch out a setting and give it a different name when this place is the heart of the book. The whole plot of the story I dreamed up for Ruby, it’sthem. It’s all the people I’ve met, it’s this town. And I’ve betrayed them.

Anne sent me here to map the setting of a small-town romance, and Elle’s right, I’ve started living one.

I’m frozen at the counter with my hands on either side of my face, the heels of my palms pressed into my temples, the contents of my brain swirling so fast I feel like I should be frantic. But instead, I can’t move.

I scroll through pages of the document—pages of work that I sat here toiling over for the past two hours. Work that, up to this point, I would have been proud of. Now I just feel…ashamed.

I hate that I’ve proved Liam’s initial suspicions right, and that I’ve been lying to myself the whole time. I was never going to be able to keep this place separate from the town I created for Ruby’s book. I did it. I succeeded in my mission. I did exactly what Anne sent me here to do. I created theperfectsetting and cast for a small-town romance.

How am I going to hand this proposal to Anne with pride? How could I have been such an idiot?

I look back at my laptop on the counter. This is it. This is the arsenal of information I would need to get a promotion. Anne will eat this up. She’s not an evil person, but I doubt that she would understand the crisis of conscience that I am having about my time here, about Liam. The “think-like-a-reporter” mentality can only go so far. These are people’s lives.

The doorbell snaps me out of my turmoil.

I make my way to the door and stop in the foyer. I freeze mid-step, my socks sliding on the floor in dramatic fashion.

What if it’s Liam? What do I do? What do I say to him?

Nothing. I have to keep my mouth shut. I have to protect his feelings. As far as he knows, I’m recovering from a shitty day yesterday. I can’t make any rash decisions right now.

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