Romance Writing Prompts

An appraiser is assigned to assess the value of a building her ex just bought. They haven't spoken in four years. The appraisal is the last step before the bank releases the loan.

A guitar teacher's newest student is a sixty-two-year-old retired surgeon who has never played an instrument, keeps trying to apply surgical precision to strumming patterns, and needs to learn "Blackbird" before a granddaughter's wedding in three months.

Two people matched on a dating app, had one good date, and then he ghosted her. Eight months later she's hired as the project manager at his architecture firm.

A food critic writes a scathing review of a bakery. The baker writes a furious letter to the editor. The editor publishes it. The critic walks in the next morning to apologize and to explain that his editor cut the second half of his review.

Two rival wedding planners get hired for the same wedding by accident. They have to co-plan it without the couple finding out they can't stand each other.

A basketball coach accidentally sends a voice memo meant for her therapist to the parent group chat. In it she describes her crush on "the dad who brings the orange slices."

Two people keep running into each other at the same estate sale every Saturday. They're always bidding on the same things. They've never spoken.

A woman's emergency contact at the hospital is still her ex-husband. She never changed it. When she breaks her ankle, he's the one who gets the call.

A man hires a dog walker. The dog clearly prefers her. So does his mother, who keeps inviting the dog walker to stay for dinner.

A couple who broke up five years ago both independently book the same tiny vacation rental on the same weekend. Neither can get a refund.

A woman keeps finding notes in her library books. Same handwriting, different books, always in the margins next to passages she would have underlined herself.

Two strangers keep accidentally swapping identical suitcases at the airport. Third time it happens, one of them leaves a note inside.

A man's upstairs neighbor plays piano badly every evening from seven to nine. He goes upstairs to complain and somehow keeps staying.

A florist gets a standing order: same bouquet, delivered to the same woman, every Monday. The card always says "From a secret admirer." The florist has been writing the cards for a year and has never met the person paying for them.

Two people are the only ones who show up to a community class that needed a minimum of eight to run. The instructor says it's canceled. They go get coffee instead.

A woman discovers her late grandmother's recipe box contains letters, not recipes. They're love letters to someone who isn't her grandfather.

A couple meets at a wedding where neither of them knows the bride or the groom. They both crashed it for different reasons.

A rideshare driver picks up the same passenger every Friday night from the same bar. One night the passenger asks to go somewhere different.

Two coworkers have communicated exclusively by email for two years. They work in the same building. They're about to meet at the company retreat.

A woman returns a book to the wrong person at a coffee shop. He texts her from the number she left on the bookmark. The bookmark was meant for someone else.