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When attempting to write a romantic short story or novella, the most important thing to do first of all is make sure the story you want to tell is suitable for a shorter word count. That’s really the main guiding principle. Ask yourself several key questions: How much do your couple have to resolve? Can you establish and resolve those conflicts convincingly in a shorter word count?

So, for example, you could go with a shorter time frame – I wrote a 1,000-word story recently which takes place in a supermarket checkout queue. Or, simply finish the story at a positive place so the reader knows this couple will sort out their existing conflicts because they have the will to do so. However, don’t think that means simplifying or lessening your couple’s conflicts. In fact, sometimes the reverse can be true.

Here’s an example of how I developed a short romance story structured around that principle:

A few years ago, I was invited to write a 5,000-word story for the RNA’s Truly, Madly, Deeply collection. The first thing I decided to do was have the story happen all in one scene – so literally over about thirty minutes in real time – and in one location (no need for lots of lengthy setting descriptions!). I didn’t want any other people involved because I wanted to keep my couple totally focused on each other, and that led me to the idea of using a ‘forced proximity’ narrative – basically I had them get stuck in a lift together…

Now, obviously, if this had been two strangers it would have been very hard, if not impossible to tell a whole story arc in half an hour, so I decided to give them a massive back story to resolve! Namely they had been lovers as teenagers – which was over 20 years before this story – she had got pregnant, they’d agreed she would have an abortion, but he had left her at the clinic and then he had never responded when she told him she had decided to have the baby.