Romance Story Ideas: 100 Writing Prompts by Trope, Plus Meet-Cute Ideas

[Enemies to lovers]
1. Two food truck owners who've fought over the same corner for three summers are booked for the same wedding, back to back
2. A defense lawyer and the prosecutor who beat her in her first trial are assigned to teach the same evening class
3. A restaurant critic gave her family's diner one star; ten years later he moves into the flat above it
4. The architect redesigning the town square is the one person who voted against her mural
5. A wedding photographer and a videographer who keep ruining each other's shots at the same events
6. A ghostwriter discovers the bestselling author she writes for is the boy who bullied her in school
7. Two estate agents competing for the same commission have to show the house together
8. He reported her café for a fire code violation; now the inspector says they have to fix it together
9. A park ranger and the developer who wants to build a resort on the edge of her forest
10. Her sister is marrying his brother, and the two of them, who've hated each other for years, are maid of honor and best man

[Rivals to lovers]
11. The top two students in a medical program are made lab partners for the final year
12. Two chess players who've met in four tournament finals are seated next to each other on a twelve-hour flight
13. Rival bakers on a televised baking competition are forced to team up for the semi-final
14. Two journalists chasing the same story keep showing up at the same sources
15. The only two candidates for head chef have to cook one dinner together as the final test
16. Competing translators hired by two publishers to translate the same novel

[Friends to lovers]
17. Two best friends agree to be each other's emergency contact; then one of them ends up in hospital
18. She's been his wingman for years. Tonight he asks her to stop
19. Childhood pen pals who've never met finally live in the same city
20. Best friends start a podcast about dating advice, and the listeners decide they should date each other
21. He's helping her practice for a speed-dating night, and she's the only one he wants to see again
22. Two friends house-sit together every summer; this year one of them brings a partner
23. Roommates of eight years have to find new flats when the building sells
24. She asks her best friend to teach her to drive before she moves away

[Second chance]
25. Exes who share custody of a dog have to move to the same small town for the dog's sake
26. The first love she left for university is now the doctor treating her mother
27. Divorced co-owners of a vineyard have one harvest to decide whether to sell
28. A musician comes home for his father's funeral and has to ask his ex to play at it
29. She broke off their engagement the week of the wedding; years later she's the planner for his sister's
30. Exes are both shortlisted for the same award, and the ceremony seats them together
31. A woman returns to the island where she spent one summer at seventeen, and he never left
32. Former bandmates reunite for a one-night show, and the song they wrote together is the one fans want

[Fake dating]
33. She tells her grandmother she's engaged; her grandmother wants to meet him at Christmas
34. Two strangers agree to pretend to date so their friends will stop setting them up
35. A celebrity's assistant is hired to pose as her boss's girlfriend for a press tour
36. He needs a fake girlfriend to win a family bet; she needs his help with her visa paperwork
37. Two coworkers pretend to be a couple to win the office's couples' retreat prize
38. She invents a boyfriend online, and a stranger with the same name messages her
39. A fake relationship for a high school reunion that both of them were dreading
40. Two people agree to fake-date for one month; the month ends on the night of the wedding

[Forced proximity]
41. A bookshop owner and the developer who bought her building are locked in the shop overnight during a city-wide blackout
42. A mix-up leaves two strangers sharing a sleeper train cabin for three nights
43. A lighthouse keeper and the researcher sent to study the island for a winter
44. Two neighbors share a wall so thin they've each heard every phone call the other has made
45. A ski instructor and a guest trapped in a mountain hut after an avalanche warning
46. Two volunteers paired to restore one old house in a month for a charity build
47. A ferry breaks down halfway between two islands, and the next one is in two days
48. Co-workers who can't stand each other are sent on a road trip to deliver a painting across the country

[Only one bed · snowed in]
49. The hotel lost one booking for the conference, and the only free room is his
50. A storm strands a wedding party at the venue, and the best man and maid of honor get the last room
51. Two rivals for the same promotion are snowed in at the company's mountain lodge
52. A cabin listed for two turns out to be a single room with a single bed
53. She came to rescue her stranded brother; she ends up stranded with his best friend
54. The last flight is cancelled, and two strangers split the last airport hotel room

[Grumpy · sunshine]
55. A grumpy bookbinder and the cheerful new tenant who runs a children's theater upstairs
56. A cheerful nurse and the grumpy grandson who visits her most difficult long-stay patient every day
57. A sunshine tour guide and the one tourist on the bus who hates tours
58. A grumpy beekeeper and the beekeeping student who asks too many questions
59. A cheerful radio host and the sound engineer who has never once laughed at her jokes
60. A grumpy lifeguard and the swimmer who keeps “almost” drowning to talk to him

[Workplace · boss]
61. A new CEO is shadowed for a week by the junior employee who wrote the anonymous complaint about him
62. Two surgeons on opposite shifts leave each other increasingly personal notes on the shared whiteboard
63. A personal assistant has to plan her boss's proposal to someone else
64. An HR officer investigates a workplace romance and starts one
65. Two teachers who share a classroom on alternate days and have never met
66. A hotel manager and the night auditor who knows every secret of the building

[Forbidden love]
67. A bodyguard falls for the witness he's protecting until her trial
68. The heirs of two rival family businesses meet at a trade fair under false names
69. A tutor and the older brother of the student she teaches, whose family forbids distractions before exams
70. A referee and a player in the same league
71. A judge on a talent show and the contestant who keeps making it through
72. Two people on opposite sides of a strike at the same factory

[Secret identity]
73. The anonymous advice columnist she writes to every week is her new neighbor
74. He's the mystery author whose book she just gave a scathing review
75. Online gaming partners for two years discover they work in the same office
76. A princess spends a summer working at a seaside café under a false name
77. The stranger she confided in on a night bus is the man interviewing her for a job the next morning

[Marriage of convenience]
78. To keep the family farm, she has to be married by her thirtieth birthday
79. A marriage for a work visa between two strangers who must pass an interview in three months
80. Two old friends marry so one of them can get on the other's health insurance
81. An arranged marriage between two people who each agreed only because they expected the other to say no
82. A contract marriage to calm a company's investors, with a clause neither of them read

[Mutual pining]
83. Two coworkers each think the other is engaged because of a misread text
84. She writes love songs about him; he thinks they're about someone else
85. They both volunteer for the same night shift every week, and both pretend it's a coincidence
86. Two people who've each been saving the same seat at the same café for the other

[Love triangle]
87. She's torn between the man she's been writing to for a year and the one who actually shows up
88. Two brothers fall for the same woman, and she's the vet treating the family's horses
89. A woman has to choose between the life she planned with her fiancé and the one she starts imagining with his best friend
90. A violinist has to choose between the conductor who believes in her and the old friend who knew her before she was good

[Romantasy]
91. A cartographer is ordered to map the kingdom of the fae prince who keeps redrawing the borders
92. The healer bound by spell to keep her enemy alive feels every wound he takes
93. A witch who can only cast spells while lying is hired by a knight who can't tell a lie
94. A dragon rider and the stable hand who knows more about her dragon than she does

[Sports]
95. A hockey captain is ordered to take figure skating lessons, and his coach is the skater whose ice time he stole
96. A sports physiotherapist and the injured striker who refuses to follow her plan
97. A marathon pacer and the runner who is determined to beat him

[Small town]
98. A city lawyer inherits a small-town hardware store and the man who has run it for twenty years
99. The only vet in town and the new doctor whose patients keep bringing him their sick pets
100. A small town's annual festival needs a new organizer, and two people volunteer at once

[At work and in shops]
1. They both reach for the last copy of the same book, and she's buying it to give it a bad review
2. He walks into her flower shop to order a funeral wreath for someone she also knew
3. A barista keeps misspelling his name, and he keeps not correcting her
4. She returns a sweater he bought for an ex, and he's working the returns desk
5. Two people sent by different companies to fix the same broken elevator
6. A delivery driver keeps leaving her packages with the neighbor she's never met

[Travel]
7. They're seated next to each other on a delayed flight, and he's afraid of flying
8. She takes his suitcase from the carousel by mistake and opens it at home
9. Two strangers share a taxi from the airport and discover they're going to the same wedding, on opposite sides
10. A tour bus leaves without both of them
11. They've each booked the same holiday rental through different sites
12. She's practicing a breakup speech on a train, and he's the only other passenger

[Neighbors and home]
13. Her cat keeps getting into his flat through the balcony
14. He's been stealing her newspaper for months, and she finally catches him
15. A shared laundry room, a mixed-up load and one very small sweater
16. Their smoke alarms go off at the same time at 3 a.m.
17. She hires a locksmith to get back into her flat, and it's the man she locked out of his car that morning
18. They both put offers on the same house

[Events]
19. She's catering the wedding where he's been dumped by text during the speeches
20. They're the only two people who showed up to a speed-dating night at the wrong time
21. Two strangers are the last ones standing in a pub quiz and have to form a team
22. He's the substitute instructor at the cooking class she booked for her and her ex
23. They're both crying in the same hospital waiting room for different reasons
24. A costume party where both arrive dressed as the same historical figure

[Accidents]
25. She hits his parked car and leaves a note that's mostly an apology for her week
26. He catches her falling off a ladder in a library and drops the books he was holding
27. A wrong-number text that turns into a six-hour conversation
28. She spills coffee on the papers he was about to submit to the court
29. Two dog walkers whose dogs refuse to be separated
30. An umbrella that opens the wrong way in the rain, onto the wrong person

[First lines]
1. The worst part of being left at the altar was that the photographer kept taking pictures
2. I had exactly one rule for my new flat, and the man next door broke it on the first night
3. “You're in my seat,” he said, which was true, and also the first thing he'd said to me in ten years
4. My grandmother had been planning my wedding for six years, and I'd been lying to her for five
5. The job advert didn't mention that the boss would be my ex
6. Nobody warned me that the town's only bookshop came with a resident grump
7. She'd been his best friend for eleven years, and tonight she wanted to be something else for one evening
8. The contract said one year, no feelings, separate bedrooms. We broke the third clause first
9. I recognized his handwriting before I recognized his face
10. The storm took out the power at nine, and by ten we'd run out of things to argue about
11. “We have to pretend we like each other,” she said. “For a week. Can you do that?”
12. He was the last person I wanted to see at my sister's wedding, which is why she seated him next to me
13. I'd written forty letters to a stranger, and the stranger had just walked into my shop
14. The new teacher had my classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he left it like a crime scene
15. There was one bed, and he was already pretending to be asleep in it
16. I came home for the funeral, not for him
17. My first day as her bodyguard, she tried to lose me three times before lunch
18. The fae prince had been redrawing my maps for a month, and today he signed one
19. “You stole my ice time,” she said. “Now you're going to learn to skate”
20. The text said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and then, a minute later, “But what happened next?”

[Prompt in one line]

[Lead A]
Who they are:
What they want from life:
What they're afraid of:

[Lead B]
Who they are:
What they want from life:
What they're afraid of:

[Why they meet]
The meet-cute (or meet-ugly):

[Why they can't walk away]
The situation that keeps them together:

[What's between them]
The obstacle one conversation can't fix:

[The darkest moment]
What makes it look like they won't end up together:

[The grand gesture]
What one of them does that only this person would do:

[The ending]
Happily ever after, or happy for now: