5 Tips for Writing a Rom-Com... About Ending Up With Yourself

It’s probably important that I start off by saying: I love, love. Meet-cute love. Messy love. Will-they-won’t-they love. McDreamy, McSteamy, and everyone in between.

I would call myself a connoisseur of rom-com love. You know, the happy-ending stories where they meet in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge after running across the entire city as rain pours down. The chance encounter on a snow-dusted street in a small town at Christmas. I’ve binged all the movies, studied the classic lines, collected the books on my shelves—a shrine to the greatest love stories ever written.

Given all of this, it is no surprise that my first book is a rom-com. With all of the moments one would desire: the meet-cute, the epic dates, the quirky banter, the agonizing moment where you scream at the pages because the heroine is about to mess everything up that we’ve worked so hard to establish. It’s all there, except for one part.

As I wrote my memoir, This Is How You Love Her, I realized I was writing a new kind of rom-com. I was writing a love story where the main girl falls in love with—herself.

My mission: to make room in the rom-com lexicon for stories where the heroine's happily ever after is herself. Please join me as we subvert the genre.

1. Give your main character a meet-cute, but put it at the end.

A classic rom-com introduces the meet-cute in the opening pages, then spends the rest of the story asking one question: Will they end up together?

But we're subverting the genre. Instead of wondering will they or won't they?, the burning question becomes: When will she find herself?

In my memoir, the story begins with the moment I thought I’d lost it all, my world collapsed. And I spent the better part of the book trying to find myself through an epic journey of solo date nights like a night where I took a pottery class with clay-covered fingers and wisps of hair falling in my face. I will admit that I went to said class looking for my own Patrick Swayze moment, but that’s the point. There was no Patrick, but there was me. All of those moments built to an ending where I finally chose myself—in a bathroom stall at the airport.

So save the meet-cute for the end. Let the moment she finally meets herself be your happily ever after.

2. Put other love interests in the story.

When subverting the genre it’s important that the story doesn’t become one of isolation. We aren’t trying to obliterate the rom-coms that we have come to know and love. We want the sparks, banter, and chemistry!

Giving your main character another love interest will deepen the final epic moment with your main character and make it that much sweeter. Adding these love interests reminds the reader that choosing yourself isn’t about rejecting partnership. It’s about also choosing the love that will stay with you the longest.

Each of my chapters are anchored by the boys whose interactions with me helped me see more of myself. As the book progressed they became exciting not because we hoped for them to be there in the end, but to discover what they would show me about myself.

Also, bonus points if your character ends up with herself and is still open to a romantic partner. Happy to report, I am still a lover girl, waiting for my Mr. Darcy to bump into me at my local coffee shop.

3. Give your main character internal dialogue.

Romantic comedies are full of witty banter between two people, it’s one of the best parts of watching two people fall in love. Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy’s back-and-forth is half the reason we root for them.

Some of the funniest and sharpest dialogue should happen between your heroine and herself. I showed this through journal entries. Here I shared every internal thought that got me closer to knowing and loving myself.

“And then he said the things that I knew, we are more friends than lovers. BARF. Then I heard my TV best friend Christina say ‘He is not the sun, Traci. You are.’”

Early in the book, I established my internal dialogue as a second narrative voice—the hard-to-get girl our main character is trying to understand. That’s the voice we slowly fall in love with, the one we ultimately want her to choose in our unforgettable rom-com ending.

So let us hear her overthink. Let us watch her negotiate with herself, make herself laugh, say the same quirky lines she would say on a date with a prospective lover.

She becomes the one you’re screaming for at the end, “It’s her! Choose her!”

4. Put her in the same scenarios as you would in a traditional rom-com.

A quality rom-com includes: awkward dates, the first interaction where you know this is about to be something, a series of dates both big and small that build the tension and love.

Your heroine deserves all of those moments too. In fact, I say, make them even grander. When I was writing all the ways in which I got to know myself, I realized I dated myself better than anyone else had. Solo dinner at a farm-to-table restaurant, walks in the summer air as the sun set in a sherbet sky, wine tasting, a horse retreat, the day I bought myself a diamond ring.

The only difference in this rom-com is that no one else shows up. Except for those butterflies. Those should still find a way into your words.

Let your girl do all the things we’ve been taught only matter if someone else is there to witness them. The magic isn’t in changing the scenes. It’s in changing who she’s sharing them with.

5. Give our girl the epic ending.

Every great rom-com needs a sprint. We demand the running in the rain, searching on every street corner, and that final speech where they profess their love, because they never want to feel that disconnection again.

Who says our main character can't run to herself?

That’s what I chose to do. After abandoning myself yet again, I realized I’d made a mistake, I’d almost lost myself again to my old life and ideals. My inner dialogue—that character we'd been getting to know throughout the book—shows up again, worried that we'd just blown it all. Was it too late? And then, I proceeded to run to myself in the pages of my journal.

Of course, I had the classic 6 months later to show that self-love is alive, and real and everlasting.

***

I’m writing this because when you realize a different way of writing about love, you want everyone to partake in the magic as soon as possible.

We love rom-coms because they make us feel gushy and hopeful. They stick with us, and become our internal filter for how we see love in real life. And I just want everyone to know that self-love is just as magical, just as epic, and I’d venture to say even more swoon-worthy.

Plus how fun would it be not to know who our heroine will end up with, yet be just as satisfied when it's herself?

**Check out Traci Saulsberry's This Is How You Love Her here:**

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Traci SaulsberryAuthor

Traci Saulsberry is a senior communications executive, leadership coach, and writer. At twenty-seven, she became one of the youngest Black executives at NBC, where she spent fourteen years shaping narratives at the highest levels of entertainment. She later built and led the communications team at Peacock. She is currently a host and narrator for Calm, the world’s leading meditation and sleep app, where she guides original series. As a leadership coach, keynote speaker, and learning facilitator, Saulsberry works with early-career professionals, executives, and business owners, with a focus on helping individuals find and own their voice—particularly while navigating spaces where they are underrepresented. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, where she teaches entertainment publicity.