Romance Book Templates and Plugins to Use On Sudowrite

Have you ever been in the thick of writing a story and thought to yourself: "I could use some help outlining or brainstorming." Or, maybe you have this grand idea of how you want a scene to play out, but you're having difficulty making it work and you're ready to throw the whole computer out the window. 

We've all been there. In fact, it's a weekly occurrence for me. 

Enter Sudowrite. 

In addition to having several large language models (LLMs), or in simple words, AI models, Sudowrite is chock full of tools—including templates and plugins—to help you succeed and finally get that book written.

Templates

No matter what book you pick up, you're likely to notice they all have something in common: they seem to follow a structure. There's actually a very good reason for this! 

Without the structure, or template, there would be no cohesiveness, no character arc or development, no logical order. In short, it's a very important part of your story planning/writing process.

But, if you're stumped … where do you start?

Sudowrite has various templates to help you plot your story—even if you're not a plotter! I'm a bit of a plantser (plotter+pantser) myself, but even I find these templates super helpful. And, you can modify them to your specific story, which adds a whole other layer of versatility. 

For romance, there are specific templates. One of the most popular is Romancing the Beat, but you can also use the three-act structure or The Hero's Journey, all of which are very common in fiction writing. 

Romancing the Beat was developed by author and editor Gwen Hayes. It provides a full story structure for romance writing. It defines key moments every romance should have, including a conflict and resolution, and consists of four phases: setup, characters falling in love, often a third-act breakup, and then realizing they want to be together. 

The Three-Act Structure is more of a fictional template, but can be applied to romance. It breaks the story up into, you guessed it!, three acts: setup, confrontation, and resolution. 

Like the three-act structure, The Hero's Journey works for romance because the main elements are external conflicts and addressing them to overcome conflicts, and you see this in romance novels. It will need some adapting, but it's very possible to use this as your template.

How Do I Access These in Sudowrite?

It's really simple! To access the templates in Sudowrite, just open a new or existing project in the editor and select Canvas on the bottom left side. 

That will bring you to the main Canvas screen, which looks like a sheet of grid paper.

From there, you can click on the box that has 1,2,3 on the lower right to bring up the outline feature. 

Clicking on that will open up the default screen, which opens up on The Hero's Journey. 

You can change the template/outline type in the dropdown list. 

They all look a little different in terms of layout. Romance, for example, looks like this: 

Don't feel like you're limited! You can move things around, add or remove cards, and make it exactly what you need. When you have it set up, then you can copy it by clicking the three dots in the upper-right corner of the main box, and move it to Sudowrite's story bible. 

But I'll let you in on a little secret. You're not limited to the templates shown in Canvas. You can create your own, or use the laser tools in Sudowrite (quick edit/chat) to help create an outline. 

Or, you can use one of many plugins available. 

Plugins 

Sudowrite has a very active and helpful community (seriously, if you haven't joined yet, what are you waiting for?) and many users have created plugins to help themselves and others achieve their goals with the platform. Some make them public for everyone to use. They also make it so easy for you to create your own for either private or public use. 

Even better? There are so. many. dedicated to the romance genre. You can search by name, popularity, Here are a few of my favorites among the hundreds out there. 

Outlining

Are you a pantser? Plotter? Bit of both? Unsure? Don't worry; we all figure out things our own way. But if you're looking for tools to help, these outline plugins might just fit the bill!

Mega Romance Outline

The Mega Romance Outline, created by Abiegail Rose, takes your brain dump (basically everything you know you want to happen in your story) of up to 5,000 words and uses that information to create a 30-chapter outline. It uses the Romance the Beat template and assigns characters a Myers-Briggs personality type. 

Reverse Harem

Reverse harems are all the rage right now and the Reverse Harem Romance Outline plugin by Stacy Jones can help you create an in-depth outline of 30 chapters. The output is based on Plot Point and The Beat by Gwen Hayes, so you have a strong plot within your "romance focused story." 

Series Outline

Are you planning to write a series? Interconnected standalones or a story taking place over several books? You might want to check out the Series Outline plugin by Ryan Mather. It will use your story bible or highlighted text to create detailed outlines.

Preparation

If you're new to the platform, you're in for a treat when it comes to creating your stories, because there are so many ways to get from point A to point B. 

There are several ways to use Sudowrite's chapter generator, but beats and scenes are the most common. These are directions for the AI to follow when creating your chapter or excerpt, if you're only working on a small section.

If you need help creating beats, there are a number of plugins available. For example, you could use Romance Story Beats, which creates beats from your selected text, or Better Better Beats to create fuller beats with more detail that will drive more prose from the AI.

Each of these can help fill out your beats or scenes to help the AI models give you exactly what you're looking for prose wise. 

Note that working with beats and scenes can be tricky at first if you've never done it, but don't get discouraged. Definitely join the Sudowrite Discord channel if you haven't already. You'll find tons of help regarding plugins and the other tools as well. 

If you’re planning a series, the Plotting Your Novel: Three-Act, Four-Act, and Every Other Structure That Works (and Why You Need One) blog can guide you through creating interconnected outlines from your story bible.

Writing

Now, the fun part begins! Once you have your outline (if you want one) and your beats or scenes, the next step is writing, and boy are there a ton of plugins for this.

One of my favorite series of plugins for writing is the MegaWrite ones. There are several available in the list and they use different AI models available in Sudowrite. These plugins aren't explicitly for romance, but they do work very well for the genre. 

If you write spicy scenes in your romance novels and want help upping the ante, Add Heat is great for sensual scenes. And, like MegaWrite plugins, it's available with multiple LLM models, so you can be as cost-effective or spendy as you like. 

The Improve Romance plugin does just what it says. Highlight a selection of text and it will improve it for you. It even works with NSFW content, so get to cracking on those love scenes and let the AI help guide you.

The Intimate Scene Crafter helps bring some explicit fun to your writing. If your characters are about to get it on, but you don't know exactly what you want them to do, try this plugin and watch the magic happen. 

The Scene Summary Expander actually helps with brainstorming. If you have a scene in your book that seems too short, you're probably right. Look at it from a reader's perspective. Rather than do the work for you, the Scene Summary Expander simply helps guide you with ideas on how you could expand, based on your highlighted selection. 

Marketing/Publishing

Once you've got your book written and ready to publish, it's time to market it! I know, I know, I dread this stage, too, but if you want to make a profit and reach your readers, it's a necessary evil. 

The good thing is there are numerous plugins designed to help with marketing. The Amazon Keyword Selector, for example, helps to come up with keywords based on your synopsis, genre, and any text you choose to highlight. 

Don't know what to write to make your books sell? Try out these for Contemporary Romance, Dark Romance, or a Rom-Com. 

Once you've published, you need to hit those social media sites and informing your readers of your upcoming releases. Try TikTok Hooks, available with several LLMs, or this Newsletter plugin. 

Final Note

This article barely scratches the surface of the many, many tools available to help you get that romance novel written and on the bookshelves. You're out of excuses! 

Writer's block? Got a plugin for that. 

Don't know how to effectively plot? There's a template for that.

No idea what you're doing with marketing? We've got you covered. 

If you're ready to finish that book, check out how Sudowrite can help, one nifty tool at a time.