Online Dating Rom Com

Last week, I sent a draft of my online dating WIP to some readers. This was an earlier draft, but I sent it to my most trusted writer friends to give me some (lots of) feedback because I got to the point where I wasn’t sure what to do next or if it even worked. So since I haven’t really talked about it too much on Twitter & I won’t be returning to that for a while, I thought it might be fun to talk a little bit about it.

I had this idea a while back (according to my notes, early 2021), but it was on hold for a long time while I revised the ms I am currently querying. That happens a lot, so I just let the ideas run in the back of my head and make notes until I’m ready to start. It was inspired 2 different ways by one of my closest friends Angi – the opening and the fact that she loves house plants. I also bugged her to death for her plant knowledge.

The FMC is a small time influencer who is desperately in need of money, so she agrees to a partnership with a dating app. She has to go on 10 dates and post about them before she gets paid. Unfortunately, she meets her match on date 1.

Someone (and now I can’t remember who) told me the premise reminded them of that season of the Bachelorette when the bachelorette left mid season because she wanted to be with one of the guys and didn’t want to continue. I don’t watch reality tv, but I do know they didn’t stay together. And it actually wasn’t inspired by that. I just really wanted to write about a character who really didn’t have her shit together, and a couple of ideas all worked together.

This is my first time writing in 1st person, so I’m a little bit nervous for that feedback. I wrote my zero draft in 3rd person and then went through and changed it all. This is also the first time I’ve set my book in the fall, which is my favorite season. There’s a big fall festival in it too, which was fun to write.

I would love to provide a list of tropes, however I have no idea what they are. So I’m hoping my friends will help with that. There currently aren’t any obvious ones to me like only one bed or rivals to lovers, but who knows what will happen!

So that’s a little bit about my latest WIP. Now I’m going to spend the next couple of months plotting my murder rom com!