Stop Getting Romance Manuscripts Where “Just Talk to Each Other” Would Fix Everything.

The Contemporary Romance Author is an interactive AI skill for Claude Desktop that asks what you want — subgenre, tropes, relationship config, heat level, tone, conflict type — then writes a complete, publish-ready contemporary romance manuscript with a strict Conflict Depth System that ensures every obstacle is real, layered, and earned. No miscommunication plots. No manufactured drama. No “just talk to each other” solutions.

How It Works

Step 1: Answer 12 questions.

1. Subgenre — Small Town, Second Chance, Workplace, Friends-to-Lovers, Fake Dating, Single Parent, Sports, Celebrity, Military, Later-in-Life, Holiday, New Adult
2. Romance Tropes — Enemies-to-lovers, grumpy/sunshine, fake dating, slow burn, forced proximity, and more (pick 2-3)
3. Relationship Configuration — M/F, M/M, F/F, Why Choose/Poly, ménage, or custom
4. Heat Level — Sweet/clean, sensual, steamy, or spicy
5. Tone — Rom-com, emotional/angsty, heartwarming, or dramatic
6. Conflict Type — Competing life goals, past trauma, external pressure, fundamental incompatibility, identity/self-worth, or loyalty conflict
7. POV, series position, friend group size, length, and style guide upload

Step 2: The skill writes your book with the Conflict Depth System active every chapter.

Step 3: Full editorial pipeline — 5 rounds before delivery.

The Conflict Depth System

1. The “Just Talk” Test — Every conflict verified: would one honest conversation fix this? If yes, it’s rewritten until it’s REAL.
2. Both Characters Have Real Inner Conflicts — Specific wounds creating specific behavioral patterns. Not “trust issues” — the exact damage that produces the exact behavior.
3. External Conflicts Are Structural — Can’t be dismissed by one decision. The career opportunity, the family obligation, the financial pressure — they’re genuinely difficult.
4. The Dark Moment Is Earned — Natural culmination of both characters’ patterns colliding. Not manufactured. Not a misunderstanding. Both contribute. Both perspectives are valid.
5. Growth Is Gradual — Characters change through accumulated experience, not sudden realization. The growth arc spans the full book.
6. The HEA Is Specific — Addresses the actual conflict. Real compromise. Real change. A grand gesture specific to THESE characters.

Banter-Forward Prose

CR lives on dialogue. The skill writes banter that reveals character, advances the relationship, contains subtext, and makes the reader laugh. Not quips — chemistry made verbal. Each character has a distinct humor style, observation pattern, and emotional processing mode.

Built-In Protections

• AI Name Blacklist — No Emma, Liam, Maple Falls, or The Cozy Cup
• Anti-7 Bias
• CR-Specific Crutch Detection — “heart skipped a beat,” “butterflies,” “their eyes locked,” “he smirked,” “electricity between them”
• Per-Chapter Conflict Check — miscommunication test, push-pull balance, growth tracking, humor presence

The Full Editorial Pipeline

1. AI-Ism Revision — CR-specific crutch removal
2. Conflict Depth Audit — “just talk” test, wound specificity, growth pacing, dark moment earned, HEA specificity
3. Developmental Edit — conflict, chemistry, humor, characters, setting, pacing
4. Beta Read — “Do you root for them? Any ‘just talk’ moments? Did the dark moment hurt? Was the grand gesture specific enough?”
5. Targeted Revision

What’s in the Download

• contemporary-romance-author.skill
• Installation Guide (PDF)

Requirements

• Claude Desktop app (free from claude.ai/download)
• An active Claude Pro, Team, or Enterprise subscription

How Is This Different from the Romance Writer Pipeline?

The Romance Writer Pipeline is a general-purpose tool that writes any romance subgenre. It takes an outline and produces a manuscript. It’s a solid all-rounder.

The Contemporary Romance Author is purpose-built for CR and includes things the general tool doesn’t have:

• The Conflict Depth System — the “just talk” test applied to every conflict, every chapter. The general tool doesn’t check for miscommunication-based conflicts.
• 12 CR-specific subgenres — small town, sports, workplace, friends-to-lovers, fake dating, single parent, celebrity, military, later-in-life, holiday, new adult, second chance. Each one gets different handling.
• 4 tone options — rom-com (Emily Henry), emotional/angsty (Colleen Hoover), heartwarming (Abby Jimenez), or dramatic. The general tool doesn’t calibrate tone this specifically.
• 6 named conflict types with full architecture — competing life goals, past trauma, external pressure, fundamental incompatibility, identity/self-worth, loyalty conflict. Each one is tested for depth.
• Banter-forward prose craft — 10 CR-specific writing rules including banter as chemistry, internal monologue as romance, and the grand gesture specificity rule.
• Push-pull tracking — every chapter checked for at least one pull and one push. The general tool doesn’t track this.
• Friend group / interconnected standalones — builds the ensemble cast with future books seeded. The general tool doesn’t plan for series this way.
• CR-specific AI crutch detection — catches “heart skipped a beat,” “butterflies,” “their eyes locked,” “he smirked,” and 12+ more CR-specific patterns the general tool doesn’t flag.

If you write contemporary romance specifically, use this. If you write across multiple romance subgenres (paranormal, historical, dark, etc.), the Romance Writer Pipeline is the better all-rounder.

Perfect Companion: Contemporary Romance Outline Skill

The Contemporary Romance Outline Builder walks you through 13 steps including the Conflict Architecture — tested against the “just talk” rule before a word of prose is written. Available separately.