Toad with Books

Falling in love would be much simpler if people said what they meant, recognized their feelings, and stopped making questionable decisions at weddings. Fortunately for fiction writers, they rarely do. These fifteen first-sentence prompts offer awkward introductions, second chances, unexpected connections, and people discovering that their carefully arranged lives have room for one more complication. Pick an opening and see who falls first.

Fifteen Ways to Start a Romance

1. The first time I asked him to marry me, we were seven and he wanted half my sandwich in exchange.
2. She had spent three months flirting with the bookshop owner through handwritten staff recommendations, and today he had finally written back.
3. “Please tell me you’re my date,” the woman beside me whispered as her ex walked into the restaurant.
4. After thirty-two years of marriage, my mother’s advice for my first date was to wear comfortable shoes and lie about enjoying hiking.
5. He recognized her laugh before he saw her, which seemed unfair after all the trouble he’d taken to forget it.
6. The woman bidding against me for my grandmother’s house had brought a tape measure, a contractor, and absolutely no intention of losing.
7. Every Thursday, the man in apartment 4B brought home flowers, and every Friday, I found them in the communal bin, still wrapped.
8. I was halfway through explaining why long-distance relationships never worked when the woman I’d flown four thousand miles to see walked through arrivals.
9. She agreed to teach him to dance on the condition that he stop apologizing every time he touched her.
10. The handsome stranger helping me carry my boxes upstairs turned out to be the neighbor I’d spent six months arguing with in the building’s group chat.
11. On the morning my divorce became final, the woman at the bakery asked whether I wanted my usual or something worth sitting down for.
12. We had been sharing a garden allotment for a year before I realized he didn’t actually like tomatoes.
13. His last letter arrived two days before my wedding, but it had been posted eleven years earlier.
14. I knew the exact moment our pretend relationship became a problem: she reached for my hand when nobody was watching.
15. At seventy-three, Ruth considered herself too sensible to fall in love, but she had started taking the long way past the bicycle repair shop.

Give Them a Reason to Stay

Choose an opening and write the first scene between your two main characters. Give each person something they want besides romance: a fresh start, a quiet afternoon, a house they can barely afford, or simply the chance to get through a dance lesson with everyone’s toes intact.

Let those wants complicate the attraction. Then include one small act of attention—remembering a preference, noticing discomfort, or making room for the other person—that gives them a reason to reconsider their first impression.

For an extra challenge, write the scene without using the words love, beautiful, or spark. Make us suspect what’s happening before either character is ready to admit it.