How to Write a Romantic Comedy

Learn to write funny, engaging stories about love and relationships with our writing short courses in Sydney!

Love is messy, unpredictable and often hilarious! Discover practical techniques for writing romantic comedy (RomCom) stories for books, film and television. Learn how to create memorable characters, build romantic tension and bring humour into stories about love and human relationships.

Drawing on storytelling and character-building principles, this course explores how to combine romance and comedy to create fresh, engaging stories. Whether you’re interested in writing a novel, screenplay or TV series, you’ll gain useful techniques to help bring your RomCom ideas to life.

What You Will Learn

By the end of this course, you will learn how to:

• Apply practical techniques for writing romantic comedy.
• Develop engaging characters with romantic and comic potential.
• Build romantic storylines that balance humour, conflict and emotional connection.
• Use storytelling techniques to create fresh and original RomCom ideas.
• Understand the different approaches required for writing books, films and television.

Course Content

Across two sessions, you will explore:

• The essential elements of romantic comedy and what makes the genre work.
• Creating memorable characters who are meant to be together, even when things go wrong.
• Developing romantic storylines, comic situations and relationship conflicts.
• Balancing humour, romance and emotional connection.
• Adapting storytelling techniques for books, film and television.
• Analysing script excerpts and video examples to explore RomCom techniques.
• Developing and workshopping your own ideas using practical writing exercises.

Classes include lectures, script readings, video examples and workshopping activities.

Intended audience

Who is this course for?

This course is suitable for creative writers, aspiring and established authors, and screenwriters aged 18 and over who want to explore or develop their romantic comedy writing skills.

Course venue

Online via Zoom

Course materials

What will be provided?

Tim Ferguson has developed practical handbooks to help guide you through the romantic comedy writing process. These will be used throughout the course.