#Lovember2026 romance writing challenge

Lovember is a 30-day romance writing challenge that I run every year to give writers extra inspiration and motivation for November. #Lovember2026 is the third challenge I’ve run.

Unlike other writing challenges, this is completely self-paced and can be done alone or with a writing group. You also don’t have to complete it in November; if a different month works better, or you want to shorten it to a week-long challenge, you can do that!

#Lovember2026 is about all kinds of romance: romantic love, platonic love, familial love, self-love, and more. You don’t have to be a romance author to make use of the prompts. You could use the challenge to flesh out a relationship, character, or romantic sub-plot.

All the prompts can be found below. You can find more resources and prompts from past years by clicking this button:

#Lovember2026 writing prompts

There are 30 one-word prompts, 5 storyline prompts, and 7 character prompts below, and no AI of any kind has been used to create or edit them.

You can use the prompts any way you’d like! Some people prefer to pick 1 prompt per day, others pick a storyline or character prompt to build off of, and others pick a couple of prompts at random to do some writing exercises.

One-word prompts

All of the 30 one-word prompts can be seen in the shareable graphic or the table below. I’ve used a mix of words to cover senses, settings, feelings, and gifts or hobbies.

Storyline prompts

The 5 storyline prompts can be used as scene inspiration, chapter inspiration, story inspiration, or a way to build on a novel idea you’re already working on. You can use these as weekly writing challenges as well, one for each week of the month.

Character prompts

Last of all, there are 7 character prompts, one for every day of the week. They might give you an idea for a background character or a way to develop a protagonist.

How to make the most of #Lovember2026

Because this is a self-paced romance writing challenge, you can do whatever works for you this month. You can even save the prompts for when you have more time to write if November doesn’t work for you!

Here’s some ideas for making the most of #Lovember2026:

• Choose some prompts that align with your current writing project and incorporate them into the story.
• Host a writing sprint with friends or on a livestream, where you use one prompt for 15, 20, 30, or 60 minutes of writing at a time.
• Warm up on your writing days with a writing exercise inspired by a prompt. The writing exercise could just be a way to get something on the page, or you could focus on different elements of writing: describing settings, clothes, or mannerisms; practising dialogue; trying a new style or tense; or anything else you’d like to focus on.
• Think about your goal for the month. What do you want to get out of the challenge? You might want to write every day, or just one day a week. You might want to get unstuck on your current writing project, so you need to get in the mood at the start of your writing time. You might want to experiment with characters, relationships, and dialogue. Setting a goal and writing it down as a reminder can help guide you to make the most of your writing time.