Dark Romance Plot Template
Template: 26 pages long, 7,362 words
Projected book length: 75,000 words
Number of Chapters: 30
SAMPLE
Abbreviations
MC – Motorcycle Club
MMC – Male Main Character
FMC – Female Main Character
Title: <dark sounding> (A <series type> Dark Romance)
- A lot of dark romance titles are a single word. Sometimes it’s the hero’s name. Sometimes it’s a word like “Savage” or “Bought”.
- <series type>
Dark Romance usually falls into one of these categories:
- Motorcycle Club (MC)
- Mafia
- E.g. Stolen (A Mafia Dark Romance)
- E.g. Grinder (A MC Dark Romance)
Series Name: <Something interesting>
- Always, always write in a series.
- If you’re writing a MC, the series name is usually the MC’s name, so make it badass sounding, but somewhat unique. Double check to make sure the name isn’t already taken.
o E.g. “Smokin’ Predators Series”
- If it’s not a MC, then use some other dark and twisty sounding phrase.
o E.g. “Bound Hearts”
Themes
- Must be dark and dangerous
- Nothing is off limits except raping the FMC. Most readers hate this. There are exceptions, and there is some Dark Romance with Dubcon bordering on Non-con. Once you pick a certain level of “fucked up,” stick with it for that pen name.
Themes E.g.
- Motorcycle Club
- Mafia
- Kidnapping
- Something illegal – Guns, prostitution, human trafficking, robbery, etc.
- Extreme possible danger to the heroine
- Dubcon
- Lots of sex (Dark Romance is very sex-heavy. Feel free to cram even more sex into the plot. You can control your overall length by sex scene length and frequency.)
Blurb
- Written in first person
- Generally uses both H/h POVs
<Heroine First Name>
<How she meets the MMC>
<Why he’s dirty hot>
<Why she should be afraid of him>
<Conflict she’s feeling toward him>
<Why she’s losing control>
<She wants to resist him>
<Final impact statement hinting that she’s falling for him and that loving him will destroy her>
- Each line can become multiple lines in the final blurb.
- I’ll talk more about this in the character section, but the FMC’s innocence is super important in dark romance. The more innocent and naïve you can make her, the better. Even if she’s been a sex slave in a human trafficking ring, there are ways to make her seen innocent and naïve.
<Hero First Name>
<His disdain for FMC’s innocence>
<How he wants to destroy her>
<Suggestive sexual details about what he’s going to do to her>
<He’ll never fall for her because he’s got issues>
<He doesn’t expect to want more than just sex>
<But he does>
<And now he’s all messed up because he’s trying to figure out what to do about it>
- Each line can become multiple lines in the final blurb.
- The hero should be completely averse to falling in love
Blurb Example
Monica
One wrong turn down a dark alley changed my life forever.
I walked right into the middle of an execution.
I tried to run, but Ivan Petrov caught me.
He threw me into his trunk, and now he’ll never let me go.
He’s Russian Mafia, ruthless, heartless, cold…
And he’s something else—sexy as hell.
I should run the second he puts his rough hands all over my innocent body.
I shouldn’t let him tear my panties off.
But I do.
He’s going to break me.
He’s going to own every inch of my tender flesh.
He demands complete obedience, and I want to resist.
I do.
But my dark, rebellions heart won’t let me.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been at the mercy of a dangerous man, but this time, I might not live long enough to tell the tale.
Ivan
I’ve never wanted to destroy someone as much as I want to destroy her.
She’s the picture of innocence.
Soft skin free from the toil of real work.
Perfectly painted lips, perfect for sucking just about anything.
I can’t wait to break her.
To make her beg for mercy.
To cry out my name when I steal the one thing she’s never given to another man.
She thinks she can charm me into letting her go.
But she doesn’t know me.
She doesn’t recognize the way the devil dances in my soul.
I never expected her to become my obsession.
But she is.
And now I need to get rid of her before she consumes me.
Characters
<First Last Name> (FMC) – Emotional Wound: <Choose one from The Emotional Wound Thesaurus*>
- The FMC has a deep, emotionally debilitating wound.
- She feels like she’s not important, unlovable, and permanently damaged in some way.
- This wound stems from something in her childhood, or early adulthood, and it makes her think that she’s unlovable.
o E.g. She has an eating disorder because her childhood was exceptionally unstable because her parents were alcoholics.
o E.g. She watched her father kill her mother and couldn’t do anything to stop it. So now she thinks she’s incapable of standing up to people in positions of authority.
o E.g. She was sold into a sex trafficking ring at age 13. She’s never been anything but a fuck-toy to men, so she doesn’t believe in love.
o E.g. She knew that her sister was being sexually abused by her father but did nothing to stop it because she was afraid he’d turn to her instead.
o You basically can’t come up with anything “too fucked up”. This is dark romance. Make your heroine bleed emotionally.
- She is afraid of love because of the deep wound.
- Falling in love would mean <some terrible consequence>
o E.g. If she falls in love, she could lose her ability to say no to people. She watched her mother’s will being slowly stripped away by her step-father until there was nothing left. She doesn’t want that to happen to her.
- Age
o Younger than the hero.
o Generally early 20s.
*NOTE – I seriously don’t understand how I wrote anything before this book came out. It’s gold. It’s worth 1,000x’s its price. Buy it. You won’t regret it. You will find every soul-crushing wound you could possibly want in this book. Sometimes when I’m low on ideas, I’ll flip through it and it will fire up my imagination.
<First Last Name> (MMC) – NOTE - You'll get his entire character breakdown in the template.
Other Characters
- In Dark Romance, there may be other supporting characters.
- The H/h might have a friend that they can talk to about their relationship.
- Supporting characters help to give the story a more well-rounded, real-feeling world, but the main focus is always on the H/h. They spend an extensive amount of time together. If they aren’t together, whatever they’re off doing is directly related to their relationship (or to avoiding their relationship).
NOTE - You'll get 30 complete chapters in the final plot template.
Chapter 1
Scene 1 (Heroine POV)
Goal – Do something that inadvertently puts her into contact with the MMC.
Complication(s) – She is faced with a sudden decision to change something about her usual routine. (E.g. She’s on her way home and decides to take a short cut through a dark alley. E.g. She’s called into her Mafia father’s office and is told that she’s going to meet her future husband.)
Choice – What decision should she make?
Consequences – She has multiple options. She makes the one that will bring her into direct contact with the MMC. (E.g. She’s driving through a backwoods area and sees a rundown café. She decides to go inside and walks right into a MC meeting.) She tries to get away from the MMC, but can’t. She’s trapped, and now she’s in big trouble. (E.g. Her father tells her she’s going to meet her future husband. It’s the super old, creepy Mafia guy that her father does business with—but—he’s brought along his hot, dark and twisty-looking bodyguard MMC.)
POV Character's Feelings – Completely naïve to how much danger she’s about to be in. When she realizes how screwed she is, she’s terrified.
Chapter 2
Scene 1 (Heroine POV) – Throughout the book, you can alternate POV, but there may be times in which you need the same POV for back to back chapters.
Goal – Get out of the bad situation.
Complication(s) – She tries to get out of the situation, but she can’t.
Choice – Should she try to ask for the MMC’s help?
Consequences – She tries to implore the MMC to help her, but he refuses for some reason—known, or unknown. (E.g. She asks the gross Mafia guy’s bodyguard to help her escape the house. He refuses because they will both be killed if she tries to run. E.g. She just walked into the café where the MC is holding a meeting. She tells the MMC that she made a mistake and that she’ll be leaving now, but he stops her.) At this point the MMC does something to trap her even more. (E.g. The bodyguard chains her to her bed. E.g. The MC guy tells his men to grab her.) Now she’s in even worse trouble and a future threat is introduced. (E.g. MC guy spanks her in front of the club and laughs at her fear. She can feel his hard cock poking her belly. She’s terrified and assumes the worst. E.g. Assumes he’s going to rape her.)
POV Character's Feelings – Fear. Desperate to escape.
Chapter 3
Scene 1 (Hero POV)
Goal – Take heroine to a place where she’ll be trapped.
Complication(s) – If heroine isn’t already trapped in his house, he takes her there. If she is trapped already, he points out why it will be impossible to escape. He’s amused by her fear, but turned on by her innocence. He might even sadistically let her try to escape, knowing full-well that she’s not going to get out. She gets mad at him. She’s defiant, and this turns him on even more.
Choice – Should he act on his sudden interest in her?
Consequences – He really wants to fuck her at this point, but he doesn’t like how much he wants her. He’s torn. On the one hand, he wants to tear off her clothes and bury his cock in her. On the other hand, he knows he should just get rid of her. In the end, he decides to keep her. For now. (It’s very important to introduce the danger aspect at this point. He’s a dangerous man who has dangerous thoughts. This creates an ongoing story question – Is he going to kill her?)
POV Character's Feelings – He feels powerful because she’s so powerless. He’s amused by the heroine’s feeble attempt to escape. She’s his entertainment until he decides he’s done with her.
NOTE - You'll get 30 complete chapters in the final plot template.