Why I Write Futuristic Romcoms

The idea for Futuristic Romcoms came to me during a conversation at a writing conference. One writer commented that Jane Austen was their favorite historical romance author. Another writer said, “Jane Austen didn’t write historical romance. She wrote contemporary romance that has endured long enough to seem historical.” This idea of contemporary romance out of…

The idea for Futuristic Romcoms came to me during a conversation at a writing conference.

One writer commented that Jane Austen was their favorite historical romance author. Another writer said, “Jane Austen didn’t write historical romance. She wrote contemporary romance that has endured long enough to seem historical.”

This idea of contemporary romance out of time stuck with me. My brain, as it likes to do, went on to overanalyze this idea. I realized that, just as a contemporary romance from the past reads like historical today, a contemporary romance from the present would read like science fiction to someone in the past.

Admittedly, the real 2024 isn’t quite what futurists in 1964 imagined. We don’t have flying cars, robot maids, or colonies on the moon. But we do have video phones, pocket supercomputers, and TVs so thin and flat that they can hang on the wall like a painting. We also have the internet and online dating, which have drastically changed the way people form, build, and end relationships.

My mental exercise then led me to wonder what changes we might see in the next fifty years. What would a “contemporary” romance novel from 2074 be like? How might future relationships be different in an age of artificial intelligence and  bio-engineering?

As a reader who enjoys both science fiction and romance, this idea fascinates me. A couple of years ago I pivoted to writing futuristic romcoms. It’s been so much fun imagining a futuristic world and then using it as a setting for amusing and entertaining love stories.

The futuristic romcom subgenre is, admittedly, a small niche right now. But I love it, and I love writing in it. My hope is that I can resonate with readers and grow the niche by writing conventional stories in an unconventional setting.

Early feedback is encouraging.


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