Why do so many popular romcoms take place in small towns? It’s fun for an author to invent offbeat towns like Nowhere Junction, Texas, and Clair de Lune, California, according to USA Today bestselling novelist Jacqueline Diamond. These lend themselves to amusing back stories and memorable eccentric characters. There’s also a sense of community in a well-written small town, where gossip, matchmaking, and accidental encounters bring the hero and heroine together.

What is “forced proximity” in a romance? Isn’t that offensive? In the pre-“Me, Too” days, the trope known as “forced proximity” sometimes referred to a woman being captured by a pirate or warlord and falling in love with him. Although such situations still arise in some historical novels, today’s romance reader is more drawn to stories where circumstances, from being snowed-in to escaping a pursuer, throw hero and heroine together by mutual consent.  Sometimes two characters voluntarily share quarters to achieve a goal, such as on a business trip or during a pretend engagement to keep matchmaking relatives at arm’s length. Such situations remove defenses, increase opportunities for communication, and intensify an attraction that leads to love.