Short answer: No.

All of the courses and scheduled activities in this program live inside my online university and the courses themselves have downloadable files. I have a general no-refunds policy for this type of program.

If you're not sure it will be right for you, email my team and we'll help you decide. (But keep in mind that we try to observe healthy working hours and may not be able to respond to your email before any limited-time offers expire.)

Quick answer: No, but...

I considered offering discounts to existing students, but with three of my bestselling courses included, it became too complicated. So instead, I'm leaning into the spirit of the season and offering gifting. 

If you own any (or all!) of the three courses that are included with your registration, you can gift your course purchase(s) from The Romance Writers Finishing School program to a friend. (Yes, even all three of them!)

In early December, we’ll send you details on how to share your special 100% off code with a fellow writer so they can claim the “duplicate” course that came with your program ticket.

However, these gifted codes will not give your friend access to the Finishing School program. They’ll need to buy their own ticket before the cart closes to be part of the program. Read this section for more details.

In early December, we will check our database and make a list of anyone who enrolled in The Romance Writers Finishing School and already had access to one of the included courses when you enrolled.

Then we'll reach out via email to let you know which course(s) you qualify to gift to a friend. Simply reply with that person's name and email address and we will personally reach out to offer a special 100% off code on your behalf. 

Quick reminder: If you want your friend to attend the Romance Writers Finishing School with you, they'll need their own enrollment. (So send them this page instead of waiting to gift a course to them.)

Click here to review what we’re studying when.

I know that the holidays can be a busy time for many people, so registration for our January events is happening early.

And even if you're a little busy in the near year, I’ve designed this program to be flexible, with plenty of time to do the work as long as you have a few hours a week.

We don’t expect you to go hardcore for the entire 3 weeks. This program is asynchronous and designed to fit into your schedule rather than strain it.

The live commencement (with Q&A session) is the only rea-time session, and it will be recorded. So you’ll be able to submit your questions in advance. If you can’t attend live you'll be able log into your course portal anytime to watch (or re-watch) it. 

Your access to all three courses and the Finishing School hub is ongoing. 

Meaning once you’re enrolled, you can revisit any and all of the included courses as long as I support them on my website. I used to call this “lifetime access”, but that was confusing. (Because, whose lifetime?)

Essentially, yes. (But I'm not gatekeeping)

The three courses themselves are geared toward general character-driven fiction, but romance writers are my focus professionally, and I want to foster a safe space for authors in the romance genre to be real, honest, and vulnerable.

The extra assignments and tips are specific to romance writing.

If you believe that your story is close enough to romance to benefit from this event AND you are an enthusiastic supporter of the romantic fiction genre, you are welcome to join. 

Nope! We <3 all subgenres and genre mashups (like romantasy, romantic suspense, and romantic urban fantasy). 

I’ve themed the visuals of the program in an “academy romance” trope style—because I think it’s super fun and has a fitting seasonal flair—but what you learn in The Romance Writers Finishing School is applicable to ALL the romantic fiction manuscript work you do, now and going forward.

All are welcome, as long as you are already comfortable writing and completing a full manuscript draft of romantic fiction (or, at the very least, character-driven fiction such as women’s fiction with romantic themes).

What I’m teaching in the Finishing School is about revision as much as writing, and one of the things that makes it different from simply enrolling in the three courses separately (aside from the steep bundle discount) is the community.

For 6 weeks, we’ll be learning, growing, and celebrating one another together. This is a very special event (that might not happen again), so if it sounds like fun, now’s the time to enroll!

Recommended: Yes.
Required: No.

The program is designed to help you learn how to take a story from “draft done” to “ready for copyedits”. The Romance Writers Finishing School will guide you through finishing your editorial work on a manuscript, which ideally requires a completed draft.

That said, if you are comfortable working with a partial manuscript as a practice run, you certainly can. You can work on any story you like during the program, so choose what will work best for your personal style and needs. 

Noooo. That would be intense. And we simply don’t have time.

The goal of The Romance Writers Finishing School is to teach you how to self-assess your manuscripts using professional editing techniques. So that when you hand off your story to an editor, publisher, or beta reader, it is as done as you can get to on your own.

The three phases (and courses) were specifically chosen to guide you through this learning process in a bite-sized way that is achievable and exciting. So at the very start, we’ll show you how to choose the best parts of your story to work on for each of the three phases.

By the end of the program, you’ll have practiced working on a real story (yours!). And you’ll be bursting with ideas and momentum so that afterward, you can finish this manuscript or develop on another one entirely. 

Once you have the skills, you can put them to work anytime, anywhere. 

There are no required submissions of any assignments (even qualifying for the certificate is honor-based). 

And I'm not grading any assignments or editing any manuscripts, even if you upgrade to The Dean's List.  

This is a guided learning event, where I encourage you to lean in to the community of your fellow romance writers to help one another. 

I will definitely be answering questions in the event hub and in the comments of the included courses. So I'm absolutely here for you in a group capacity. 

We also have a 90-minute Q&A session at the end of our time together, where you can ask any final questions.

Standard Finishing School enrollment gets you access to all three courses + the program hub + the live Commencement call. You can ask questions in the comments of the courses at any time, and Team Sue will answer to the best of our ability. 

We encourage you to share your work with fellow students for feedback in the comments areas, where everyone can see them, and you’ll have prompts to help you do that in the bite-sized assignments. However, we don’t provide deep support for your personal work in the comment threads. 

If you want guaranteed help before and after the program, upgrade to the Dean’s List. That will unlock personal 1:1 guidance from Sue (but it does not include edits or assignment reviews). See this section for more information.

Short answer: no.

The two 60-minute private consultations are to set you up for success, then help you find your best next steps for the story. So we will talk about your story, and I'll use my hot-seat methods to dig down to what's holding you (or the story) back. 

I usually don't do real-time edits, as I need to think and process information, and that takes longer than our hour together. However, if we both feel we're a good fit, we can talk about scheduling an editing project to work just on your manuscript.

A modern finishing school (or “charm” school) teaches general soft skills for professional success. This themed after those.

Think of The Romance Writers Finishing School as a charm school for your manuscripts. It’s where you learn how to literally finish the work you did in your first draft to get the story ready for the final phase of publication.

So our focus is on the revisions that you can do yourself to “finish” your manuscript, so you can confidently send it off for professional services. Here’s what the three phases will focus on:

1. Analyzing the health of your primary hero arc(s) so your story has a strong foundation
2. Troubleshooting plot-level problems related to hero backstory (it affects more than you might think!)
3. Polishing your prose at the line level so your heroes sound like themselves, not the author (you)

The three courses included with your registration, which align with the focus phases above are:

1. The 20-Minute Hero Makeover
2. How to Build Breakthrough Backstories
3. Learn to Line Edit Like A Pro

All communication, aside from the live Q&A + commencement celebration meeting will take place inside the courses themselves.

You can leave a comment to ask a question on the individual lessons for any of the included courses, and we’ll also have a special “course” area that acts as a hub for the program. There, you’ll find the schedule, instructions for each focus phase, and will be able to chat (and share work) with your fellow writers.

Your access to the Finishing School hub is ongoing, just like your access to the individual courses. So even if you can’t be present during a focus week, you can revisit the comments anytime.

Note: Our primary support of the hub for commenting and social management will end with the program in late-January, but the conversation threads will still be visible.

I’d be happy to gift it to a fellow writer for you. We’ll run a lottery and gift it under your name to one of my other students.

No Facebook group, no complicated social space. Just pop into the Romance Writers Finishing School hub—a “course” in your student dashboard on my website—and participate in the Comments. 

Your student dashboard has all your bundled courses (plus all the other courses you’ve enrolled in before this), so everything is super easy to find. And the content in the hub never expires.

So even long after you graduate your Romance Writers Finishing School cohort, you can pop back in to revisit the camaraderie, group discussions, and assignment details at any time.

Yes, absolutely!

All you have to do to get your certificate is click "Complete" on all the assignments in the hub. Since there's no official turn-ins or grading, it's 100% honor-based. 

You can finish them at any time and still get your certificate. If you want to work alongside your romance-writing peers and celebrate together, follow along with the official event weeks in January.

But if you need to pause and come back later, you certainly can. 

I'm not personally offering a split-payment setup for this event, but you may have access to one through your credit card or PayPal. 

In the checkout area above, look for offers from Klarna, Affirm, or Zip. (I'm not sure about Afterpay: Stripe says it is ineligible, but my cart shows it as active.) 

Choose "Credit card" to use Klarna, Affirm, or Zip (or Afterpay, if it shows up). Or choose PayPal and use the Buy Now Pay Later option.

The availability of these options is dependent on your setup with those companies, and so look up how to qualify for those services if you're not sure. (This is not something my team and I can help with.)

My team and I would be happy to chat about it! Email us at hi@suebrownmoore.com

We answer most emails within 48 hours unless it's over a weekend or one of us is traveling. (But keep in mind that we try to observe healthy working hours and may not be able to respond to your email before any limited-time offers expire.)