Casey McQuiston continues to give us romance novel after romance novel that always conjures their own narratives and captivates their audience with their romantic comedy qualities. But how do they do it, and why is their writing essential to the rom-com genre? To understand what makes their novels so compelling, let’s examine the craft and history that goes into each book.
Who Is Casey McQuiston?
Casey McQuiston is a novel writer born in Louisiana who currently resides in New York City with their dog, Pepper. They are known for their hilarious romantic adventure novels, Red, White & Royal Blue, One Last Stop, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, and The Pairing. Red, White & Royal Blue was turned into an Emmy-nominated movie adaptation on Amazon Prime in 2023 after the novel’s release in 2019 gained a lot of traction with romance readers. McQuiston’s mind is one to behold as they continue to create new stories about queer people falling in love that continue to make every book a must-read.
With three adult romances and one young adult romance, McQuiston caters to teens and adults in their 20s with their modern-day dialogue. Still, their meet-cutes are attractive to anyone with a heart for clumsy startups and healthy romances. McQuiston continues to write for the LGBTQ+ community, expressing the joys of living life as a queer person while also handling the everyday challenges faced in our lives. The coming-of-age experience in each novel handles the good and the bad that comes with growing up and coming out, giving readers a relatable read that still holds onto the fun and hilarious parts that come with new relationships and new eras of our lives.
How They Reframe the Rom-Com Narrative
McQuiston’s style is distinctive in its ability to relate its contemporary experience to our current realities during novel publications and create romances that feel familiar and new simultaneously. McQuiston is a public activist for human and LGBTQ+ rights and resonates with their opinions in their novels. For example, Red, White & Royal Blue focused on the romance between the president’s son and the prince of Wales. Still, its story building also concentrates on an alternative timeline where a Texan democrat woman won the 2016 U.S. election. It became a comforting source for people during the Trump 2016 presidency as it became an escape into a world where the president was different, the prince had the ability to come out, and the world continued to spin as everyone got to have their happy ending. These moments where McQuiston speaks on the political and social climates of our reality create essential details in their world building because it gives readers a space to deal with the frustrating parts of our reality while also being able to take a step back from it.
Homophobia is acknowledged in their novels because of its frequency in the queer community’s lives. However, McQuiston still keeps their stories light in their content to acknowledge to readers that while homophobia is prevalent, it does not have to take up space in our lives. They give us a joyous alternative with worlds that can feel more accepting than our own worlds, which is essential in their qualities to remind us of how wonderful queer love is.
In their activism, they also focus on sexual pleasure and the varieties it can come in. They have become a voice for simply horny characters in their drive to express the exhilaration that comes from the act and, more so, its qualities in the queer community. McQuiston makes their spicy scene fun and clumsy to depict relatable sex scenes in their fictional environments. While many may oppose sex on a subway, the notes of being turned on by high-knee socks are instantly relatable and made this scene in One Last Stop one of my favorite spicy scenes they’ve written.
When it comes to queer romantic comedies, McQuiston takes the genre and its tropes to give readers new spins that make the rom-com genre feel like a new experience. Enemies to lovers, forced proximity, found family, love triangles, and many of the romance tropes we know and love can be found in their books. However, with their sarcastic characters and messy, turned disastrous scenes, they can create novels that are hard to put down. Each story is packed with tropes and plotlines to give readers a variety of attention-grabbing content, but do not underestimate McQuiston’s ability to leave readers in suspense about how the story will end. They take on risky challenges like international affairs, academic rivals going missing, and time travelers falling in love on a subway, but their endings still hit every time, leaving happy endings for everyone involved.
McQuiston’s Writing Methods
McQuiston is no gatekeeper when it comes to sharing writing advice. For those who have been long followers of them on social media and on their Substack, you may recall their story posts giving insights into each novel during their releases and the progress that goes into each one. During their work with The Pairing, McQuiston went on a tour of Europe and did various research to match the travel style seen in the novel. They also shared their experience about handwriting the first draft and how the experience made them take more time with the story, ending with the book being their favorite one so far. McQuiston is also known for their attention to detail when it comes to their characters due to the influx of content they provide to readers before and after publications. They’ll share illustrated character maps containing bits of each character, like their astrological signs, favorite foods, clothing styles, and small details that may seem insignificant but add a lot of depth to the character development they create.
They also have a Spotify account where they share the playlist they make for each main and side character, which helps them understand their characters more and gives readers more content to stay connected with McQuiston’s novels after they are finished. All these extra steps McQuiston takes pay off in their novels because it leaves all of their characters feeling well-rounded and engaging, giving readers stories where no side character feels like they’re in the story just to be there. Every character is essential, just like they are in life.
McQuiston can also world-build through their characters, which becomes part of why their novels are so character-driven in their strengths. Not only do they focus on the political climates of our everyday world, but they also focus on the social aspects that come with our modern-day interactions. They incorporate memes, pop culture, and many generational references to appeal to the ages they are writing towards, giving the characters’ dialogue a conversational vibe. This leaves us with various characters ranging from sarcastic yet sassy men to perfectionist women with a competitive problem. Their complex characters toe the line in their exaggerations as they become full of snarky quips, but they always manage to not overstep the line into annoying main character territory.
McQuiston does book tours and panels where readers and writers are given a personal insight into the makings of our favorite novels. At the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books in Arizona, they spoke about their methods for creating likable yet daring characters. One of their methods mentioned was using Reddit’s Am I The Asshole? (AITA) post structure to see if their characters are true to their nature or overstepping the line. Creative resources such as this can give writers a fun way to get to know our characters while also creating the depth needed to understand who our characters are and our reasons for writing them. If there is one piece of craft that McQuiston has completely dominated in mastering, it would be their characters and the development of each one.
McQuiston’s novels continue to inspire how we present not only romance itself but also queer narratives in a way that is relevant and entertaining for readers to read. Their stories are light-hearted in their nature and continue to be a fun source of queer literature to escape to when we need a reminder of the joys that come with being part of the LGBTQ+ community. McQuiston continues to contribute to the romance genre, so keep an eye out for their work as they continue entertaining readers in every part of their storytelling.
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Looking for book recommendations with LGBTQ+ representation? Check out our Hooray for Representation – LGBTQ Voices bookshelf on Bookshop.org.
