Chestnut Springs and the Art of Romcom Writing
How Not to Drag Out a 3rd Act Breakup
Okay, so, if you follow my socials at all1 you’re probably aware of two things: one, I have very strong opinions about DC Comics; and two, I greatly enjoy the subgenre of contemporary romance fiction that I affectionately refer to as Hot Cowboy Books. They’re having a bit of a moment right now, and one of the best examples of the subgenre is Elsie Silver’s Chestnut Springs series. Set in the fictional Canadian town of- you guessed it- Chestnut Springs, Alberta, each volume of this five-book saga follows a different romantic pairing connected to the Eaton family. Local cattle and horse ranchers, all hilariously hot, they fall in love one at a time usually (but not exclusively) with city girls.2
Now, I have many positive things to say about these books, as there are many reasons why they work so very well as romcom fiction (some of which go well past the PG13 rating, and we will discuss those at a later date3), but today I want to focus on one specific thing: how it handles the Third Act Breakup.
I talked about this in my second New Girl essay4, but if you haven’t read it (in which case, I must cordially and respectfully ask you to rectify that, as I consider it one of the best pieces of academic writing I’ve ever composed), the Third Act Breakup is a pretty common part of what’s considered the standard romance arc in fiction. To simplify things way too much: in act 1, the prospective couple does the will-they-won’t-they dance until they get together; in act 2, they do couple-y stuff together while dealing with external and internal conflicts around their relationship; act 3, they have an argument and break up, angst about it until one or both of them realizes they’re being an idiot and apologizes, then they kiss and get back together and live happily ever after. Like I said before, it’s not a thing in EVERY romance story, but it’s a common enough trope that I’m willing to say it is to romcoms what the aesthetics of medieval Europe are to fantasy novels and mentally ill teenage leads are to giant robot anime (i.e., the norm). It’s not uncommon these days to be a bit sick of 3ABs (abbreviations are fun), but, like with most storytelling conventions, I don’t believe they’re inherently bad. Rather, it’s all in the execution. And the Chestnut Springs books handle them exceptionally well.
Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room right now: 3ABs are very often predicated on the idea that the couple IS going to get back together before the end of the story. You know it, I know it, most people who read romance know it, and most people who write romance know it. It is known. One could argue that this makes the romcom genre incredibly predictable or formulaic, but here’s the thing: I, and most people, use the term ‘romcom’ or ‘romantic comedy’ seemingly willy-nilly, but I (and most people) actually mean something rather specific by it. I’m using ‘comedy’ less in the modern sense of ‘story that makes you laugh’ (though these books are VERY funny) and more in the Shakespearean sense; i.e., a comedy is a story with a happy ending. But I’m using ‘romantic’ in the modern sense of ‘about romantic love.’ If it were a romance story with a sad ending, I’d be calling it a romantic tragedy, and that’s just not what these books are. Obviously, there’s room for romantic tragedies (your high school English teacher made you read Romeo & Juliet for a reason), but, working with this equal-parts modern and classical definition of romcom, we can better understand the framework in which the majority of contemporary romance writers are working. And hey, there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving the people what they want in fiction, and most of the time, people want a happy ending.
With that in mind, it’s important to remember the purpose a 3AB serves in the story: it’s conflict, and meaningful conflict is at the heart of all compelling fiction. There’s something of a belief that once the couple gets together there’s no more conflict to be had and the story should just be over, with the 3AB existing as a sort of counterargument. Couples fight. Sometimes, they fight wicked hard. Sometimes they break up over it. And to be frank, I’d say anyone who sincerely believes there’s no conflict in a happy relationship has just never been in one, but I digress. That said, it can be hard to make the conflict feel meaningful when a lot of people are just conceptually sick of a certain plot device, not unlike the pushback against the overabundance of Chosen One characters in fantasy novels or dead girlfriends in superhero comics. So, how does Chestnut Springs circumvent this strange little metafictional conundrum? How does author Elsie Silver work within this familiar framework in such a way as to make such a familiar plot beat meaningful? Well, to put it simply, she recognizes that the only way out is through.
Like I said, couples fight. But very few happy couples fight all the time. And if one fight is truly enough to end your relationship forever, it’s probably a sign that you weren’t actually very happy. What Silver does is portray how a happy couple realistically has a big fight: it happens, and it’s big and bad and feelings get hurt and the couple needs to pull away from each other to get some breathing room. But then, and here’s where that realism comes in, they don’t let it completely sour the relationship. One fight shouldn’t be enough to negate every positive feeling your relationship ever gave you. In fact, you’ll hopefully find yourself remembering those positive emotions pretty quickly, perhaps after a good night’s sleep or a quick trip out of town to get your bearings.
Probably the cleanest, quickest version of this occurs in the second book of the series, Heartless, in which we watch a perpetually scowling rancher dad named Cade slowly fall for Willa, the free-spirited and vivacious but surprisingly down-to-earth nanny he hires to help him wrangle his rambunctious son for the summer. Cade needs to loosen up and let someone help him carry the weight he’s had on his shoulders since childhood, while Willa is looking for something, for someone, who genuinely needs her. And they find what they’re looking for in each other, falling first in lust and then (after some of that not-so-PG13 stuff I mentioned) in love. More specifically, Willa assumes that roll in the hay is all Cade’s after and walks off… Only for Cade to burst through her door and be all like ‘hell naw girl, I’m looking for something real with you’ (paraphrasing). Which, first of all, is hilarious, and second of all, SWOON.
Other complications occur for Cade and Willa, however, namely due to Willa’s insecurity over the whole situation. And it makes sense: Willa is 25 and never went to college, has basically coasted through life courtesy of her rich family, frequently feels like a complete and utter parasite with no real selling points as a person beyond being fun to drink with; and now she’s shacking up with a 38-year-old DILF who she’s supposed to be working for, who’s constantly had women borderline sexually harassing him for most of his adult life, and who essentially got baby-trapped by a gold-digger when he was desperate for a real connection. On the surface, that’s a lot for a young woman to be insecure over, something Cade’s ex-wife doesn’t hesitate to remind her of during her one notable appearance.
And then Willa finds out she’s pregnant. Whoops. And, due to the aforementioned baby-trapping thing being what led to Cade’s son Luke being born in the first place, Willa has a massive crisis over the idea that Cade is going to think history is repeating itself, that she’s trapping him in a relationship with some floozy he doesn’t actually want to be with. And on the way home from finding out about this discovery, Cade, being a VERY emotionally constipated macho-man type, can only think to ask why Willa has a carrot in her purse (long story).
Willa, as you can imagine, doesn’t take this well, storming off and crying to her bestie Summer (the heroine of the first book, we’ll talk more about her later) as she realizes she does want to have this baby. She’s annoyed at Cade for having the emotional intelligence of a man her age rather a decade and change older than her, but it doesn’t erase the fact that these past few months have been fucking magical. A whirlwind romance with a ruggedly handsome, endearingly grumpy modern cowboy who runs a beautiful ranch in a picturesque swath of rural Alberta and has a realistically5 adorable son who thinks you’re the coolest person he’s ever met and wants you to be his new mom doesn’t come around every day, and Willa acknowledges that she’d be a complete idiot to let all that fairy tale bliss get away from her because she got scared and ran. And she wants to have this baby, wants to raise it with Cade on that beautiful ranch, to grow old with Cade and watch Luke and their baby grow up frolicking about in the country.
But it’s still a lot to process. She goes out of town for a few days, and when she comes back, she’s ready to face the music, to find out whether or not Cade really wants to be with her. Spoilers: he does. He does in fact want to spend his life raising his kids with a gorgeous redheaded spitfire who takes to being a ranch-wife like a fish takes to water and thinks he’s the best person she’s ever met. He knows this. But he’s bad at saying it, which is why they have the 3AB in the first place. It’s silly, ridiculous, absurd, they both realize, to let such a minor communication issue ruin what they have. So Cade… Shows her how he feels when she gets back (I don’t want to spoil it because it’s honestly wicked sweet), and that’s all she needs. All she needed to see to know that yeah, this is real. If that fight or this pregnancy had been enough to scare him away, it wouldn’t be real, but it’s not enough to scare him away and it’s very real.
And that is how it’s done. How you instill conflict into a relatively low stakes romcom via a 3AB without going too far with it or dragging it out so much you start wondering whether or not this relationship was ever that healthy to begin with. And it’s but one example in this five-book series. Each book contains a different execution of this idea. That if the couple is truly meant to be, they won’t let a setback ruin them. Silver spends a lot of time digging into the hangups and insecurities of her leading ladies and gentlemen and mines them for potential conflicts that would realistically cause setbacks but never lays it on too thick or makes you think ‘oh God this romance is doomed’, because it’s a romantic comedy. It’s meant to have a happy ending. It’s practically assumed that it will.
That’s not to say every 3AB in Chestnut Springs is that lowkey or that easily pushed through. In fact, the very first installment, Flawless, goes whole hog with the heightened drama for its rendition, and it still manages to not belabor the point.
So, in Flawless, we meet Summer Hamilton, who is basically a protagonist straight out of a Shoujo anime: she’s sweet, sunny, girly, empathetic, people-pleasing to a fault, surprisingly sarcastic and bossy, and has a tragic backstory involving a cheating father and childhood illness that’s given her a deeply concerning lack of self-worth. Enter Rhett Eaton, professional bull rider in the twilight of his career, recovering man-whore who’s reached the point where one-night-stands have lost their appeal, hot-blooded and protective to his core, yet surprisingly insecure and dorky in a very charming way. Did I mention that Summer is the daughter of Rhett’s agent, who’s tasked her with keeping him in check after a hilariously petty scandal starts scaring off his sponsors? Did I also mention that Summer’s childhood illness led her to being groomed by the doctor who saved her life and who then proceeded to dump her for her half-sister Winter? Did I also also mention that Summer’s illegitimate nature has led to Winter and especially Winter’s mom treating her like a pariah for her entire life?
Everybody got all that? Good. Because this is where the 3AB comes in.
Rhett is aware of most of this, but it takes a trip to a Calgary hospital for him to find out all the gory details. And bless his country-fried heart, he reacts by punching Dr. Rob (his name is Rob Valentine, which is an amazingly punchable name) and airing the dirty laundry to Winter… Who did not know about her terrible husband’s predatory behavior towards her younger sister. And she deserved to know exactly what kind of man she married, but not like this. Not in public, not at her workplace, and not from the angry mouth of her estranged sister’s boyfriend who she literally just met five minutes ago.
Did I mention that all this happens right after Summer’s dad, Kip, has just had a heart attack? Because that also happens.
Yeah, like I said, it’s very much a heightened drama 3AB. Summer, as you can imagine, does not react well to this, essentially blows up at Rhett, and he bites back in deeply uncool way, leading to the 3AB. And all this works because it’s rooted in the character flaws Silver has painstakingly established for the two leads (Summer’s people-pleasing tendencies and obsession with not being a burden on anyone, Rhett’s temper and overprotective nature) while helping further clarify the details of Summer’s established backstory. And it’s a bad experience for both of them, one that leaves them both emotionally gutted and gasping for air, one that causes Rhett to go on the last leg of his bull riding tour despite still being injured while Summer hides in her dad’s office.
But the way out is through. Both Kip and Willa nudge Summer in the right direction, pointing out that she’s never taken what she wants, never done what she truly wants to do in her entire life, and that if Rhett is what she wants then she needs to woman up and go after him. So she and Willa fly out to Rhett’s bull riding gig, and as his battered body approaches the bull and he concludes he will probably die if he gets on it, he sees her in the stands and just walks away from the bull. Because he cares about her more than the ride, more than the rush, more than the fight, and more than his ego or temper. And yes, this does lead to him running after her into the stands and professing his love for her on the spot, and it’s a fist-pump and swoon inducing moment for the ages as he takes her in his arms and makes it clear he’s retiring so he can be with her. Because when it’s real love, it matters more than either party’s hurt feelings or frustrations or baggage. When it’s real love, you can work through the fight. When it’s real love, it’s not complicated. The way forward is clear.
Books 3, 4, and 5 (Powerless, Reckless, and Hopeless, respectively) all have their own versions of well-executed 3ABs that span the whole spectrum between Book 1’s soap opera melodrama and book 2’s lowkey miscommunication.
In Powerless, dreamy but traumatized hockey star Jasper is nearly scared away from the heavily repressed degenerate ballerina Sloane by her rich, abusive father just when the two have finally consummated the (VERY longstanding for Sloane and comparatively recent but no less intense for Jasper) underlying romantic tension to their friendship when he threatens to ruin Jasper’s career and attempts to guilt-trip Sloane into going back into an arranged marriage he tried to maneuver her into. It comes very close to working, especially when Sloane asks Jasper if he’s willing to take that risk on her and he just freezes like a deer in headlights due to a trauma flashback. Jasper, to his credit, only needs a pep talk from Harvey ‘Silver Fox’ Eaton as well as Sloane’s equally repressed mom to go get his girl back, showing up for her at just the right time to make it clear he’s standing by her as she finally tells her terrible father where, exactly, he can shove it. Because when you’ve finally gotten with guy you’ve been down bad for since middle school, you’re willing to forgive him for a brief moment of apprehension.
Meanwhile, in Hopeless: Beau Eaton, a damaged military veteran struggling to adjust to civilian life in Chestnut Springs despite (or perhaps because of) his golden boy hometown hero reputation (plus the fact that he just thinks the place is boring: small town ranch life in a proverbial Arcadia is a dream for some but it ain’t for everybody, and there was a reason he joined up in the first place), gets into a fake engagement to local bartender and pariah Bailey Jansen, the beautiful and feisty daughter of the town’s hated trailer trash jailbird clan who is equally desperate for an escape hatch. The fake engagement quickly turns into an actual romance, as they often do in books like this, with the pretense that they can’t actually be together becoming flimsier and flimsier until they finally just give into their feelings. But then, when Bailey’s terrible family attempts to make a scene at the bar where she works, Beau, proving that the heart and the mind are both muscles and in his case the former is much more developed than the latter, is able to throw them out by revealing he owns the place. Bought it secretly over a year ago because they were having financial problems and he didn’t want Bailey (whom he’d had little to no interaction with at this point, he’s just that much of a do-gooder) to lose her job.
Now, PERSONALLY, if, in real life, my hypothetical boyfriend revealed that he’d secretly bought the tutoring center where I work part time because he didn’t want me to lose a job I needed and didn’t tell me until after he’d already put a comically large diamond on my finger, I’d be a bit freaked out. But A. this is not real life, it is a work of fiction and I am capable of discerning the difference between the two, and B. the book has a done a very good job arguing in favor of a plethora of extenuating circumstances (Bailey’s unfair treatment at the hands of the townsfolk outside of the Eaton extended family, the fact that he didn’t tell her specifically because he didn’t want her to feel like a charity case, and the fact that he’s willing to walk away from the ridiculously cushy life he could easily have in Chestnut Springs in order to be with her) that it makes the fact that she takes him back relatively easily work.
However, it’s Reckless that contains my personal favorite take on this trope, mostly because one of the parties involved in that book’s central relationship realizes a 3AB is happening and she basically says ‘oh fuck this entirely’ before the damage can escalate any further. Remember how I mentioned Summer’s older sister, Winter? Well, in book 4, she divorces her abusive, predatory husband, cuts ties with her toxic, manipulative mother, and takes a job in Chestnut Springs in a long-overdue attempt to mend fences with the sister she’s never been allowed to have a healthy relationship with erstwhile. While there, she meets Theo Silva, bull riding prodigy, son of a deceased industry legend, protege to Rhett, honorary Eaton, and unrepentant horndog. He’d already heard tell of Winter from Rhett and Summer, and was curious about her, assuming there must be more to the horror stories he’s heard. And after an… Interesting first encounter (love at first fight, as I like to call it), the two wind up having a drunken one-night stand with the promise that they’ll never talk to each other again afterwards.
And then Winter finds out she’s pregnant with his baby.
And then, when she tries to contact him about it, she’s (for reasons that make perfect sense in context) unable to get a hold of him until after the baby is born. Fully expecting Theo, notorious ladies’ man that he is, to cut and run, he surprises her when his reaction to meeting his infant daughter is unbridled joy. Yeah, turns out the guy genuinely wants to be a dad, and that moreover, he’s been avoiding Winter for the past year and a half in order to clean up his act and become, in his own words, worthy of a woman like her. Fully intending to come back to her once things cool off to ask for a chance at a proper relationship, he completely subverts Winter’s expectations by doting on their daughter and on Winter herself, proving the depth of his feelings for her time and time again, and generally being what I like to call Peak Male-wife.
It’s great. He’s great. Wish I could meet a guy like him.
They have misunderstandings, mind you (Theo’s chip on his shoulder regarding his lothario reputation and the fact that he’s standing in the shadow of bull riding legends like his father and Rhett, as well as Winter’s spikey personality and deep-seated self-loathing and trust issues) but on the whole it’s basically a story about a someone who’s forced herself to be a cold, aloof, angry person her whole life getting to be the warm, bubbly, maternal woman she’s always wanted to be because Theo takes one look at her and sees that’s who she actually is underneath all her armor. Great stuff. Very relatable. Much wish fulfillment.
And then Dr. Rob, cradle-raiding assclown that he is, attempts to ruin it by giving Winter a summons for a paternity test in order to contest their divorce. It’s obviously bullshit (baby Vivienne is described by everyone as looking like a tiny, female version of Theo) and it’s obviously meant to drive a wedge between Winter and Theo. And for half a second, it works. Winter tells Theo about it over the phone right after he wins a competition, and Theo, in a moment of weakness, bitterly asks if Viv is actually his kid (which, I want to emphasize, she very obviously is). Winter is understandably hurt by this and has to spend the night getting a long overdue sleepover in with Summer while Theo has the (very human, completely understandable, but also deeply immature) reaction of holing up in his hotel room all night sulking while refusing to look at his phone.
But like I said, Winter, who has basically gotten everything she always wanted- an adoring, gorgeous boyfriend, a beautiful baby, a proper sisterly relationship with Summer, and a proper maternal relationship with Theo’s mom- concludes that this is total bullshit. She packs a bag and, with a killer assist from Rhett, shows up at Theo’s hotel room with their baby. And their dog (Peter, the world’s ugliest chihuahua). Specifically, so she can tell him that this is complete bullshit, they are not going to let things spiral out of control over a hiccup like idiot teenagers after a poorly phrased text, they are obviously in love and they are going to make it work, dammit! Winter, with her bevy of trust issues and struggles with self-love, learns to love herself enough to be honest about what she wants. And what she wants is Theo, in her life, loving her every day, raising their daughter together.
Once again: hilarious, but also SWOON. And the swoon and hilarity both get continually ratcheted up in the last section of the book when Theo refers to Winter as ‘his future wife’ on live television, and then when they, along with Summer and Rhett, manage to get Dr. Rob’s medical license revoked after definitively proving that Viv is Theo’s daughter, AND THEN when Winter becomes a tour doctor for the bull riding circuit so she and baby Vivienne can travel with Theo while does what he loves for the last couple years of his pro career.
It’s great. They’re fucking great. These books are great.
The moral of the story, my lovelies, is that honesty and communication are the keys to any healthy, happy relationship, alongside physical attraction and emotional flexibility. Because when happily ever after is staring you right in the face, you fight for it. You don’t let it slip away, not because of a misunderstanding or because of some convoluted family drama. A third act breakup should be easy to get through, and if it’s not, then the relationship probably isn’t viable long term. And the Chestnut Springs books absolutely nail this concept every step of the way, proving that the trope can be done right by keeping it to scale.
And that is but one thing to recommend about these novels. There’s more I have to say about them, and I hopefully will do so soon, but for now I’ll bid you adieu by saying that they’re some of my favorite romances in recent years, and I encourage all y’all to check them out if any of what I’ve described is of interest to you.
Happy reading, lovelies. Go save some horses.
such as this one https://bsky.app/profile/helenastacy.bsky.social or this one https://www.instagram.com/helena_heissner/
God played an extremely cruel joke when he gave me, a trans woman, a weakness in the knees for country boys, lemme tell ya’
Possibly on my Patreon instead of here, since I know my parents are among my Substack subscribers (Hi Mom, Hi Dad. Love you both. As you can see, I’m putting that English degree you helped pay for to very good use).
This is another thing these books excel at: very often child characters in this type of story are impossibly angelic and well-behaved to help facilitate an idealized, wish-fulfillment version of motherhood; in contrast, Silver (who actually is a mother, according to her about the author blurbs) does a very good job painting an overall positive but refreshingly realistic picture of parenthood. Luke (and the other child characters in these books) hit the requisite notes of cuteness while still having moments where they’re frustrating, exhausting, and/or gross because real little kids are like that sometimes. It’s a little bit of reality that helps to sell what’s otherwise very much an escapist story.