The largest audience in vertical drama, and the least forgiving one. The contract is simple and unforgiving: two people who should not end up together, ending up together, slowly and against resistance. A viewer who came for this will forgive a rough cut and will not forgive a broken promise.

One escalation of intimacy or one setback per episode — never both, and never neither. In a 60–120 second episode there is no room for a warm-up scene, so the turn has to arrive inside the first twenty seconds and the cliffhanger has to be the natural end of that turn.

Warm key light, shallow depth, faces filling the frame. Romance is shot close because the story happens on someone's face. Set the visual style at project level so it is applied consistently — a genre that changes its grade between episodes reads as a mistake rather than a choice.

The middle third is where romance series die. Once the obvious obstacle is cleared, writers reach for a misunderstanding — and a misunderstanding is not an obstacle, it is a delay. Give the pair a real, external reason they cannot be together yet and the middle writes itself.