Use this template to plan an 80-episode CEO romance and make episode 1 with AI. You get the series plan, a beat sheet (the story's turning points, episode by episode), a full episode 1 script and a shot list.
The premise
Elena Brooks shows up for her first day as Adrian Vale's executive assistant. He fires her in the elevator before she's even badged in. She refuses to leave.
Here's what Adrian doesn't know yet. Her real surname belongs to the engineer who sued his father fifteen years ago. She took this job to find out what Vale Holdings buried.
What viewers expect from a CEO romance
- A power gap you can see in one frame. Show the suit, the penthouse, the driver. She has less money than him and more nerve.
- Forced proximity. That's any setup that keeps the leads stuck together: a contract marriage, a fake engagement, a live-in job, a stuck elevator. Pick one and keep coming back to it.
- The secret. Somebody is hiding who they are. Here it's her, which flips the usual "secret billionaire" setup.
- Twist the clichés: skip the coffee-spill first meeting and the heroine getting humiliated in public again and again. Writers working in the format have said that audiences are getting tired of the second one. Let Elena win small fights early, so the big losses hurt.
The series at a glance
Aim for episodes of 60–90 seconds, and end every one on a turn. Switch between big cliffhangers (a reveal, a threat) and small ones (a look, an unanswered text). That keeps the rhythm from going numb.
| Block | Episodes | What happens | Ends on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hook | 1–3 | Fired, refuses to leave, saves the merger, gets hired on probation | Adrian learns her real surname |
| Escalation | 4–9 | Office war, a rival CFO courts her, Adrian tests her loyalty with a fake leak | She's caught photographing a sealed file |
| Paywall beat | 10 | To explain the photo, Adrian announces their engagement on a live investor call | "Smile, fiancée. You're on camera." |
| Fake engagement | 11–30 | Moving in, meeting his mother, the gala, first real kiss | His mother recognizes her father's watch |
| Midpoint reversal | 31–40 | The buried patent was stolen by Adrian's father, and Adrian knew | She walks out mid-wedding rehearsal |
| Squeeze | 41–60 | She partners with the rival CFO; Adrian protects her in secret | The CFO is the one who framed her father |
| Dark moment | 61–70 | Elena is arrested for corporate theft using evidence she planted for Adrian to find | Adrian testifies against his own father |
| Finale | 71–80 | Patent restored, father exposed, real proposal on the rooftop where Episode 1's rain started | Final image: her name, her real one, on the building directory |
Read the "Ends on" column as your cliffhanger list. Each block closes on a bigger turn than the last one.
Apps commonly put the paywall (the point where viewers have to pay to keep watching) somewhere around episodes 8–12. So the episode 10 beat has to be the biggest turn in the first block.
Beat sheet
- Ep 1 Elevator firing. Elena fixes a translation error in the merger contract, live. Adrian reads her file.
- Ep 2 Probation: one week, no mistakes. He gives her an impossible schedule, and she finishes it early.
- Ep 3 Late night at the office. She finds a locked cabinet labeled with her father's project code.
- Ep 4–5 The rival CFO, Marcus, offers her double pay to spy on Adrian. She says no, but Adrian only overhears the offer.
- Ep 6–7 Adrian plants a fake leak to test her. Marcus is the one who uses it, and Elena takes the blame.
- Ep 8–9 She clears her name and slips back into the cabinet room. Security footage catches her photographing a file.
- Ep 10 (paywall beat) Investors are watching, so Adrian covers for her. He says she was "photographing our engagement contract" and puts a ring on the table.
- Ep 11–20 Contract terms, separate bedrooms, the gala. A staged kiss stops being staged.
- Ep 21–30 His mother hosts dinner and recognizes the watch Elena wears. She quietly hires a private investigator.
- Ep 31–40 Elena finds proof: the patent was signed over under pressure. Adrian's initials are on a 2011 memo, so she leaves.
- Ep 41–50 Elena teams up with Marcus. Adrian secretly sends money to her mother's care home.
- Ep 51–60 Marcus's own records show he forged the evidence that ruined her father. She's now inside his trap.
- Ep 61–70 Elena is arrested. Adrian explains the memo: he was 17 and only signed as a witness. He's spent years quietly buying the patent back.
- Ep 71–80 Courtroom, boardroom, rooftop. The patent goes back to the Hale name, and he proposes for real in the rain.
Sample episode 1
Screen time: about 1:40. The timestamps are rough targets.
EPISODE 1 - "FIRED BEFORE DAY ONE"
[0:00–0:03 HOOK]
INT. VALE HOLDINGS - ELEVATOR - MORNING
Doors slide open on ADRIAN VALE (32, charcoal three-piece suit,
silver cufflinks, slicked-back black hair). ELENA BROOKS (24,
cream silk blouse, thrifted tan trench coat, chestnut ponytail)
steps in holding two coffees.
ADRIAN
(eyes on his phone)
You're fired.
ELENA
I haven't started yet.
[0:03–0:25]
ADRIAN
Great. Saves us both a week.
He presses 88. The doors close. She doesn't get out.
ELENA
You fired the last three by text.
I came in person. Do it to my face.
He finally looks at her. A beat too long.
INT. VALE HOLDINGS - 88TH FLOOR BOARDROOM - CONTINUOUS
Glass walls, rain on the city below. Six EXECUTIVES around a
table. On a screen: a video call with a TOKYO PARTNER, frozen
mid-frown.
[0:25–0:55]
EXECUTIVE (O.S.)
They're walking. Clause nine.
Adrian scans the contract. Elena reads over his shoulder.
ELENA
(quietly)
Your translator got it wrong. It says
"preferred," not "exclusive." They think
you want to own them.
ADRIAN
You read Japanese?
ELENA
I read contracts. Japanese is just the font.
She leans to the laptop mic and speaks two careful lines in
Japanese. On screen, the partner's frown breaks into a laugh.
TOKYO PARTNER (V.O.)
(in English)
Mr. Vale. Your assistant's smarter than your lawyers.
[0:55–1:20]
INT. ADRIAN'S OFFICE - LATER
Adrian at the window. Elena waits by the door, trench still on.
ADRIAN
One week. One mistake, you're out.
ELENA
Same rules for you?
He almost smiles. She leaves. He opens her HR file on his
tablet.
INSERT - TABLET SCREEN
ELENA BROOKS. Emergency contact: MARGARET HALE (mother).
Adrian stops scrolling.
[1:20–1:40 CLIFFHANGER]
He pulls an old folder from his desk drawer. A 2011 press
clipping: "ENGINEER DAVID HALE SUES VALE INDUSTRIES."
Photo of a man with Elena's eyes.
ADRIAN
(into phone)
Hire her. Permanently.
(beat)
And find out who sent her.
SMASH CUT TO BLACK.
That's about a dozen lines of dialogue and one location change every 25 seconds or so. The episode ends on something the audience knows and Elena doesn't. That gap is what makes people tap for episode 2.
Making it with AI video
Plan the episode as 12–16 separate generations (one clip per shot), then join them in your editor. Each model has its own clip length limit, so check the model page before you lock durations.
An insert is a close shot of an object, like a phone screen. An establishing shot shows the place before the scene starts.
| # | Shot | Length | What happens | Dialogue | Try |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | close-up | 3s | Doors open on Adrian, phone in hand: "You're fired." | yes | Seedance |
| 2 | over-the-shoulder | 4s | Elena, over Adrian's shoulder: "I haven't started yet." | yes | Seedance |
| 3 | medium | 6s | Two-shot in the elevator, he presses 88, she stays put | yes | Kling |
| 4 | establishing | 4s | Rain-streaked glass tower, camera tilts up to the 88th floor | no | Wan |
| 5 | wide | 5s | Boardroom, frozen video call, executives panicking | no | Kling |
| 6 | over-the-shoulder | 5s | Elena reads the contract over Adrian's shoulder | yes | Veo |
| 7 | close-up | 6s | Elena speaks Japanese into the laptop mic | yes | Veo |
| 8 | insert | 3s | Laptop screen: partner's frown turns into a laugh | no | Hailuo |
| 9 | medium | 8s | Adrian at the office window, rain, "One week" exchange | yes | Kling |
| 10 | close-up | 3s | Adrian almost smiles | no | Seedance |
| 11 | insert | 4s | Tablet screen with the emergency contact name | no | Wan |
| 12 | insert | 4s | Old press clipping slides out of the folder | no | Hailuo |
| 13 | close-up | 6s | Adrian on the phone: "And find out who sent her." | yes | Seedance |
The "Try" column is only our suggestion. Most dialogue shots go to models that make lip-synced speech (mouth movements that match the words), and the silent shots can go almost anywhere.
Make these references first. A reference is an image you give the model so it copies that face or room.
- A character sheet for each lead: front, three-quarter and side views in the exact outfit from the cast list. That's the charcoal three-piece suit with silver cufflinks for Adrian, and the cream blouse and tan trench for Elena.
- One locked frame of the boardroom and one of Adrian's office, both at 9:16. Start every shot in those rooms from the same image.
- Make the insert graphics (the HR file, the press clipping) as still images first, then animate them. Text drawn inside a video clip often comes out garbled.
- Keep the rain. The same weather in every shot hides small lighting jumps between clips.
Prompts to start from: Seedance CEO romance prompts, Kling CEO romance prompts, Veo CEO romance prompts.
Related guides: Writing a micro drama script · Storyboarding with AI · Character consistency · How to make an AI micro drama