Make a contract marriage short drama

Why a contract marriage works in 30 seconds

The contract does the setup for you. The viewer knows the terms, the end date and the one rule that matters, so the story starts in the first line. Every touch, every lie to the family and every night under the same roof becomes a small breach the viewer counts.

It also gives each episode a natural end. Someone is about to find out the marriage is fake: the family, the ex, the press, the board. Or one of the two is about to admit the contract stopped being the reason. A 30-second episode moves one of those threads one step and stops.

The trope pairs with almost anything. A CEO lead adds a power gap, a revenge engine adds a motive, and a 100-day deadline adds a clock the viewer can count down.

The beats of a 10-episode season

Here is a season shape that holds for ten episodes.

Inside each episode: open on a term of the contract or a lie, give one turn past the halfway mark, and end on exposure or a deadline, never on a kiss. Keep the heat at PG or PG-13; tension does the work.

• Episode 1: the deal and the signature, and the reason each of them needs it.
• Episodes 2 and 3: the rules and the first slip. Separate rooms, no touching in private, and one rule broken by accident.
• Episodes 4 to 6: the family who must believe it. A dinner, a visit, a question only a real spouse could answer.
• Episodes 7 to 9: the ex, the leak and the clause nobody read.
• Episode 10: the contract ends. Does the marriage?

The prompt to paste

Paste this into Claude once agent-media is connected. Keep “Interview me first”: Claude asks who the two leads are, why each one signs, how long the contract runs and how it should end, then writes the season plan for you to approve before anything is cast or filmed.

A sample three-episode arc

The opening of that season, with the tension rising to episode 3 and a different cliffhanger type each time.

• Episode 1, Clause One. Opens on the CEO across his desk: “One hundred days. No feelings. Sign here.” Nora signs without reading the last page. Turn: his lawyer takes the pen back too quickly. Last line, from Nora: “What was on the last page?” A partial reveal.
• Episode 2, Separate Rooms. She plays the perfect wife at his board dinner, a small win, and his partners believe it. Turn: his grandmother announces she is moving in for a week. Last line, from the grandmother: “Show me where you both sleep.” A ticking clock.
• Episode 3, The Last Page. Nora's ex arrives at the house with a copy of the contract and reads the last page aloud: the marriage must last a year, not a hundred days. Last line, from him: “He didn't tell you, did he?” A betrayal, and the highest stakes so far.

Cast it

Ask for two leads and two or three recurring characters, all original fictional adults kept for the whole season. Every actor on our roster is fictional and made with AI, and none of them is a real person. Browse it for the type you picture and name that type in the interview. Faces are made new for each series, so your cast may look different from the profile.

• Lead A, the one who needs the money: late 20s, a violin case as her signature prop. Wants her debt paid and her dignity intact. Secret: why she really needs the money.
• Lead B, the CEO: 30s, tailored and cold. Needs the marriage on paper to win control of the company or an inheritance. Wound: the last marriage he watched fall apart.
• The grandmother or mother-in-law: the person who must be convinced, and the first to suspect.
• The ex or the rival fiancée: the one who knows what the contract really says.

Variations to try

The same deal drives other premises:

• Flip it: the CEO is the one in debt, and the broke lead turns out to hold the money.
• A fake engagement instead of a marriage, with the wedding date as the deadline.
• A 100-day contract in Korean, as in Seoul Contract, where a contract wife and a CEO agree that falling for each other breaches the contract.

Mistakes to avoid

Contract marriage stories stall in a few predictable ways:

• Falling in love by episode 3. The rules should bend for nine episodes and break in the tenth.
• A contract nobody sees. Put the paper on screen as the episode's one prop and let a line read the clause.
• Two leads who want each other from the start. Each should want something else from the deal, and find the other on the way.
• Ending every episode on almost a kiss. Rotate partial reveals, deadlines, intrusions and betrayals.

Watch the closest one we made

We have not made an English contract marriage yet. The closest is The Body Double, episode 1: Mara is a waitress paid to pretend to be the heiress Elena for one week, and Elena's fiancé Nico starts to notice the small things Elena would never do. It runs on the same deal, someone paid to play a bride and someone close to finding out. For a true contract romance, watch Seoul Contract, in Korean.

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