When newspaper reporters leave the business, it’s typically for cushier gigs in public relations, where the pay is better and the hours are regular. But not all go that route. Last week I got an e-mail from a woman named Ellen Braunstein (right), who left a reporting gig at The Press Enterprise of Southern California to write people’s love stories. (She had stumbled across this post of mine.) Through her business Courtship Stories, she told me, she now chronicles how couples met, and then turns each written story into booklets for guests at weddings and anniversary parties. See a sample page here.

This fascinated me: While I very much sympathize with wanting to leave small-town reporting, which I found to be repetitive and insular, I just couldn’t imagine love-story writing would be an improvement (and surely, it’d be a lot cheesier). Ellen was kind enough to submit herself to a little Q&A with me, to explain what her job’s all about.

HappyScrappy: You left a newspaper job to write stories about happy couples. What happened, were you writing for the obits section and needed a complete change?

Ellen: Fine obituary writing celebrates life. But I was covering City Hall, and that can be deadly. So I welcomed the change. At first, I planned to write life legacy books about everyday individuals — a collection of essays that would capture the most significant aspects of their lives. I tried a sample chapter, a courtship story, and realized that of all life-changing events, this had the most narrative momentum. I’m not really a romantic, but courtship stories are definitely the perfect match of writer to assignment.

I assume you have some back-and-forth with the couples when you’re writing their stories. Who’s the tougher editor: A hard-nosed newspaperman on deadline, or a bride-to-be before her wedding?

I hated daily deadlines, so you can imagine which editor I would prefer. The bride and groom relive the courtship in separate interviews, which run 90 minutes or two hours over the phone or in person. I never write close to a wedding day, and couples usually approve the first draft — 1,500 to 1,800 words — with minor corrections.

True-life love stories are like vacation photos: The people involved in a story think it’s fascinating, and everyone else has only a passing interest. As a chronicler of people’s love stories, that leaves you with two options — write to the couple’s indulgence, or write with their audience’s attention span in mind. Is there a middle ground here?

Besides closest friends and family, people who don’t know the couple well, or at all, will enjoy these stories. The couples I chronicle want real stories — sweet, not sappy or cliché. They understand that overly sentimental details will lose a reader’s interest. The word “love” is used sparingly, for example. I mine details for themes and make connections that give readers the big picture of why these two chose each other. Guests have a long attention span for a good story.

Do you ever have to struggle to make a story sound romantic? Because I bet not every story is a charmer. Say a couple meets at a bar, gets sloppy drunk, ends up naked in some alleyway, and four months later they’re tying the knot in front of an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. Are you in a pinch?

As long as there are colorful details, every story has its charm. The couple is not sloppy drunk; they are emboldened by a beer or two. I keep it G-rated, skip mundane details, past relationships and stupid fights. I focus on the first encounter, the proposal and anything that moved the relationship forward, even if it was a setback. “Tying the knot in front of an Elvis impersonator?” That’s a story for “Vows” in The New York Times. My stories end with the proposal — not with what the officiant wore.