Annee Martin is pretty sure she grew up in a Hallmark movie. The eldest of nine children, she remembers best how her mother went out of her way to teach her children that life was meant to be celebrated, while never letting them know they were doing without. Particularly at Christmas.

“My mom would decorate a beautiful Christmas tree with all those twinkly white lights that put a magical glow across the room, plus ornaments she’d made by hand. She’d go down to the dime store on Christmas Eve to buy little trinkets she’d wrap up and tuck into stockings she’d knitted for each of us. We didn’t know money was scarce. We only knew our mother loved us and that we must have been very good that year.”

Martin watches Hallmark holiday movies religiously because they remind her of home. While they may be staged in a ski lodge, small town, Manhattan office, country inn or winery, the sense of home is created, not so much by the setting, but by what happens there. People return to their roots, childhood sweethearts reunite, the building is preserved, the vineyard survives the drought, the next generation steps up to foster the family farm.

Things work out, love endures, and always, the story ends with hope and the promise of a kiss.

“What I love about Hallmark movies,” said Martin, “is that they bring in the love. I can trust I will be uplifted, not disappointed at the end, and I’m going to feel good. For me, Hallmark movies are like therapy. If I didn’t have Hallmark to rely on, my daily life would be harder. I’d have to find something else to remind me to have hope.”

Martin is in the process of writing her first Hallmark-destined screenplay, “Miracle at Merrifield Gardens,” based on a garden gift center and café where her mother felt most at home toward the end of her cancer journey. At the time, Martin made a monthly deposit into her mother’s bank account just so the matriarch could shop to her content at Merrifield Gardens, where she invariably bought gifts to shower upon her children and grandchildren at family gatherings.

The folks at Merrifield Gardens gave her mom a staff shirt and made her an honorary employee. The family gathered from near and far, giving her a reason to live and the sense that her family would endure in her absence.

This is about as “Hallmark” as it gets. The story had practically written itself. The only problem was that Martin, a writer, who owns both Ami Carmel and Sanctuary Vacation Rentals, had never written a screenplay. So, in December, she enrolled in “A Holiday Extravaganza,” a real-time, online writing course. Presented by Story Summit Writer’s School, the two-night course focused on the holiday happily-ever-after stories in the spirit of Hallmark movies and best-selling romance novels.

Learning from the legend

The principal instructor of the course was the legendary Joany Kane, the most prolific holiday screenwriter, known as “The Queen of Christmas.” Kane’s first Hallmark holiday movie, “The Christmas Card,” which premiered in 2006, shattered viewing records, effectively launched the holiday romance movie genre.

“The Christmas Card” tells the story of a handsome soldier, stationed in Afghanistan, who has no family waiting back home, yet he receives an anonymous Christmas card, which bolsters him. While on leave, he feels inspired to travel to Nevada City to visit the widow of the soldier who’d handed him the card. The “meet cute” happens in the local diner, where the soldier and the woman who sent the card, a member of a long-time logging family, have ordered the same lunch. The rising action shows up in the form of her boyfriend. The rising conflict occurs when she kisses the solder. The climax occurs when the boyfriend asks her to marry him. And the denouement, where all truths come to the surface, well, that would present an unfair spoiler. The movie is still popular and is the only Hallmark Christmas movie to receive an Emmy nomination.

Kane didn’t have the story all figured out until a lineup of loggers came into the office at the sawmill where she was working, between Christmas and New Years, to support her writing habit.

“I was in my 30s and happily single,” she said, “until a certain logger came through the door, and it was love at first sight. On that Friday night, I felt such an overpowering sense of attraction and love and joy. And I thought, ‘I have my story for ‘The Christmas Card.’”

Inspired the eloquence of passion, Kane cranked out her movie script by March and printed out two copies, one for her logger and one for her mom.

“I brought a copy to Dave the logger and said, ‘I was inspired by you to write this. Here is your draft before I send it out.’ I ended up staying the night and have never left. This past March, we celebrated our 24th anniversary. That, right there, is a Hallmark love story.”

The beauty of Hallmark holiday movies, says Kane, is that viewer know the protagonists are going to fall in love. They can trust everything is going t work out, a confidence created by scenes between characters. “The Christmas Card” doesn’t have any major conflict, just enough to create tension in the story and keep viewers engaged. Viewers feel like part of the family as they watch the relationship develop. It all taps into a nostalgia many people crave, particularly during the holiday season.

“To create that engagement,” said Kane, “you have to put in the moments, make sure your script is filled with moments that resonate with romance and humor and nostalgia and love. The Christmas Card’ is one of the scripts that is truest to my voice and my story. It’s my dialogue, my characters, my story.”

Besides, Kane says it has all the elements of a good holiday story. It has the meet cute in the diner, the Christmas tree, the sleigh ride, the family, the kiss and the lingering glance as the music comes up and the credits roll.

Kane has written nearly 20 holiday movies that reached the screen, not all of them for Hallmark. Martin, who started watching Hallmark movies when visiting her mom, became a scholar of Kane’s Christmas movies and is now closing in on her first script. Martin says the best way to learn is to study the work of others, by really analyzing good work, from which to collect the tools to articulate the story.

“What I love about Joany Kane,” said Martin, who is currently taking a second course from Kane, “is that she’s a fantastic teacher. She’s very acknowledging which, when we’re learning, helps a lot. In writing my first screenplay, I’ve had to go through a rite of passage of not knowing, which is uncomfortable, but I’ve learned so much. I now have the structure and language; I’ve gone beyond enjoying the Hallmark Christmas movie to understanding it.”

Hallmark Channel will begin airing Christmas movies from 10 a.m. to midnight every day from July 1 through July 31.