Writing and Selling Romantic Comedy Screenplays

A Screenwriter's Guide to the RomCom Genre

Helen Jacey

• Publisher: Creative Essentials
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781843441106
• eBook ISBN: 9781843441113
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Screenplays

What happens when 'happy ever after' isn't quite so simple?

Today's attitudes to love and romance are as varied and diverse as individuals, and audiences want and need more sophisticated, authentic films that show how we live and love now. So what does this mean for the screenwriter developing a romcom? And how do they write heart-warming stories for a genre that is constantly evolving, from bromcom to zomcom to famcom?

Writing and Selling Romantic Comedy Screenplays offers a fresh approach to creating narratives for this ever-changing genre. Moving away from rigid and limited definitions that have evolved out of mainstream genre films, the book embraces a working definition that crosses cultural and national boundaries to give screenwriters around the world a truly international perspective on writing comedic love stories.

It is the first screenwriting guide to reflect the diversity of approaches in today's films that deal with the human need for emotional and physical intimacy using humour – the contemporary romantic comedy.

'Immensely helpful' - Divya Johry

'An excellent addition to the Creative Essentials screenwriting book family' - WritesSoFluid

Features of the book include:

• Illuminating, challenging and provocative about the state of the rom-com genre. Why do some films feel so dated, while others are perennially relevant?
• Explores and defines all subgenres of romcom, such as zomcom, bromedy, soromcom and famcom.
• Uniquely draws on creativity, screenwriting genre theory and film industry practice.
• Stimulating creative exercises at the end of every chapter, and 'hot tips' throughout.
• Adaptable concepts that can be applied to both feature films and short films.
• Encourages screenwriters to define their own values about love to ensure their voice and message is original - and commercial.
• Case studies and analyses of produced screenplays, including Dostana, Due Date, I Give it a Year, I love You, Man, Midnight in Paris, Ruby Sparks, Tamara Drewe, Ted and Warm Bodies
• Interviews with writers, directors and producers.
• Genuine international perspective
• Indispensible guide for both the student and the professional writer or filmmaker.

WHO LOVES YOU, BABY?

You probably know the expression character is story. Well, in a romantic comedy character is love story. It’s your job as a screenwriter to create a character who’s so unique that they can only lead a unique love story – one we’ve never seen because we’ve never met your character before. Ideally, not even somebody similar. Now it’s time to focus on the first step of discovering and creating your romantic comedy protagonist. The eventual story this character compels you to take them on will be explored in Chapter 6 – Love Lessons. For now, we’ll introduce some of the key factors that you can work with to create a truly fabulous protagonist. They’re not prescriptive but, as always, aim to support your ideas as they develop, with the ultimate aim of strengthening your romcom and making it more saleable.

By undertaking an intensive process of character development, you’ll be in a better position to know answers – hopefully more original ones – to the following questions:

• Why is this character the best one for the kind of romcom story I want to tell?
• Why is this character worth travelling the distance with – for me and my audience?
• What’s unique and memorable about them? How is this so?
• What are the character’s issues/problems/factors affecting their ability to ‘love’ – themselves and other people – or to connect with others in a satisfying and healthy way?
• If they don’t have issues, what’s their real function in the story?
• Why is my character attracted to the other person/persons? Why do they have strong feelings for them?
• How does my character feel about intimacy?
• What does romantic love mean to my character?
• How does my character represent my own thoughts about love – and do they help me to tell the kind of story I envision and want to write?
• When it comes down to it, is my main character really a version of me? Are their issues my issues? If so, what am I telling myself about love and/or connecting with others?

It might be quite useful to ask yourself these questions now, and jot down the answers. You can review them in later drafts as your understanding and intentions for your main characters develop.

If you take romantic comedy as the all-encompassing super-genre, it’s virtually impossible to define any unifying trait in their protagonists other than they have strong feelings for another human being. Those feelings can be passionate, angry, hateful, joyful, obsessive, lustful, deranging, confused, hurt, delightful, fascinated, helpful, unhelpful or downright destructive – but always with a sense of humour (depending on your tonal preferences). The point is, they’re overwhelming to your character and will form the main engine of the screenplay. It’s those strong feelings that’ll take centre stage as your character travels a primarily emotional journey, dealing with the other person(s) and resolving – or not – their strong feelings for them. And it’ll be the nature of that journey that’s shaped by those feelings.

GOING THE DISTANCE WITH YOUR CHARACTER

Depending on whether you start with something high-concept – ‘It’s about a werewolf who falls in love with a stripper’ – or a specific character portrait – ‘It’s about the young Queen Victoria falling in love with a young Albert’ – your biggest challenge will be creating that character and making them memorable, unique and sufficiently entertaining that an audience is happy to go the distance with them. Learning who that individual character really is, not to mention the person or ‘thing’ she/he/it has feelings for, will be probably be the most time-consuming and challenging aspect to the entire process of developing your screenplay. It’s just like falling in love/lust at first sight, when the person you see at the start and make all kinds of assumptions about based on their looks certainly isn’t who they really are inside – or, more to the point, who they’ll be after years of togetherness.

With your romantic comedy protagonist, who you start out with at the beginning isn’t necessarily who you’ll end up with. Characters can undergo such huge transformations in development that their name, age, sex, race and personality traits might change radically. But the long haul in character development, like a good marriage, is worth it. Taking feedback, self-examination, knowing when to compromise – all of which are essential to a functioning relationship that can go the distance – will bring great results with your character. You’ll get to the point when your characters live and breathe – when they take on lives of their own and you know the external masks they hide behind, all their defence mechanisms and all of their good, bad and ugly sides. In this way, they drive the love story because they’re fully fleshed out, complex, relatable individuals with minds – and story desires – of their own.

EXERCISE – What’s their story?

The purpose of this exercise is to develop your observational skills about people, and to study actions and behaviour as a means of communication.

Go to a bar, a restaurant, a museum, a tourist attraction, a market – or somewhere like that – and do some serious people-watching. Ideally choose a place where you can see couples in action. Try to avoid a train, which tends to zombiefy people on long journeys! The idea is for you to do some ‘couple watching’ so you’re inspired to draw creative conclusions from what you see and sense.

• Make up a story about who they are, based on what they’re wearing, how they carry themselves and their general vibe.
• Give the couple pretend names.
• Study the interactions between the couple and imagine: how long have they been together? What’s the state of their relationship now? How do they feel about each other? What’s their future?
• Now write a scene about what happens when they get home from this place. How do they act with each other? How might their visit to this place affect what happens when they get home?

CHARACTER DEMOGRAPHICS

Choosing the protagonist/s of your romantic comedy is on the surface the easiest thing to do in screenwriting. No character, no story, remember? You probably know they’re male, female, transsexual or gender neutral...

Table of contents

• WRITING AND SELLING ROMANTIC COMEDY SCREENPLAYS
• Helen Jacey
• Dr Craig Batty
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• WHY ROMANTIC COMEDY?
• WHO’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID?
• GETTING READY TO ROMCOM
• A FUNNY KIND OF LOVE
• WHO LOVES YOU, BABY?
• LOVE LESSONS
• THE WORLD OF LOVE
• INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVES
• CONCLUSION
• FURTHER READING
• FILMS REFERENCED
• Copyright