Billy Mernit: “Romantic Comedy Writing Secrets”

Billy Mernit, who hosts the most excellent blog “Living the Romantic Comedy”, has a nifty article at FilmMakerIQ.com. Here’s a taste:

If creating a successful romantic comedy really was as easy as plugging a couple of stars into a standard boy-meets-girl, boy-loses- girl, boy-gets-girl structure, the market would be glutted with genuinely funny romantic comedies. But can you remember the last truly great ‘rom-com’ you’ve seen? Only one or two in the past few years topped the box office. And as a story analyst who sees-and rejects romantic comedy specs on a weekly basis, I can tell you that the ones that really work are all too rare. So in the interest of helping fellow writers (and good date movie-starved audience members everywhere), here’s half a dozen key pieces of inside knowledge I’d like to share. Follow these leads, and studios won’t be so quick to ‘pass’ on your project.

The leads are:

WRITE THE CHEMISTRY

EXPAND YOUR GENRE

AN ACTION’S WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

TWEAK THE FORMULA

ROMANTIC MEANS SEXY AND COMEDY MEANS FUNNY

MAKE IT BE ABOUT SOMETHING

Billy expands on each tip, so to read the rest, go here.

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