Dispatch from The Quest: Scott Reynolds

Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the third week of Prep. Today’s dispatch: Scott Reynolds, who is writing a rom-com, waxes profound on the sub-genre:

One of my best friends has a theory that you can tally a person’s mental flaws and figure out which Disney cartoon messed him or her up for life. For her, it’s the Little Mermaid. Chock full o’ daddy issues and casting aside who you are for your Prince Charming. I’ve known this girl for a while and that all sounds pretty accurate.

Then I started wondering: “which Disney cartoon messed me up?”

By chance, I figured it out. It’s a Disney short called Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet. You can watch it here.

Somebody posted that to some random thread of some random site I check at random times and I was immediately transported to the summer of 1987, sitting in Girdwood, Alaska, and knowing that my Alice Bluebonnet was out there somewhere waiting for me to come find her.

I’m writing a romantic comedy. The last spec I wrote was a romantic comedy. A lot of things I’ve written have been romantic comedy in nature. I’m one of those guys that sees ALL the romantic comedies. Roughly half of my DVD collection is romantic comedy. Yeah. All the ones with Katherine Heigl too. Even all the ones with both Katherine Heigl AND Gerard Butler. EVEN the ones where Katherine Heigl isn’t blonde. I love them.

I’m also pretty awful at, you know, actual real relationships. Always have been. Why? Because Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet were love at first sight, and he wouldn’t settle for anything less than being sweethearts for ever more. (Seriously, the last time I saw that cartoon before last week was probably 25 years ago, and I remembered all of the words to the song like a mental patient.)

I’ve always been up for the chase. That pure, romantic, don’t stop, overcome all odds, tear down all obstacles until you have the love interest that the Universe or God or pure Chance put in front of you just for you chase that Johnny Fedora went through, and that so many Romantic Comedies would have you believe is where true romance lies. The less romantically inclined might call it stalking. Also some judges.

The RIGHT one. That’s a huge theme in romantic movies, even the ones with a comedic bent. We’re always waiting to see that right one come along, or waiting for characters to realize that the right one was there in front of them the whole time, or waiting for them to realize that they have chosen, sometimes repeatedly, the wrong ones. It’s fun. It’s like a little bit of hope mixed with a dash of romance and baked inside a fluffy crust of schadenfreude. Because as much as we want them to get the right one, we love that they have to stumble and fall and compete and fight and claw and complete Herculean tasks to get the right one. That’s fun for us to watch. The thrill is in the chase.

The chase is often so much more satisfying than the finish line. How many times have we heard of people who only want the ones they can’t have? How many times have we seen a character get what he thought he wants only to realize that what he wanted was the chase? The chase is all adrenaline all the time. The prize is…ugh…a relationship.

Personally, I exclusively pursue women who’d never be into me because, while the constant rejection is hard, it’s still easier than a relationship.

When we write romantic comedies, we focus so much on the chase. We save the happily ever after for the denouement, just showing photo montages of dates and weddings and kids, or fading out as we pull back on some meaningful imagery, because frankly we just don’t really care what happens after the girl gets the guy. We’re spent by then. All our energy and emotion poured into the getting there that the “there” stopped being that important.

In that way, a RomCom is no different than any action movie. Take out a few special effects and make Bonnie Bedelia’s character be a girl that John McClane met at a routine traffic stop where sparks flew, and Die Hard is a romantic comedy. Boy going through hell to win the girl.

Put the One Diamond on the One Ring, a princess at the top of Mount Doom, and make Gollum a Baxter (or a Bellamy) and we’ve got Frodo starring as a romantic lead instead of an heroic one. What happens after the ring gets to its destination is irrelevant. You get it.

God forbid I make it through a journal without mentioning the 2004 Red Sox, right? But we members of Sox Nation poured our hearts and souls into that magical ALCS against the Yankees so much so that the actual World Series, the one where we SWEPT the Cardinals and erased 86 years of anguish, was like a historical footnote.

You can even see that in how the American version of Fever Pitch, another romantic comedy I’ve seen far too many times, ends. They actually had to redo the ending because of the events that October. Talk about timing. But the whole thing was about the lead-up. The perfect parallel. Slaying the dragon, beating the Yankees, overcoming your shit and making a last desperation play to get the girl, all of that matters so much more to the viewer than the brass ring itself.

Which is weird to me. But here we are.

I am reminded of this observation by screenwriter Patrick S. Duncan:

“Every time I write, I find myself going through a form of self-examination that is almost a kind of therapy. By creating and examining my characters I find myself questioning my own motivations, my own character. By creating problems for these characters, I look at my problems–and sometimes find solutions. If I get angry at something, the way teachers are treated in this country, the low opinion of women in combat (despite a few thousand years of history stating otherwise), I write about it and get Mr. Holland’s Opus or Courage Under Fire. Trying to come to terms with my own combat experience, I delved into those subjects in Courage…, 84 Charlie Mopic and War Story: Vietnam.

Every story and every character has a part of me, good guy or bad, and I share their emotions, good or bad. I vent rage, weep, laugh, and all without exposing anyone else to my angst and dramatics. I take my worst psychological problems and work them out on paper. I think writers, like other artists, go into dark corners where most people have hidden the dangerous parts of their lives. Writers go into these closets in their minds, pull out something most people don’t want to discuss or admit, and say, ‘Look at this. This is how I feel, how I think.’ And the wonder of it all is that no matter how despicable, dreadful, or embarrassing that thought or deed may be, it is often universal. The audience recognizes it and experiences that same emotion vicariously, safely.”

When we talk about having passion for a story, this is often what a big part of it boils down to: Our own sense of connection to the material. That way we are most likely to invest our soul into the story.

Tomorrow: Another Dispatch from The Quest.

About Scott: Brooklyn based writer and comedian who bailed on software to focus on writing words that humans could read. Twitter: @scottadhoc.

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