“How to Write a Romcom”
Tess Morris, screenwriter of the movie Man Up, starring Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, offers up some insight in a recent first-person essay in the Telegraph. Here are the first three of 10 things Tess advises for rom-com writers:
Four years ago I sat down to write the screenplay for my first romantic comedy, Man Up. It was set in London, and was my attempt to look at how romance works in the modern world, and whether you can truly have a blind date anymore. Now that screenplay has been turned into a film, starring Simon Pegg and Lake Bell. Here is what I learnt in the process: my 10 golden rules for how to write a romcom.
1. DON’T BE A SNOB
Romcom is the genre of film that people are most likely to dismiss. But I have always loved them. Long before the term “romcom” turned up in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1971, there were screwball classics such as Bringing Up Baby and Some Like It Hot. Every decade since has reinvented the romcom: Tootsie took a gender-bending approach in the Eighties; Muriel’s Wedding and Sideways focused, respectively, on relationships between two women, and two men; and more recently, Judd Apatow has given the genre his own unique, bromantic twist. The best way to pay homage to something is to make it your own.
2. FIND THE SWEET SPOT
The masterpieces of the genre — Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally, Nancy Meyers’s Something’s Gotta Give — achieve the perfect balance of romance and comedy. If something is making you laugh and cry, you’re watching a romcom (if you’re just crying, it’s probably The Notebook). When that equation works, it’s a beautiful thing to behold.
3. POP THE QUESTION
In Billy Mernit’s essential book Writing the Romantic Comedy (2000), he anatomises the critical elements of the romcom: the chemical equation — what do our two leads need from each other?; the infamous “cute meet” — the unique way we get them together; and the sexy complication turning point. But most importantly, Mernit says that you need to identify a big question, not “Will they or won’t they?” but “What is your film going to be about?” Is it about whether men and women can be friends without the sex part getting in the way (When Harry Met Sally)? Or is it about when to settle, or not settle, in a relationship (Moonstruck)? For me, Man Up is about when the time is right to let down your guard. Neither of my characters is willing to say: “I like you.” There is a constant push and pull between them, which is part of the problem in the dynamic of modern dating.
All this week, I will be featuring Tess in an interview I recently did with her.
Man Up opens this weekend in the United Kingdom.
By the way, I can attest to the book “Writing the Romantic Comedy.” Its author, Billy Mernit, and I have known each other for the better part of a decade. Indeed, his blog Living in the Romantic Comedy was one of the first ones I put onto this site’s Blogroll. Nice to see Billy’s expertise manifest itself in the writing and creative inspiration of Tess Morris.
For the rest of the Telegraph article, go here.
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