How to Write a Romantic Comedy Part One: Must Love Dogs
I’m man enough to admit I like a good Romantic Comedy. SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, CLUELESS, GROUNDHOG DAY, or WHEN HARRY MET SALLY all come to mind at the top of the list. TOOTSIE would be another. ANNIE HALL, THE GRADUATE, THE APARTMENT, TO CATCH A THEF; I even have a soft spot for BORN YESTERDAY (the original, not the Melanie Griffith abortion).
As long as I’m blowing dust off of old favorites, pretty much anything by Preston Sturges is worth a watch. Toss in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, HIS GIRL FRIDAY and MY MAN GODFREY and there is a lot to like about the Romantic Comedy. Hell, even THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY must be counted.
That’s why I went to see MUST LOVE DOGS. I had hope. Diane Lane is great. John Cusack is wellâÂ?¦ John Cusack, he’s not going to throw any surprises at you. And the book the screenplay was based on was written by a woman who lives the next town over from me, so I felt like I was supporting local arts by watchinig. I also felt dirty when I was done.
Instead of a theme or central question, we are handed characters with no real chemistry trying way too hard to be witty, an addled Stockard Channing aching for a Ritalin, and a cookie cutter story from ‘Cute Meet’ to ‘Joyous Defeat’. If you ever wanted to write your own Romantic Comedy and need to see the bare bones of the framework to hang your script on, watch MUST LOVE DOGS. I’ll try to recreate the schema here:
SEVEN STEPS TO A ROMANTIC COMEDY
1) Defining Moments. Right off the bat we have to know who our lovers are. More often than not, she’s been hurt by a love gone wrong and he’s John Cusack.
2) They Meet. Dollars to donuts one of them will be doing something embarrassing and the other finds it endearing.
3) The End of Act One. Our protagonist must have a goal and our lovers will be at cross-purposes to reaching that goal.
4) The Harpoon. Here the hook must be set into the audiences hearts. The stakes must be raised for all characters and we have to want our lovers to end up together.
5) The End of Act Two. The relationship must be it total jeopardy. Everything is on the line and all could be lost!
6) All Is Lost. They’ve blown it. Our two lovers will never be together. Or will they?
7) End of Act Three. Usually a happy ending, but not without some personal sacrifice by at least one of our lovers.
It seems simplistic, but there you have it. The skeleton of the Romantic Comedy. You can find these limbs dating back to the 30’s and probably further. They buttress ARTHUR much like they did PRIVATE LIVES, and they can’t be beat.
MUST LOVE DOGS laid them bare for all to see, but let’s pretty them up with our own Romantic Comedy. For lack of a better working title, let’s call it MUST HATE CATS.
Here’s the spitball:
1) Defining Moments. “Right off the bat we have to know who our lovers are. More often than not, she’s been hurt by a love gone wrong and he’s John Cusack.” Fair enough. For our movie she will be an aging actress. Not Diane Keaton old, but more of a Diane Lane mature. Maybe Elizabeth Shue. He’s John Cusack because every woman everywhere, even the manliest dyke to ever castrate a cub scout, is a sucker for that ‘I’ve lost at love, but darn it, I’m going to dust myself off and try again’ act of his.
Not only is she an aging actress in real life, she’ll be one in the movie. Hollywood loves to make movies about movies, and this is a movie about love, soâÂ?¦ We need to give her a name. Diane works. Wasn’t Diane the Goddess of Love? It’s also the acronym for the Direct Information Access Network for Europe. Wait, Diana was the Goddess of Love, but I digress. Stick with Diane, and maybe we can get Diane Kruger for the lead role!
Diane should be unhappy. Sure, she’s at the top of her game in Hollywood, but all those young starlets are nipping at her heels, and she doesn’t know whom to trust. Her friends are all going out an adopting accessory kids, but she’s looking for real love. The hunk she is seeing is just using her to get into the tabloids. He was on a reality series and is now ready to take the next step. Getting into the house on ‘Surreal Life’.
John Cusack’s character needs a name too. Let’s call his Jon with one ‘n’. That way he can use the line ‘The ‘h’ was for hope, but I’ve given that up’. Not a dry eye in the house, I tell ya.
We’ll give Diane the ‘Defining Moment’ in the screenplay and make her the protagonist. Why not. Too few women get to carry movies these days. We’ll save defining Jon until they ‘cute meet’, that way we’re in Diane’s camp from the get go.
2) They Meet. “Dollars to donuts one of them will be doing something embarrassing and the other finds it endearing.” Now we get to meet Jon. Diane goes through her morning ritual of getting ready, akin to Fay Dunaway in the opening to MOMMY DEAREST. Her current boyfriend, being a prick, won’t get her coffee, so she has to stop at the local Starbucks, or whatever chain will pay for product placement (me, I like Dunkin Donuts).
Jon is there too, in the middle of a break up with his girlfriend. I see Sarah Silverman as the girlfriend. Somehow I instantly feel sorry for any guy that’s going out with Sarah Silverman. Maybe they have already broken up and he runs into her at the Starbucks with her new boyfriend, and it hasn’t even been a week yet. Or she’s doing the walk of shame home after a one night stand.
Diane watches the scene with great amusement. She even takes notes. Later in the movie, Diane will get a chance to play a break-up scene on screen and she will draw from these notes. It’ll be a great callback and one that really registers with Jon.
Sarah Silverman and Jon argue and Jon ends up bumping into Diane, spilling her coffee all over her. Daggers in her eyes for Jon. Maybe Sarah Silverman caps the scene with a harsh put down of Diane, and then sends even deeper into her foul mood.
3) The End of Act One. “Our protagonist must have a goal and our lovers will be at cross purposes to reaching that goal.” Diane continues on to a producer’s office, where she is informed they have a project for her, but it’s a package deal. Director, writer and co-stars are already in place. She doesn’t like the idea, but she’s in no position to argue and takes a lunch meeting with the staff.
The director and writer are ok. The director should be a gay man so that she can befriend him if only to have a gay friend. The co-star is, get thisâÂ?¦ no, not Jon, but the hunkiest hunk in hunkdom. Let’s call him Hunk Finn in this early draft.
Jon, of course, has also been cast in the film, as Diane’s character’s gay friend. Jon throws up his hands and knows that this big star will have him fired for spilling the coffee on her, but no! She says she’s going to keep him around, just to make his life hell.
4) The Harpoon. “Here the hook must be set into the audiences hearts. The stakes must be raised for all characters and we have to want our lovers to end up together.” Here’s a chance to really do some writing. We’ll need a fireworks scene where Diane plays cat and mouse with Jon. Toying with him, torturing him and finally falling for him. Jon must melt her, and by extension every woman in the theatre’s, heart.
5) The End of Act Two. “The relationship must be it total jeopardy. Everything is on the line and all could be lost!” Now Hunk Finn wants Jon off the movie because he sees Jon as a threat. He also has plans for Diane. He needs her to help further his career.
6) All Is Lost. “They’ve blown it. Our two lovers will never be together. Or will they?” Hunk Finn sets Jon up to look like a gold digger. Diane tosses him to the curb. Sarah Silverman has come back to Jon because he is in the news with Diane. He doesn’t want her, but it’s better than nothing.
7) End of Act Three. “Usually a happy ending, but not without some personal sacrifice by at least one of our lovers.” Diane sees through the malarkey and knows that she needs to be with Jon. She even gives up the movie and her comeback to be happy with him.
So there we go. We have a couple of hooks to hang our hats on. Not SABRINA yet, but we have something to work with. Next we’ll flesh it out a little more.
THEME PARK
We have the form for our movie, the Romantic Comedy. We have a great working title; MUST HATE CATS. Now what we need is our theme, or heart beating at the core of the project. If we don’t really have something to say about the human condition, or at least an axiomatic question that we want to pose, what is the point? We’re just jerking off. Without a theme we’re just writing MUST LOVE DOGS. Entertaining piffle but have the audience brought anything away from watching it?
I’m going to teach you a great way to cheat when trying to come up with a theme for your Romantic Comedy, because it is truly my hope that you will follow my lead and write your own Romantic Comedy one day. First we must start with an axiom. Don’t panic, this isn’t math class.
Hegel tells us: “Axioms are commonly but incorrectly taken as absolute firsts, as though in and for themselves they require no proof. Were this in fact the case, they would be mere tautologies, as it is only in abstract identity that no difference is present, and therefore no mediation required.” I’m not sure, but I’m guessing that Hegel is trying to tell us, it’s ok to misappropriate someone else’s axioms because they aren’t true to begin with..
Somewhere around 1170 a young fella by the name of Andreas Capellanus wrote a couple of books on The Art of Courtly Love at the request of Countess Marie of Troyes. In the books Capellanus discusses the concept of courtly love and gives a very nice list of axioms that I find great fodder for writing the Romantic Comedy. Just read down this abbreviated list and find one that speaks to you. Capellanus is very dead, and I’m sure he won’t mind us using his work as a spring board.
Marriage is no real excuse for not loving.
He who is jealous cannot love.
That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish.
Boys do not love until they reach the age of maturity.
When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.
No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.
Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
It is not proper to love any woman whom one would be ashamed to seek to marry.
A true lover does not desire to embrace in love anyone except his beloved.
When made public love rarely endures.
The easy attainment of love makes it of little value: difficulty of attainment makes it prized.
A new love puts an old one to flight.
Good character alone makes any man worthy of love.
A man in love is always apprehensive.
Real jealousy always increases the feeling of love.
Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved.
Love can deny nothing to love.
A lover can never have enough of the solaces of his beloved.
A slight presumption causes a lover to suspect his beloved.
A man who is vexed by too much passion usually does not love.
Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women.
The one that jumps out at me, and don’t read too much into it’s selection, is ‘Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice’. Avarice (from Lat. avarus, “greedy”; “to crave”) is the inordinate love for riches. Its special malice lies in that it makes the getting and keeping of money, possessions, and in a stretch, fame, a purpose in itself to live for. How nicely that dovetails into our story about actors in love.
We now have a theme to plaster onto our eyeballs and refer to with each and ever sentence that we pound out of this pig. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
Because we are cleaver bastards and we have Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice, make note: the name of the production company that employs Diane will be cagily be called “Rapacity”. Moreover the movie they are making will be titled, with a knowing wink, “Cupidity”. I can already see the scene.
INT. PRODUCER’S OFFICE – DAY
WRITER
It’s a retelling of Snow White.
DIANE
I thought Disney did a pretty good job the first time. Where there questions left un answered?
WRITER
It doesn’t speak to today’s youth.
Diane considers the 50 year-old, ink stained retch before her.
DIANE
And you do?
PRODUCER
You’ll love it Doll. Give it a read. It’s called “Cupidity”.
DIANE
“Stupidity”?
PRODUCER
No, “Cupidity”.
WRITER
(as if Diane were a child)
Umm, desire, craving, longing, yearning.
DIANE
Are those synonyms or the four dwarfs that keep Snow White company while Dopey and the others were out working the coal mine?
It’s a little rough, but I like the idea. We’re cooking now. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice. That just rolls off the brain, doesn’t it?
SUBPLOTTING ALONG
Far too little attention is paid to the subplot. Lord Brockhurst romance with the flapper in the musical THE BOYFRIEND is far more interesting than Polly and Bobby’s fling. Of course, I played Lord Brockhurst in the Cohasset High School’s production back in 1979, so I might be tainted. But who can’t say that Kenicky and Rizzo’s story was more compelling that Danny and Sandy’s in GREASE?
Our fledgling Romantic Comedy needs a good subplot or two. Something to take our minds off the fact that were are being re-fed a boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl story.
Here’s a couple off the top of my mind. We’re still spit balling here, so don’t be so negative.
I like the idea of Jon’s old girlfriend re-entering the scene when she thinks Jon has made it. This gives Diane a chance to one-up her at the end. This is why the girlfriend has to be a recognizable minor star like Sarah Silverman. Should she pop up with a sub plot in the middle of the movie? I think not. Too much Silverman is a bad thing. Save her reappearance for the ending.
Until this big break what was Jon doing to make ends meet? Maybe his old job could add a complication. The Mom and Pop Pizza joint that he delivered pizza for needs him on the busy weekend, and even though he’s on his way to being a big star, he still makes time for them. He could even drag Diane along. This could anger and then endear her.
Maybe he was a dog walker and they keep running into his old clients and their dogs.
Maybe he was an escort, and now Diane can’t be seen with him in public because everyone will think that he’s her ‘escort’. If he did both, dog walk and escort, think of the comedy of errors when some is talking about his escorting and Diane thinks they are talking about his dog walking.
The subplots must also reflect our theme. Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice. How can that apply?
On Diane’s side of the story we have the boyfriend. He’s using her to further his career, but what is that career? We have too many actors in the picture as it is, so he shouldn’t be a reality TV star we first envisioned. Maybe he has just opened a restaurant and wants Diane’s star power to attract diners. This would make a nice juxtaposition to Jon delivering pizzas. We’ll call his restaurant Auri Sacra Fame, or the Holy Lust for Gold!.
Of course her co-star, Hunk Finn, is only interested in dating her for the splash they’d get in the tabloids. A photographer from the magazine “Stint” dogs them. Let’s embrace the stereotype and make Hunk Finn a closet gay. The director could be in love with him and maybe they find each other at the end of the movie. Or maybe the director dumps him too, so Hunk gets his comeuppance for being a jerk, because, as we know; Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
The writer of the movie “Cupidity” could be an evil little wart of a woman, sitting back and manipulating everything, taking notes and planning her next screenplay.
I think Dianne should have a ‘best friend’ that is another actress, although not as successful an actress as Diane. This one, let’s call her Rosie, is into every fad that sweeps Hollywood. Adopting kids, adopting land mines, adopting a politically position based which party has more A listers. This will allow us the mirror to hold up to Hollywood with a knowing smirk and a laugh. She will also be on a fruitless search for love, but as we know: Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice.
Those are a lot of plates to keep spinning at once, but I think they’ll all help. We can always thin the herd as we work are way through. Let’s take a break here. After all, you can hurry art or love.
