Creative Writing Challenge: Moving Through Time

This is a Grad school creative writing assignment. The challenge was to write something in the world of the film Minority Report. This something would have to show the passage of time. This is a bit of an experiment for me. I tried to write with a voice very different from my normal one. I wrote from the perspective of a “precog” who lives with Dr. Iris Hineman, aka “the old one.”

…

Dolls Eye. Baneberry. Carnivorous vines that enjoy the strips of red meat that this one tosses near the estate wall. It lines us all around except the gates in the north and south. Of course those gates are always closed. We don't go out there. The elderly one used to leave, but no more. Now the gate hinges rust. Every month they scream when the man brings the cans and frozen foods. I hate that noise. The man is boring. I like him. No dreams come of him. No pain. He makes safe choices. Drives slow. Exercises regularly.

A vine snaps at this one's leg. We dodge it as it happens, easily. We always know when pain is coming. This body floats around it. Our hand tosses meat strips to the next group of Dolls Eyes. They snatch at the ground, their mouth-like, thorn-filled maws snag up steak bits amongst the rotting autumn leaves. Then they curl back up in the cracks and broken pieces of the stone wall.

We're inside. Benevolent plants snatch at this one's hair as we deliver tea. Dandelion. We find it disgusting but we drink it with the old one. She adds heaps of sugar, but it makes us gag. It's worse with sugar. It just sits beside the bitter. But drinking it with the old one, the woman, Dr. Iris, settles the place. Settles her demons. Makes her feel less guilt. For this one. And the others who see things further away.

We drink dandelion tea. We tend to plants. We trim, we rake, we compost. The winter is always calm and quiet. Our dreams are stable. We steer the old one toward agreement, peace, safety. Quiet winter.

…

Spring is vicious. Vibrant colors and sunshine burn out eyes. The old one is cheerful, but only because she cannot see the death surrounding us constantly. Birds peck the eyes out of their competition. Male squirrels tear out each other's throats in displays of dominance. Spring is violent. We long for the sleep of winter.

Long into the spring blooms, a man comes. Short, dark haired, desperate. This one hides behind a tree as he passes. He means no violence. He seeks answers. He must be avoided. We cannot save him from his turbulent future. There is too much pain there. We must skip the tea. She will drink it with him. He will trouble her. But he is here and there is nothing we can do about it. We only saw him coming briefly before he arrived. No time.

He has been pierced by the thorns of the Dolls Eyes. She will heal him. She has the antidote. She will point him to the ones who are like me. It doesn't matter. He will not hurt them. He is a creature of good despite his capacity for violence. At least that is what this one thinks.

We toss strips of meat to the disturbed vines. We are careful not to be seen. Spring is violent. It is a season of avoidance.

…

The intensity of green lightens for summer. Nothing is as wet. The rush of spring is over and parenthood ages. This one's mind is calmer with the decrease in violence.

We spend more time outside. We drink dandelion tea less. The old one stays in her room more. This means more work for us. We trim more plants. We re-pot more. The old one's experiments languish, but they are not our responsibility. We care. We maintain. We do not experiment. We are an experiment. 

The news screens we glance at occasionally show the others have been freed. No more "precogs" worshipped. No more "precriminals." The old one says they have gone to live a secluded life like this one. Away from people who can make them dream violence. This one doesn't dream violence. We simply see violence. But we are useless. We only see what happens an instant before it does. Enough to move. Enough to suffer.

This one should be with the others. We would be symbiotic. Like the ant and the aphid. But this one must wait. Summer persists.

…

Autumn falls. Leaves fall. The old one falls. This one travels. It is torture. Until finally this one arrives in a tundra. It is different from the swamps of the old one's home. There are different plants to tend and cultivate. They will be this one's choice. We will avoid the predatory plants the old one favored. This one prefers plants that bear fruit and vegetables.

We do bring with us a fern. It is native to our old swamp home. We tell the others about it. We tell them of the old one. We never speak of our dreams. This one steers the others around dangers and we live in fall. Constant fall to the sleep of winter.

Nightcrawler dialogue analysis [Academic Musings]

LOU

Could I please speak with your boss, please?

OWNER

I’m the owner.

LOU

How about 800 in store credit?

OWNER

What are you looking for?

LOU

A camcorder and a police scanner.

This is one of my favorite exchanges in the film. Now, at first glance, it’s kinda a boring exchange. BUT, this is the pivotal point in Lou’s journey. He’s experienced Nightcrawling from the outside, and now he’s going active. He’s going off on his own. Before this, we know that Lou is interested in Nightcrawling, but he was begging for a job. Now he’s taking things into his own hands. He’s starting his own business. Just because he wants to. He takes a bit of a daring approach, steals a bike in broad daylight. It points toward the amount that Lou wants to Nightcrawl.

I also appreciate that the language is so direct. There’s no questioning Lou’s intentions. He wants a camcorder and a police scanner. The direct nature of the language allows the audience no room for interpretation. We know what Lou is going to do next. It also stands in juxtaposition to a lot of Lou’s dialogue. He tends to speak through his thoughts a lot of the time. He asks a lot of questions. He often appeals to authority of facts that he’s learned. But he doesn’t do that here. I think that’s important.

LOU

Something like this?

NINA

That’s right.

LOU

Bloody.

NINA

That’s only part of it. We like crime.

Not all crime. A carjacking in Compton,

for example, that isn’t news, now is it?

We find our viewers are more interested

in urban crime creeping into the suburbs.

What that means is a victim or victims,

preferably well-off and/or white, injured

at the hands of the poor, or a minority.

LOU

Just crime?

NINA

No. Accidents play. Cars, buses,

trains, planes. Fires. Suicides.

LOU

But bloody.

NINA

Graphic. The best and clearest way that

I can phrase it to you, Lou, to capture

the spirit of what we air, is think of

our newscast as a screaming woman running

down the street with her throat cut.

LOU

I understand. I’ve always been a very

fast learner. You’ll be seeing me again.

This moment. OOF. In my opinion, this moment acts, for Lou, as the permission he needs to really let loose with all his worst instincts. “We like crime. Not all crime…” You know, not the boring crime that happens to the poor and the disenfranchised. They don’t like the type of crime that Lou is currently doing. Missing manhole covers are boring. BUT, crime that happens to the upper crust, that’s shocking. Especially the graphic stuff. This points Lou on a much more direct path. He starts ignoring the police calls to “bad” neighborhoods in preference to the “good” neighborhoods. He starts chasing suicides in hopes of seeing something bloody and gruesome. Maybe even catch someone jumping.

This dialogue serves to further aim the bullet that is Lou. It also directly states the theme of the film, the excess that is the “if it bleeds, it leads” shock-news culture that we all live in. That’s what Nina and her network seek. They literally exploit tragedy. They make it into news. They cultivate fear for views. That’s why they want to see “urban crime creeping into the suburbs.” Because that’s terrifying for the suburban white folk who want to live in peace and comfort.

LOU

Thank you, because I don’t think it’s a

secret that I’ve single-handedly raised

the unit price on your ratings book.

NINA

Our ratings book price?

LOU

I’m a very fast learner, Nina. We had a

conversation and I specifically mentioned

that. Do you remember? Well do you?

NINA

Yes.

LOU

I recently learned, for instance, that

most Americans watch local news to stay

informed. I also learned that an average

half-hour of Los Angeles television news

packs all its local government coverage --

including budget, law enforcement,

education, transportation and immigration

-- into 22 seconds. Local crime stories,

however, not only usually led the news

but filled 14 times the broadcast,

averaging 5 minutes 7 seconds. And

K.S.M.L. relies heavily on such stories.

With Los Angeles crime rates going down I

think that makes items like mine

particularly valuable, like rare animals.

I imagine your needs will only increase

during next week’s rating sweeps period.

NINA

We certainly appreciate what you do.

LOU

There's certain good things in being alone.

You have time to do the things you want

to do, like study and plan. But you can’t

have dinners like this. Or be physical

with a person, I mean beyond a flirtationship. 

NINA

Where are you going with this?

LOU

I want that. With you. Like you want to

keep your job and your health insurance.

YUCK. Okay, so I highlighted two lines of dialogue here, because this moment really served for me as the moment where Lou went from a shitty person to being a shitty, skeevy person. Lou is the type of person who is always listening and keeping receipts. He specifically remembered and catalogued the fact that he was helping Nina raise the unit price of their ratings book. He catalogued that and later used it to help him manipulate Nina into having a sexual relationship with him. Does she want to keep her job and health insurance? Well, looks like she’s got to keep Lou happy, then. And in order to keep him happy, now he’s saying she needs to have sex with him.

There’s a psychological difference between types of criminal behavior. For me, this is the moment where we understand that Lou is a true psychopath or sociopath. Lou doesn’t have the capacity to be in a real relationship or to charm someone. He doesn’t even try. We see him earlier in the film utterly fail to charm someone. So now, he jumps straight to manipulation. He knows he’s in a position of power, and he waits  until now to approach Nina for a sexaul relationship because now he’s pretty sure he can pressure her into it.

These lines also serve to increase the tension in the scene. What starts as a simple date that is a bit awkward, progresses into a planned manipulation in which we are waiting for Nina to respond. How is she going to react to Lou’s inflammatory statements? What is she going to do? Lou has crossed a boundary with what he says here.

This is the point in the film where I actively start rooting for Lou to die.

Literary Tool Kit: RomCom Themes

This is the fourth (and last) in a series of blogs wherein I work to create a “literary toolkit” on writing the Romantic Comedy screenplay by analyzing Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Some Like It Hot. This is adapted from an assignment I worked on for my graduate degree at SNHU.

What are they?

MERRIAM-WEBSTER DEFINES THEME AS “a subject or topic of discourse or of artistic representation.” I hate this definition. Talk about BROAD. It almost never helps me to think about the theme as a starting point because it’s so broad. Besides, the themes of screenplays are so open to interpretation that sometimes the films made from them have a different theme. Additionally, for rom-coms, the theme is generally something pretty obvious and related to the cliches surrounding romance, love, friendship, and family. Time and audience perspective can also change how the theme of certain films are interpreted.

Let’s take Some Like it Hot as an example. Back in “the day,” this film would probably have been interpreted by it’s author(s) as a film “about the Machiavellian lengths to which people will go to get what they want, which is never much nobler than money, sex, or self-preservation” (Wasson). The film is meant to please and entertain. Cross-dressing wasn’t some big political statement, it was a sight-gag. The lessons our characters learn are minimal, and honestly, they don’t change much from the beginning of the film to the end of the film. The whole film is about reversal and ironic humor. Nowadays, however, you can very easily draw the conclusion that the “enlightened” gender politics of the film were vastly ahead of their time, advocating for gender being a continuum rather than a binary -- a very modern idea, and one that is not even fully mainstream to this day. The film is so lacking in commentary that it can be interpreted in any number of ways. I personally think that’s some amazing writing.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Forgetting Sarah Marshall has absolutely no nuance. This isn’t necessarily a criticism, but it certainly limits the ways that the film can be interpreted. I think the general theme one will come to realize about this film will be some variation on this: “The process of getting over a breakup is messy, and takes time, even when one is leaving a flawed, abusive, or deeply unfulfilling relationship.” The only debatable point there is probably the last part. You could argue that Sarah and Peter’s relationship wasn’t unfulfilling for Peter. But honestly, that difference isn’t particularly important. Getting through the breakup is the part that really matters in the story. This message, and the comedy of the screenplay, are communicated by the constant return of Sarah Marshall into Peter’s life. Just as he forgets about her, she comes back in. Much like how our minds always return to heartbreak when we’re mourning a relationship.

In my own writing…

Theme is probably always going to be a subconscious aspect of my writing. I can’t yet see a future where I will start from a theme as inspiration. I will say, however, that theme plays an important role for me when I'm outlining. I sometimes like to follow Blake Snyder’s beat sheet as a starting point to brainstorm my story structure, and one of the beats in that is “theme stated.” I don’t think it necessary for one’s characters to state the theme in every work one creates, but in practice, it is a good exercise to try to figure out a way to write the theme into the film’s dialogue. I may keep it and I may not, but it’s good practice. I think perhaps theme is much more important in other forms of creative writing than screenplay, but it’s definitely not completely beside the point. I’ll always keep the theme at the back of my mind while I’m writing so that I don’t write a scene completely out of left field… but it’s definitely in the back of my mind.

Also, I’ll certainly make sure to pick an appropriate theme for the appropriate genre. It’s not possible to write an effective romantic comedy with the theme “Love is overrated, you should put your effort into your career instead.” It would be extremely improbable, if not impossible, to write a rom-com in which your audience will feel satisfied if you choose an inappropriate theme.

Brainstorm time: 

I like the two themes of Some Like it Hot and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I find it interesting to think how these two themes could be combined. I’m not sure it could actually work, though. Perhaps this pitch using the theme would make for an interesting screenplay:

A genderfluid ex drug dealer who presents as a female decides to get out of a dangerous game in which they have found themselves. In order to escape this life, they break off their longtime relationship, move to a different area of the city, change their name, and try presenting as male instead.

Works Cited

• “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” By Jason Segel, directed by Nicholas Stoller, Apatow Productions, 18 April 2008.

• Hay, Lucy V. “5 Important Elements of Writing a Romantic Comedy.” bang2write, 20 Mar. 2013, bang2write.com/2013/03/5-important-elements-of-writing-a-romantic-comedy-by-james-rogers.html.

• “Some Like it Hot.” By Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, directed by Billy Wilder, Mirisch Company, 29 March 1959.

• “Theme.” Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 12 March, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theme. Accessed 22 March, 2020.

• Wasson, Sam. “Some Like It Hot: How to Have Fun.” Criterion, The Criterion Channel, 19 Nov. 2018, www.criterion.com/current/posts/6048-some-like-it-hot-how-to-have-fun.

Literary Tool Kit: RomCom Conventions

This is the third in a series of blogs wherein I work to create a “literary toolkit” on writing the Romantic Comedy screenplay by analyzing Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Some Like It Hot. This is adapted from an assignment I worked on for my graduate degree at SNHU.

What are they?

“Literary conventions” -- to me, a literary convention is a writing technique commonly used in certain genre of writing. Thus, different literary conventions exist in poetry, novels, fables, historical dramas, screenplays, biographies, etc. I think that there is a risk of literary conventions being confused with tropes; however, the literary conventions are functional versus narrative. I think today’s audiences are quite likely to make the error of conflating the two due to our culture of critique and analysis. Social media has created an outlet for anyone to put their own analysis out there, regardless of how knowledgeable they are about literary terminology. I’ve certainly, in my time, heard the term “trope” used to describe a literary convention/technique.

The literary conventions of this genre are easy to identify. One of my favorite conventions is the use of personal misconception and miscommunication, which are frequently central to the conflicts of these films. “Opposites attract” and make for great comedy and chemistry. And people never know what they want. The woman might have a list of things they’re looking for; the man may want a “certain type” of woman. But through the magical process of falling in love, the characters always discover what they really want. These conventions haven’t changed in too many major ways since the conception of the genre, just as the process of falling in love hasn’t changed all that much. It’s a major part of the human condition, and always fun to watch, whether the pair is meeting as members of competing advertising firms, or through an online dating app. 

I especially like when b-story misconceptions/miscommunications are resolved in baffling and/or hilarious ways with little explanation. This happens a lot in the rom-com genre. The weird supporting characters also fall in love. It’s especially hilarious when the two characters are extreme oddballs. In Some Like it Hot, Jerry, the film’s other leading man, ends up being forced to go on a romantic date with Osgood, a millionaire, in order for Joe to sneakily use Osgood’s yacht to seduce Sugar. Naturally, Osgood falls in love with Jerry (aka Daphne in his female disguise), and asks Jerry to marry him. Jerry says yes, of course, receiving a diamond bracelet from Osgood. The whole mix-up is resolved in the end with Osgood, Joe, Sugar, and Jerry running away from the mafia together, Sugar and Joe falling in love, and this incredible exchange:

OSGOOD

I called Mama -- she was so happy she

cried -- she wants you to have her

wedding gown -- it’s white lace.

JERRY

Osgood -- I can’t get married in your

mother’s dress. She and I -- we’re not

built the same way.

OSGOOD

We can have it altered.

JERRY

Oh, no you don’t! Look, Osgood --

I’m going to level with you.

We can’t get married at all.

OSGOOD

Why not?

JERRY

Well, to begin with, I’m not a

natural blonde.

OSGOOD

(tolerantly)

It doesn’t matter.

JERRY

And I smoke. I smoke all the time.

OSGOOD

I don’t care.

JERRY

And I have a terrible past. For

three years now, I’ve been living

with a saxophone player.

OSGOOD

I forgive you.

JERRY

(with growing desperation)

I can never have children.

OSGOOD

We’ll adopt some.

JERRY

But you don’t understand.

(he rips off his wig; then

in a male voice)

Damn it, Osgood, I’m a man!

OSGOOD

Well -- nobody’s perfect.

Please remember. This film came out in the 1950’s. I think it’s one of the most perfect, hilarious endings to a romantic comedy of all time. 

This brings me to the second convention utilized in rom-com screenwriting: tension and release. Romantic chemistry is vital for convincing your audience that two people are falling in love. You need to build the feeling of “will they -- won’t they?” even when we know from our genre choice that they will (end up together). But, regardless of our ending being predetermined as a happy one, you must include moments of near-misses for the couple. “Moments” must be interrupted by another complicating incident that keeps our lovers apart. You gotta build up that tension and release. Give the audience hope, then pull it away. Preferably in a way that makes us laugh.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, this happens over and over again in the form of Sarah and her new boyfriend. They show up at the most inopportune moments to remind Peter of his grief and block the progression of his relationship with Rachel. Sarah and William even show up during Peter and Rachel’s meet-cute. They’re a constant source of comedy and frustration for our main character and his blossoming relationship.

In my own writing…

As frustrating as these situations are in real life, I love narrative arcs based upon misconception and miscommunication. Especially when it’s well-founded, funny, or very unique to our characters. The premise of What’s Your Number? always makes me laugh because it’s based upon the misconception that our flighty main character has when she reads a magazine article stating that women who have had over 21 sexual partners are unlikely to marry compared to those who have had under that number. Of course, our main character here is at the 20 mark, so she becomes obsessed with the idea that she only has “one more.” Thus, she revisits every guy she’s ever slept with to make sure that they are not “the one.” Miscommunications, I think, are trickier than basic misconceptions about life or another person’s character. It requires one of your characters to be at least a little bit… well… shitty. The city girl has to write off the carpenter and inn-owner from the small town. The funny male lead has to write off the career-driven woman as a shrew for not laughing at his jokes. Someone’s gotta be a little bit shitty, and they have to grow over the course of the story.

In building tension, I think it’s important to select the correct setting. There needs to be a frenetic element to the goings-on of your story, or else the two characters would have ample time to sit down and talk out their problems. I think this is one reason that so many romantic comedies center around holidays, weddings, and other events. There is also usually a literal or invented “time limit” placed upon the characters’ lives. In some films, the time limit is very clear, for instance, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. In others, there’s a more general time limit of a holiday being over, or a wedding party going their separate ways, or the prospect that one has reached some sort of “limit,” sending them on a quest, such as the plot for What’s Your Number? Without some sort of limit, what spurs your characters into action? This is an issue that I, myself, have run into with some of my stories.

The comforting, and sometimes limiting thing about the rom-com genre is this need for time limit. Though some stories transcend this factor, they tend more towards the “rom” aspect of rom-com than the “com” aspect. (See The Notebook for an example of this. It’s humorous, but it’s more in the romance/drama/comedy genre with the comedy being the last and least important element). Slow burns work much better for drama than they do for comedy. Time-jumps, while they certainly occur, I think are much less important in comedy than drama. And they are usually a symptom of the story rather than a cause… if that makes any sense.

Brainstorm time: The Shut In

Feature film in which Charlotte, a novelist and shut-in, must overcome her agoraphobia and venture out into the world to attend her cousin, and best friend’s, wedding as Maid of Honor. Despite the fact that Charlotte has built herself a functional, if slightly lonely, life, she has finally run into an event which she cannot miss, and she cannot experience from her home. (While her cousin is perfectly willing to have wedding events at family homes, including the bachelorette party at Charlotte’s house, she must get married at the family Catholic church -- a cathedral-like massive church).

Upon hearing about the event, Charlotte’s best friend, Chris, who lives across the country, insists that she has to take him as her date to the wedding, as it is a perfect chance for them to meet for the first time in person, since they met almost a year beforehand in an online game. Chris doesn’t know that Charlotte has been a shut-in for the past three years. The subject, obviously, has been studiously avoided. The miscommunication here has been purposeful, though not spiteful. And I believe that I have somehow avoided the trap of making this miscommunication too shitty.

The first part of the film will include a montage of humorous attempts to get Charlotte out of the house, which eventually, will culminate in (limited) success by the time Chris arrives in town. Then, through a series of carefully-orchestrated events, in which Charlotte and her two best friends (one of which is the bride), design wedding events and dates around places which make Charlotte the most comfortable, and through the copious use of tranquilizers. While in comfortable settings, Charlotte and Chris have plenty of time to connect, though Charlotte is busy with helping out as the MOH. Then, during events outside of homes, Charlotte’s inebriation is covered by her friends, and her interaction with Chris is limited by this. We have cute moments of “will they, won’t they,” interrupted by friends, family, and wedding events. Chris finally discovers Charlotte’s “problem” when he surprises her the night before the wedding with a surprise movie date. He’s bought tickets, he’s rented a car, and he’s bought flowers. He’s decided he can’t wait to confess his feelings for her. Of course… she’s flustered, and she can’t go with him. The truth comes out.

In the end, Chris shows up at the wedding to find a sober Charlotte, terrified and shaking, and hiding in a closet. He convinces her to come out and join the wedding, which she does, and the two end the film with the decision to be together, Chris planning on moving to live in the area, and Charlotte promising to continue on the road towards rehabilitation.

Works Cited

• “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” By Jason Segel, directed by Nicholas Stoller, Apatow Productions, 18 April 2008.

• Hay, Lucy V. “5 Important Elements of Writing a Romantic Comedy.” bang2write, 20 Mar. 2013, bang2write.com/2013/03/5-important-elements-of-writing-a-romantic-comedy-by-james-rogers.html.

• “Some Like it Hot.” By Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, directed by Billy Wilder, Mirisch Company, 29 March 1959.

• “Theme.” Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 12 March, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theme. Accessed 22 March, 2020.

• Wasson, Sam. “Some Like It Hot: How to Have Fun.” Criterion, The Criterion Channel, 19 Nov. 2018, www.criterion.com/current/posts/6048-some-like-it-hot-how-to-have-fun.

Literary Tool Kit: Romantic Comedy

This is the first of a series of blogs wherein I work to create a “literary toolkit” on writing the Romantic Comedy screenplay. This is adapted from an assignment I worked on for my graduate degree at SNHU.

I selected two romantic comedy screenplays, analyzed and compared them, and from this, I have created this "writer's toolkit." I selected a 1959 film by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, "Some Like It Hot," and 2008’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” By picking a classic, Hay's Code Hollywood film and a contemporary romantic comedy, I have identified the differences between the two scripts, as well as the storytelling elements, literary conventions, and themes of this particular genre which have persisted through the evolving film landscape.

My reasons for picking these two films are multifaceted. First, these two scripts were available. Through the process of searching for screenplays, one will make this realization quickly. Transcripts for almost all films are readily available, but if you want the originals, these are much more difficult to find. Especially because scripts are never “finished.” Once a screenplay is optioned for a film, it is alive again and edited into different versions. If you are able to find the original script, it is almost always going to show some differences from the film version. The two scripts I’ve found appear to be originals, not shooting versions, which is why I’ve settled on them. 

Of course, I also enjoy both of these films. Amongst a list of screenplays I searched for, I’m very happy that these two were available. The differences in the two films are indicative of how time has changed the genre. This is something by which I am fascinated, as I adore romantic comedies. When life is crapping on you, when you need a boost, when you need your faith returned in humanity, “rom-coms” are there. In terms of bringing people joy, there are few genres where you’re guaranteed to be able to do this than in rom-com. Sometimes I want to write and consume things that are deep and important and study difficult situations. Other times I want to write and consume comfort. Rom-com is the mac and cheese of film.

The literary conventions of this genre are easy to identify. Misconceptions and miscommunications are frequently central to the conflicts of these films. Opposites always attract and make for great comedy and chemistry. And people never know what they want. The woman might have a list of things they’re looking for; the man may write of a “certain type” of woman. But through the magical process of falling in love, the characters always discover what they really want. These conventions haven’t changed in too many major ways since the conception of the genre; however, there are certainly culturally-related conventions that have changed since the 1950’s. Working women are much less frequently represented as quirky shrews who need love to soften them, as can be seen in quite a few of Doris Day’s films, most notably 1961’s Lover Come Back (one notable exception to this would be the films of Sandra Bullock -- Miss Congeniality, The Proposal, etc). Now, women in rom-coms almost always have jobs, and some are even career-driven. Plus, it’s no longer implied that marriage leads to the ending of a career and the beginning of a domestic life.

The cultural differences between the 1950’s and today might be pretty drastic, but the process of falling in love hasn’t changed all that much. It’s a major part of the human condition, and always fun to watch, whether the pair is meeting as members of competing advertising firms, or through an online dating app. Through my research and analysis of my two chosen texts, I plan to read some journal articles about the topic, thoroughly read the scripts for these films, watch the films themselves, and perhaps even check out some other entries into the genre that are generally regarded as trope-breaking.

…

I adore romantic comedies. When life is crapping on you, when you need a boost, when you need your faith returned in humanity, “rom-coms” are there. In terms of bringing people joy, there are few genres where you’re guaranteed to be able to do this than in rom-com. Sometimes I want to write and consume things that are deep and important and study difficult situations. Other times I want to write and consume comfort. Rom-com is the mac and cheese of film.

Works Cited

• “Some Like it Hot.” By Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, directed by Billy Wilder, Mirisch Company, 29 March 1959.

• “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” By Jason Segel, directed by Nicholas Stoller, Apatow Productions, 18 April 2008.

• “Lover Come Back.” By Staley Shapiro and Paul Henning, directed by Delbert Mann, Universal Pictures, 20 December 1961.

• “Miss Congeniality.” By Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford, and Caryn Lucas, directed by Donald Petrie, Castle Rock Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, NPV Entertainment, and Fortis Films, 22 December 2000.

• “The Proposal.”  By Peter Chiarelli, Touchstone Pictures, K/O Paper Products, and Mandeville Films, 19 June 2009.

Where do I go for inspiration?

So, the number one place that I go to for inspiration is Reddit. I adore Reddit. You can engage anywhere you want. You can ignore anywhere you want. If you make an account, you can make your own front page with whatever subreddits you want. There’s also a ton of story subreddits that you can go through and read funny or interesting stories. If you want to read the best of the best, you can sort by top of all-time. If you want an entire page of news stories, you can do that. One news story subreddit that I love is r/nottheonion. It specializes in stories that are stranger than fiction. Things that you would expect to be published by The Onion but aren’t.

For instance, I just scrolled through and found this article https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/l9d6ja/this_is_what_happens_when_a_buddhist_nun_joins_a

Amazing. That's a great idea for a musical comedy about a band trying to make it big. As every screenwriter knows, it's irony that makes a great logline and pulls people into your story.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/l8v2vi/lancs_farm_makes_50k_in_pandemic_by_offering_zoom

This is the one that really goat me, though. I love the idea of an inspirational film where middle-aged Dot McCarthy takes over the failing farm from her ailing mother. She sets the place up as a cozy wedding and family reunion venue, somewhere cute and rustic. Business is picking up, but THEN the pandemic hits. The extra source of income Dot needs for her mother's medical treatment will soon dry up.

What is she to do?

Start up a scheme where people can pay for video chats with her goats, of course! She writes up funny biographies for each goat and sets up a nice area for the calls. She goes viral.

Now that's an adorable story and definitely something that would be fun to write!

Why I Write Romantic Comedy… or at least, why I try

Growing up, my brother used to race go-karts. It was a passion and hobby not only for him, but for my dad, as well. The pair of them would go off many weekends for races, sometimes staying nights in hotels and participating in tournaments. My brother would come home all the time with these impressive golden trophies on heavy marble bases. Not to mention that he and my father's got to spend time of time together on these trips.

Meanwhile, back at home in Leesburg, my mother and I spent our weekends doing things together, as well. But my mother, having multiple sclerosis and an extreme sensitivity to heat, didn't really want to spend all that much time outside on the hot summer Virginia days. And, being a child of the great indoors who also hated the muggy Virginia summers, that was perfectly fine with me. Sometimes we sat together and read for hours on end, discussing our books and snacking. Other times we watched the movies that my dad didn't like. We'd watch romantic comedies.

It eventually became our thing. If I had to stay home sick from school we would snuggle in bed and watch RomComs. When I had dentist appointments where I had teeth pulled (4 at a time for my baby teeth, and not one of those bad boys fell out on their own), we would recover by drinking McDonald's milkshakes and watching RomComs. When my dad and brother went away for a race, we would spend the weekend watching RomComs.

For the entirety of our childhood, my parents refused to get cable television. Instead, we had those bunny ears that sat on top of your TV and reliably picked up about five channels. We didn't get cable until Verizon FiOS came around when I was in high school. I never watched the Teletubbies or Dexter's Laboratory or The Powderpuff Girls. Sometimes I watched the Simpsons, or WWE Smackdown (oh yeah I still have a secret love for pro wrestling, don't @ me), or Buffy ... but I never developed the commitment for a weekly tv schedule.

What we did have at home was an absolutely staggering collection of VHS tapes. My dad favored Westerns and Star Wars. With him I watched El Dorado, Silverado, Rio Lobo, McClintock, and more. I got to know John Wayne, John Ford, and Howard Hawks. I still love Westerns deeply, but the genre is all but dead. You can't really make those movies anymore. You can't really tell those stories. The sad truth is that they're culturally insensitive at best and outright racist at worst. They didn't mean to be. They are products of their time.

The RomCom, on the other hand, will never die. Falling in love will never be something humanity loses interest in or grows out of. My mom and I watched every movie Doris Day ever made. People in my class talked about crushing on Justin Timberlake and watching MTV, while my favorite leading man in movies was Rock Hudson. (My mom did quickly explain Hudson's homosexuality and the situation in Hollywood surrounding sexuality at the time. I think Rock Hudson actually was the first gay person I'd ever known about.) I found Tony Randall hilarious, and Tom Hanks charming, and I wanted to be Meg Ryan when I grew up. Those were the movies of my childhood. Watching them brings back the memories of lounging on my parents' water bed and laughing with my mom. And yes, often the old RomComs have antiquated gender roles and expectations for how men and women act… but I never really find them offensive. Especially since these roles and expectations are often the subject of ridicule. In Doris Day's movies, she's often the most competent person on screen. On purpose.

I write romantic comedies for my mom. When I think about how a scene should go, I think about what would make my mom laugh. What witty dialogue might make her smile. I don't write RomComs because I believe they'll win me an Oscar or make people think of me as someone who engages in Serious Business. No one who writes comedy, in general, should ever take themselves too seriously. Do you think the people who write popcorn Netflix or Hallmark RomComs ever give a single consideration of their work as Serious Business? No. Because too much of life is already far too heavy, and quite frankly, we all need a break.

To be frank, I've never been particularly impressed with people who make exclusively Serious Business movies. These often come across to me as decidedly and often deeply ingenuine. It's like someone decided at some point that the value of art and cinema comes from how it challenges us, not how it entertains us. I believe the true value if film lies somewhere in the middle of these two elements.

We often devalue the films that give us easy entertainment, and I think that's bull shit. Just because a movie's theme could be considered cheesy doesn't reduce the value of its story. A gritty film that challenges you to witness the horrors of war and mortality has no more inherent value than the film that cradles you and takes you on the journey as a couple falls in love and overcomes their differences. The human experience is what it is and we all are going to experience different aspects of life, good and bad, painful and pleasurable. Film represents that.

It's common for us, in western culture, to devalue the positive things. One negative comment on a social media post often outshines a dozen positive posts, for instance. We need to overcome this. It's okay to take a break. It's okay to focus on the positive things in life. Sometimes I feel the need to take on serious subjects, but if I were to focus on the depressing parts of life too much, I don't think I'd ever get out of bed.

I write romantic comedies because if I can make one person smile or laugh or feel, I've succeeded. And if that person is my mom? Well that's a better reward than any stranger or any competition or festival could ever give me.

My family <3

Screenwriting Analysis of Classic and Contemporary Work

Screenwriting has not changed much in the century during which it's been developed. Sure, some of the conventions have changed, and of course, vernacular has changed since the early 1900’s, but in terms of form, not much has changed. A major contributor to this is time. Just as few songs have broken into radio fame when outside the 3-minute standard length, the vast majority of feature films are 1.5 to 2 hours in length. (Yes, both films and songs can be argued to have gotten longer over the years… but it’s not by much. See Allain 2014 and Follows 2019).  The reason that screenplay length is so standardized is because pages are directly correlated to time. Each page generally equals one minute of screen time, so space is at a premium in the format. As a result of this, unlike stage plays, screenplays do not include stage (or camera) direction unless it is absolutely vital to tell the story. Why waste space directing? That’s someone else’s job.

In the service of space-saving, several additional storytelling conventions have arisen in the screenwriting craft. Style takes second place to function. Setting is established upfront in scene headings that generally do not go exceed a single line. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. In the beginning of both Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Some Like It Hot, a much more extensive scene description is included in the action at the very opening. This serves the purpose of establishing tone and temporal setting upfront. Some Like It Hot performs this especially well in its first line. It establishes the setting, the period, and the time of year in its first action sentence.

CITY AT NIGHT

A hearse of Late Twenties vintage is proceeding at a dignified pace along a half-deserted wintry street. 

I would argue that the opening for Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a bit more clunky, but it also serves to (through omission, as it is not a period piece) establish these, as well.

INT. PETER’S APARTMENT - LATE AFTERNOON.

PETER BRETTER (26) watches television alone in his dark, creepy apartment. 

SLIT (as I will refer to Some Like It Hot from now on) has a much more prosaic style than FSM (as I will refer to Forgetting Sarah Marshall from now on). In the opening, and continued throughout the piece, SLIT continues to use more vivid descriptive terms for lengthy action sequences than does FSM. The latter is more concerned with brevity and dialogic humor. (There are also humorous physical sequences in FSM, but the humor is much more focused on dialogue and reactions even in these sequences.)

Treatment of the characters is strikingly similar in both screenplays. Characters are introduced with minimal descriptors, frequently just a name and brief descriptor. Jerry and Joe are simply introduced as musicians in SLIT. Peter is only given an age in FSM. The love interests of both films are given a little more descriptive treatment. Sugar is described as “the dream girl of every red-blooded American male” in SLIT. Rachel and Sarah are both described as “beautiful” in FSM. One can’t help but wonder if this is a vestige of Hollywood sexism wherein men can be average but women must be beautiful. Or perhaps it is simply an extension of the male screenwriters’ imagination.

The narrative structure of both screenplays introduce our conflicts early, as is standard structure for most films. The initial conflict sets our characters on their journey for the remainder of the film, and while it isn’t necessarily life-changing in itself, it drives our characters to  change their lives as their conflicts develop and intensify. Jerry and Joe have no money. They are musicians in the prohibition era. The jazz halls have closed. They’re struggling to find jobs. Thus, they find themselves working in an illegal speakeasy during a raid. The operation, of course, is shut down before they can be paid. To make things worse, Joe has a gambling problem. As the story progresses, the two literally lose the clothes off their back in the frigid Chicago winter. Desperate, they end up witnessing a mob hit and must get out of town fast. Of course, they kill two birds with one stone and hijack a job in a women’s band. It’s a complicated, but fully logical set of events that sets up a desperate situation for our main characters while also giving us time to get to know them before the true hijinks ensue.

Much more simply, Peter’s journey begins when Sarah Marshall dumps him. We are given a few pages of exploration into Peter’s character before this event occurs, but it is relatively brief. We learn that he is a slob who is mired deeply in depression. He’s not introduced as a particularly lovable character, though he is relatable, especially once he has been dumped. One especially effective detail, in my opinion, is when Peter pawns the engagement ring for Sarah, getting only $6,000 of his $24,000 back. Of course, he spends this cash on a vacation to Hawaii, where he immediately runs into Sarah… and her new boyfriend. The story progression of FSM is simple. Peter’s main enemy is himself; his own grief and attachment to Sarah is what holds him back.

The theme of each film is delivered by the narrative, of course, but neither film has much of a serious message. The object is comedy and the theme is open to interpretation, as in many effective films. “Love conquers all” works. So does “love can save you.” Or you can find a different read in each movie. The gender bending (potentially extremely controversial in the 1950’s) in SLIT could lead you to find the main theme in those storytelling aspects. Jerry’s move away from womanizer to man in love is a major progression for his character. Additionally, you can read “time heals the wounds of love” in FSM, as Peter and Rachel don’t get together until after Peter has time by himself to get his life together. You can argue on which thematic element is primary for each film, as you can argue in any good story. At the end of the day, these two screenplays tell one hell of a good story.

Works Cited

Allain, Rhett. “Why Are Songs on the Radio About the Same Length?” Wired, 11 July 2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/07/why-are-songs-on-the-radio-about-the-same-length/.

Follows, Stephen. “Stephen Follows: Film Data and Education.” Stephen Follows: Film Data and Education, 16 Sept. 2019, https://stephenfollows.com/are-movies-getting-longer/.

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” By Jason Segel, directed by Nicholas Stoller, Apatow Productions, 18 April 2008.

“Some Like it Hot.” By Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, directed by Billy Wilder, Mirisch Company, 29 March 1959.