Rom Com Redux

This is the final episode of MaryAn's "Rom Com, This is Your Life". So, no more books, movies, and articles on Rom Coms for awhile and although I appreciate the screenwriting related emails, please stop asking me to send you $200 to find me an agent, write my query letters, collaborate with me, or enlarge my penis. Seriously. I misplaced my penis in the womb and moms being what they are, mine got rid of all my stuff and changed the wallpaper as soon as I moved out.

While all this research has not made me a Rom Com aficionado, I do think I have a better understanding now of what makes them work or not work and endure or not endure. To sum up what I've learned --

Wait. This is bugging me. Really, people, do I LOOK like I have a penis?

Okay, summing up what I've learned about Rom Coms that endure:

* Story first. Romance second - Ted Elliott
* Same, but different - Billy Mernit
* Play to the majority - Terry Rossio
* Make it about something - Billy Mernit

You know, I wouldn't pay you $200 to enlarge my penis if I had one. Nor will I pay you to do for me what you apparently CANNOT do for yourself - become a writer. I AM a writer and waxing Morgan Freeman's car does not qualify you to evaluate my screenplays OR my penis!

Where was I? Oh yes. Now that I have all this knowledge and even though my demanding new job and not so demanding old one are hogging up all my writing and blogging time, I can't resist taking a crack at Romantic Comedy. So, I'm looking at writing a feature out of a ten page exercise I wrote well over a year ago.

If you belong to The Writer's Building, you can take a look at the short in the files section of The Assignment Workshop under Assignment #7 called Soap on a Rope. Yes, I know it isn't great, but it's not terrible either especially if you understand that the scope of the assignment was to demonstrate in ten pages or fewer, a character's situation that epitomized "take this job and shove it".

So with my loose grip of Rom Com principles, which is better than my former no-grip-at-all, maybe I'll find my romantic muse -- right after I spend $200 on something I can REALLY use to help my career like Final Draft 7.0 and a bottle of tequila.