Thursday 6 August 2015

Five Rules For Writing Rom Coms

I am lucky enough to be able to write what I like at the moment, which is to say, I have total artistic freedom over my creations and can please myself. But pleasing myself as a writer is all about pleasing readers, because without readers, I might as well be yelling myself hoarse into the void.

So when dreaming up new ideas for rom coms like my latest in the 'Oddest Little Shop' series, pictured below, I always check my plans against a set of criteria that rom com readers are likely to expect from my book.

I've called them 'rules' above, but really these are just guidelines or even suggestions. Because every writer brings something new to the genre.

Read the FREE sample on Amazon UK:
THE ODDEST LITTLE BEACH SHOP

So what do I bring to the writing of romantic comedy that's new, or at least out of the ordinary in that genre?

I bring a humour so physical and strongly visual, it's almost slapstick at times, producing comedy moments verging on the parodic. But I trust the romance element saves my stories from being merely funny.

Remember the Keystone Cops? I love larger-than-life characters, with ludicrous and unlikely scenarios that make me suspend disbelief and roar with laughter.

Publicity still from 1914 film: "In the Clutches of the Gang'

Of course, physical humour can lead a writer into problems when the work in question is also supposed to be romantic. No one can feel that excited by a hero who keeps slipping on the proverbial banana skin. Yet in a rom com you want the kind of romance that makes your toes curl up in delight ...

So we come to a few guidelines on writing rom com. To be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. Maybe even a whole cellarful of salt. From a salt cellar shaped like a banana.

ROM COM RULE NO 1
Be funny about men in general, and have at least one male character who can be relied upon to mess up, but never make your hero look like a jackass. The hero must remain desirable, and although goofy Beta males can be sexy at times, it's a struggle to make them look uber-hot. So make sure he has a neighbour, enemy or sidekick - I often use a goofy younger brother, for instance - who can carry the big comic moments while leaving our hero with his sexy mystique and dignity intact. 

ROM COM RULE NO 2
Your heroine can be gauche occasionally - isn't it always the way that we goof up just when we're trying to impress a new man? - but avoid inducing belly laughs during a sexy scene. You can probably get away with a brief titter - sex is often funny, after all. But the reader wants to feel they would fall for this hero too, and he would fall for them if they were the heroine, so keep the romance and/or sexual tension high during intimate one-on-one scenes, and let the comedy take a back seat for a while.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Oddest-Little-Chocolate-Shop-ebook/dp/B00LP17J66

ROM COM RULE NO 3
Never forget you're writing a comedy. Occasionally scenes get heavy or tense, casting a pall of darkness over your story, and next thing you know, you've written twenty pages with no laughs whatsoever. It's okay to go dark here and there, and have serious elements mixed-in with the hilarity. Shakespeare mixes slapstick with grim reality all the time, even in his tragedies, and it works brilliantly. There doesn't have to be a joke on every page. But don't let too many pages go by without throwing in some banter or an amusing situation. It's okay to have a graveside scene in a rom com; just make sure someone falls in.

It turns out Annie has a thing for big Cornish ogres in THE ODDEST LITTLE BEACH SHOP

ROM COM RULE NO 4
Run a tight ship. Or a tight manuscript, in this case. The structure of a comedy is massively important, probably more so than for any other kind of fiction except a murder mystery. Avoid plunging in on page one with some hilarious case of mistaken identity, then feeling your way to the end by instinct. This will only work if you have many, many novels under your belt already, and are damn funny to boot. You need to plan a comedy, at least in rough stages. I tend to do this fairly mechanically and with broad strokes, chapter by chapter, making sure there will be one comic set-piece in each chapter. Beginners need to differentiate between witty banter and big comic moments at the planning stage, and to provide numerous instances of the former and at least one instance of the latter in every chapter. If you can also lead up to one massive joke at the end, that is prepared for throughout the story in gradual stages, all the better. Big jokes work better when the reader is actively waiting for them to happen.


ROM COM RULE NO 5
Be funny.


Good luck! Beth x

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