There's battle lines being drawn.
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from behind

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Romantic Comedies

Okay, one of the problems of some writing advice is it can lead to the story of the caterpillar who was asked how he walked with all those legs. And so. Now thinking about it, wasn't able to walk.

As you know, Bob, the next book is going to be a romatic comedy. So I've been going through that whole "Hollywood Formula" thing for the plot. I'm at the point of dissecting other successful romantic comedies. And here I have to admit that it's a genre I'm woefully under educated in, and what little I have is from the movies.

Now, I have "When Harry Met Sally" down pretty well, but what other romantic comedies should I be studying? Movie or book recommendations are welcome.

2 comments:

Mer said...

Get thee hence to Jennifer Crusie's blog, and read, well, pretty much everything that looks like it's a writing post.

Check out her "Popcorn Diaries" too. She and her other romantic comedy writer friends watch a crap-tonne of romcom, and then analyze it on a podcast/blog.

Also, backfiles of the "Will Write for Wine" podcast address a lot of romantic comedy stuff.

Watch "His Girl Friday" next. No questions. That's the one to watch.

Other good movies: "Bringing Up Baby," "The Philadelphia Story," "Woman of the Year," "The Proposal," "Groundhog Day," "Clueless," "Music and Lyrics," "It's Complicated" -- I consider that a good, broad spectrum.

And books: Bridget Jones's Diary (Fielding), any Crusie book... Jane Austen!

Steve Buchheit said...

Hey Mer, thanks. Added her blog to the roll. I'll need to subscribe tomorrow. Things have been extremely crazy today.

I guess I think of "Bringing Up Baby" as screwball comedy, but I can see it that way. And the good thing is that I already have most of those on DVD.