Screenwriting Techniques – Romantic Comedy Screenplay
The central of the writing of a romantic comedy script is the character. A good script for romantic comedy always calls for someone who irritates and infuriates the viewers, although it is exactly the trait and their inability to do anything about it that arouse the sympathy of the audience.
Figure out what exactly this annoying trait is and exploit it to create the situation comedy in your script. Situation comedy is having your character saying or doing things that put them into an embarrassing situation. An example of this can be seen in the series The Office.
What you need for a romantic comedy are three things, characters which have comedic strength, characters with opposing personalities and a plot line that is captivating.
Producing Comedic Characters
There are thick stereotypes when it comes to the cast of a romantic comedy. When you do this on your script, it is easy to see what kind of people they are going to be and how your ready audience is going to connect to them. Not using a stereotype means you need to outline a clear cut problem which is complicated at the same time so that the character needs to fight hard to reach his or her goal.
Exploiting the Opposing Characters
It is common to see how different the two main characters are in a romantic comedy movie. After all, it is the gap that generates the humor and drama. As you try to build your characters, it is always useful to have them possessing completely different personalities and yet, the same purposes, or at least similar ones. This ensures that anything one of them does will cause the other to suffer.
Plot Structure
A romantic comedy’s plot is usually something hidden in the background, while the characters captivate the audience. It is still necessary, however, to have a bare outline which includes the aforementioned lead characters’ goals. Also think of a suitable situation to put them in, in order to maximize the tension. Think also of the obstacles happening along the way that make it more difficult for them to achieve their goals. These are the elements you need to cover to have a good working plot.
It is a challenge indeed to write a script for a romantic comedy movie. Keep in mind that to achieve comedy, jokes and gags are not necessarily what you need. Clashes between personalities and situations are more of the strength of a romantic comedy.
Beginner screenplay writers can benefit a lot from learning the basic of script writing in general, before focusing on writing a romantic comedy screenplay. All screenplays, romantic comedy or not, call for certain structure and formatting and other established and fixed elements that all writers must follow. Failure to conform guarantees the throwing away of your script even before a producer or a director read it.