Romantic Screenplays 101 (8 page)

Here’s an important concept when trying to identify what is jeopardized: Intense drama results when the person has two choices and both are horrific, both will hurt or destroy something of value to the character, such as in SOPHIE’S CHOICE. That is called a dramatic dilemma. Story is predictable when the choices are merely between right and wrong or between two rights. But when the choice is between two wrongs or two definite consequential losses, the tension becomes glaring anxiety. Dilemma creates even a greater sense of jeopardy for the character who must act!

Common difficult choices in romance are between the beloved / the relationship and family dictates, job demands, life-changing opportunities, religious or political dogma, and personal pride / comfort / security. When any one of those is the golden idol in one person’s life and must be set aside or ignored for the sake of the relationship, you have created a dramatic dilemma.

In romance you will have every opportunity to use both sex and violence because you have a basic story of conflict in these two elements from the beginning. They want what they can not have . . . without earning it. So you put them in jeopardy and make them earn it.

REVISING OUT MELODRAMA

Many, many even experienced romance novelists (let alone screenwriters) fall victim to melodrama. They are not aware of it because they sincerely think that’s the way the story should go. They are affronted when the melodrama is pointed out. If there is one thing editing and screenwriting should teach you it is “Get over yourself!” Nothing is carved in stone. And if anyone tells you something even hints of melodrama, you better examine that scene or story line from
every
angle possible.

Any storyteller knows that a motivated character encountering forceful opposition will act out dramatic conflict. Drama is defined as any series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting or striking interest or results. Melodrama goes one step further as a form that does not observe cause and effect and that intensifies sentiment and exaggerates emotion. The difference between the two is
illogical intensity
and
exaggerated emotion
. A dramatic scene delivers credible insight to the audience; melodrama delivers laughs, groans, and even squirming discomfort. Drama builds illusion, whereas melodrama destroys it. Yes, you want bigger-than-life characters, empowered people who create change. What you do not want is a story, an event, a character that is unbelievable for even one moment.

You must examine each scene and each line of dialogue for excess, not just to save the cost of production that any good film editor will leave on the cutting room floor, but to hone your story to the barest essence of its own power, its own reality.

Even solid comedies avoid melodrama by being reality-based. They propose the reality, set up the audience expectation then depict the reversal. Think of CLUELESS, MRS. DOUBTFIRE, THE FULL MONTY. Each had moments of silliness and immaturity that were balanced with logical moments of pathos and potential. Melodrama does
not
provide balance because it goes that one step too far. The audience cannot believe the inappropriate illusion.

The essence of powerful storytelling vs. melodrama is covered by the Three R’s: Real, Relevant, Riveting.

Is it Real?

The story events must be logically aligned. Even the convoluted MEMENTO was meticulously set up in retrospect. It was a journey constructed of piece-by-piece memory fragments. It was credible because it delivered the tension of mounting discovery. No one’s memory is perfect. Ask any police officer taking statements from multiple witnesses or the author of anecdotal history whose view is skewed from lack of knowledge of all contributing factors. The audience bought into the illusion in MEMENTO and lived it with the story characters.

Credible stories are logical stories. Logical, not predictable. Logical means the events are presented in cause-and-effect order. The effect, the result of a cause or motivation can be bizarre. What it cannot be is illogical.

You are responsible for establishing reality through blatant imagery or exposition. Of course, in the film industry imagery is preferable. The subtle or inner workings of a character are the exposition. For this exposition to be real and not melodramatic, the timing must be perfect to the story line, the words and delivery succinct and pointed. If a character belabors a point, that is melodrama. Too much. Audience overload. The same goes for imagery. When the image has made the point of Arctic cold or Stock Exchange chaos, move on to the next logical thought association for the audience.

Give your audience (and studio reader) credit for a degree of intelligence. Our Information/Technological Age has developed a taste for intriguing entertainment. The public does not want lecture. They want guessing games about the actions of characters who have taken on a life of their own. Develop the characters and the story with drama’s vivid events to the point of memorable impact then move on. The result will be fast-paced, credible story reality, be it a children’s story or a sedate romance.

Is it Relevant?

Tension builds with relevance, with the audience mentally asking the question “What does it mean to the rest of the story?” Melodrama prolongs the moment until the audience can predict the effect and loses respect for the character. They don’t believe the character would say something so inane nor do something so illogical. “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Every scene, every piece of dialogue needs to be 1) the result of what came before in the story line known to the audience (or what they will find out), 2) consistent with the character’s motivation, and 3) necessary to the logical flow of story events to follow.

Again, melodrama will result when the audience is overloaded with more intensity and emotional display than the story event and characterization warrants.

Whenever there is any sort of emotional outburst (or visible loss of emotional control) in your story, ask yourself why it is necessary to depict. What will happen later in the story where you can use this? In A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, the alcoholic Peaches coach (Tom Hanks) rips into one of his fielders and makes her cry then rants “There’s no crying in baseball!” This is a set-up for when that player repeats the mistake in the crucial game and he quivers with exaggerated control, merely telling her “We’ll have to work on that.” In THE COWBOYS, we watch two bulls going head-to-head as the herd is rounded up for the trail drive. Wil Andersen (John Wayne) explains to his crew of youngsters how sometimes the young bull wins because he’s stronger, quicker, but this time the old bull won because he has the experience. This was a succinct set-up for Plot Point II when Andersen wins a fist fight against the younger Bruce Dern character then endures being shot piece by piece to let Dern expend his vicious temper on him rather than on the boys. No melodrama of excess and both examples totally logical to story and characters. Both were uniquely interesting, even riveting.

Is it Riveting?

Good storytelling operates in an ebb-and-flow of tension. The audience must always be in the story, vicariously living it with the characters. For the illusion’s reality to be maintained the audience must see, feel, hear all the relevant data as the character is made aware. Keeping the rubber band of mental tension pulled taut is as dangerous a form of melodrama as is clichéd characterizations.

Riveting story means credibly enthralling. The audience forgets the theatre and life beyond. They live the story with the characters.

It would be wonderfully gratifying if this level of storytelling happened every time you sat down to write. That is not going to happen. However, you can work at it with awareness of how to control your own form of exaggeration, how to pace the revelation of character motivation, where to allow the audience glimpses and where to let them wallow in the forces driving your characters. Riveting doesn’t mean physical tension. It means mentally focused.

You can achieve this in one word: Planning. Consider what you want each character to depict. What will be subtle and what will be intense about each one’s demeanor? How will each character’s personal agenda impact the main plot line or the main characters? What plants can you logically set-up early-on then payoff? Example: Early in GLADIATOR, Maximus briefly watched the sword exercises of the man he ultimately faced in the Coliseum.

Every scene, every piece of dialogue must be real, relevant, and riveting. No excessive sentiment or emotion. Let your audience live with your characters.

ROMANTIC SCREENPLAYS Chapter 5 Exercises

Exercise 5a:
 What is your Hero willing to sacrifice or endure for his beloved’s happiness? What empowerment will the Heroine demonstrate, what risks will she take for her lover’s well-being?

Exercise 5b:
What level of violence is inherent in your story? What level are your main characters capable of (hero, heroine, antagonist)?

Exercise 5c:
Rate your current screenplay plot events on a scale of 1 (Total disregard of sexual signaling) to 10 (Graphic Sexual Activity). Do you perceive any moral issue in the level of sexuality of your story? (And, yes, editing out of love-making scenes is sometimes done to get a better or more general audience rating from the censors to improve box office income.)

Exercise 5d:
List five behaviors the male will use in the story’s courting ritual. Now, list five of the heroine’s behaviors. Do you see any as stereotypical or even melodramatic? Do you perceive the male or the female as the sexual instigator or seducer? 

Chapter 6

Sexual Tension vs.

Plot complications

IN THE BEGINNING

If a couple is happily united at the outset of a romantic story, where can the story go? The relationship would have to be torn asunder and rebuilt or other relationships with other partners evolve. Of course, those are possibilities. However, screenplays, like short stories, need to grab the reader by the throat and involve them immediately in character dilemma and desire. There is no time to leisurely reveal the dark undertow of problems for these incredibly perfect people. Some novelists prefer to build interest in the character before tackling what is challenging them, so their real story doesn’t begin until Chapter Two. Most editors will tell them to delete Chapter One and get to the meat of the story, dropping in the set-up characterization as the story progresses where that information about the character is needed.

Screenplays are even more demanding. Put the characters at risk of high stakes gain or loss within the first 10 minutes/10 pages of the script. Reveal the strengths and flaws of the main character and that soul-deep goal that drives him or her to take the risks, to charge ahead into life-changing actions. It does not have to do with the male and female meeting but has to do with sucking in the audience to care enough about the Protagonist that they will want him or her to meet the mate and work toward happily ever after. The protagonist has to convince the audience that he or she is worthy.

Since this is a romance and Hollywood wants sex and violence, how do you insert budding awareness from the introductory scene on? Visually hint at the internal
Essence
of the main character who will be the one who changes internally, the one who arcs because of the events of the story. You also have to depict the external
Identity
or role of this character, the who they are in the world. The audience/reader has to be sucked into the demands and problems of that role from the moment the character shows up. Chaos, turmoil, crisis have to depict this character in action. Yet you want to deliver a glimpse of the essence yearning for fulfillment. From squeaky clean, fun teen romantic movies through intensely emotional and dark adult thrillers, you must show the main character noticing, wanting, needing a mate.

WHEN THE TWO MEET

Re-examine Howard’s Twelve Steps. With those in mind, consider what you want to see happen when the male and female encounter one another the first time. Of course, you will not move from Step One to Twelve within two scenes . . . . if your story is to be built on more than acting on physical attraction, the lust-of-the-moment. FOOLS RUSH IN was about the consequences of that experience which in turn caused the ultimate commitment and the ending when the two welcomed their child into the world and accepted their need and love for one another. As a rule, most relationships are the more common cautionary exploration.

 Even the inverted relationship story in FOOLS demonstrated what is called the
Pull-Push of sexual tension
, the recognition of attraction followed immediately by the rejection of willingness to act upon it. “I want her, but I don’t want to be trapped.”

 The key here is to show both parties 1) feeling that pull, 2) wanting the partner, but 3) rejecting/pushing away involvement by focusing on other story complications (out of the subplots). That process puts the caring audience into the anticipation mode. They know the couple will get together but the wondering about
how
that will happen keeps them questing with the lovers.

CONCEPTS OF BODY LANGUAGE

No discussion of describing meetings and signaling can avoid the intricate world of body language. This is a tight wire for the screenwriter to walk.

Two people make the ultimate decision about characterization on screen: the actor and the director. However, the insightful screenwriter can provide a distinct framework by choreographing specific body language that translates a message. Ever heard the adage “We want movies, not talkies” and wondered what that meant? It boils down to: Replace intent and content of dialogue with a visual or a character movement wherever possible.