The Central Question of the Romantic Comedy

A romantic comedy is not only a comedy with romance in it. A romantic comedy follows a specific formula: girl and boy meet, girl and boy lose one another, and then girl and boy reunite.

Typical story structure begins with the hero having a problem. In act 2, the hero can’t solve this problem, and this problem is only resolved in act 3. According to Billy Mernit, author of Writing the Romantic Comedy, the central question of the rom-com is not then “will the hero obtain his goal?” Rather, it is “will these two individuals become a couple?” Will the boy get the girl in the end?

As the audience already knows what the outcome of a romantic comedy is going to be (the boy does indeed get the girl), then, according to Mernit, it is helpful to create drama by making one of the characters have a negative desire.  

This negative desire in romantic comedies usually manifests itself as commitment phobia in one of the characters. One of the characters just doesn’t want to be in a relationship, even if this is exactly what he needs, in a dramatic sense.

The best romantic comedies will thus have more and more obstacles being thrown at these two characters, which will get in the way of them coming together, and thus create the drama (and comedy!). One or both characters might already be in a relationship. They might live far from one another. Or there might be something big that each will lose if they follow their love.

Determine What Your Genre Is. If You Say It's Funny, It Needs to Be Funny the Whole Way Through

Genre is important not only for movies but for novels too. Too often beginning writers want to throw in everything: "Well, it starts our funny, but then it gets very dramatic around here, but there will also be some dancing and singing."

No!

Although the old adage "make them laugh, make them cry" is true, you need to determine what the major feel of the movie is. If it is a comedy, then every scene has to have comedy in it. That means, not only humorous dialogue but humorous circumstances and action. If you want to study a film that does a very good job of this, take a look at "Talladega Nights". There is funny action and dialogue in every scene. And those scenes that try to be slightly more dramatic, like when Will Ferrel's character is dealing with his flaw, which is fear... Well... This movie is best when it's sticking to the comedy. And even those slightly more dramatic scenes between Will Ferrel's character and his father are still funny.

One movie that does a terrible job of mixing funny with what is supposed to be slightly more emotional is "Mall Cop". Apart from a lot of other problems this movie has (and didn't it do terribly at the box office?), the writers tried to mix what Kevin James does best (being funny!) with scenes in which he is whinning about not having a girlfriend. Bad! They could have found more humorous ways to get that across, instead of trying to appeal with our more emotional sides WHICH DIDN'T WORK!