10 Tips for Writing the Contemporary Romantic Comedy

This week our resident rom-com expert Anna Siri brings us a deep dive into the beloved romantic comedy format.

It’s been a couple of decades since rom-coms have had a moment like this. We can remember the days when the likes of Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers packed the theaters with audience-goers in search of fateful meet-cutes, romantic entanglements, and happily ever afters. After a long hiatus, these feel-good movies are back in new forms thanks in large part to consumers’ never-ending love of cozy Christmas romance – they’re killing it on streaming, and even out-of-season rom-coms are finding their niche.

Whether you’re writing a traditional Hallmark Christmas card of a movie, a playfully edgy take like Hot Frosty, or a theatrical indie in the vein of What Happens Later, here are a few tips on what’s the same and what’s changed in this new cycle of the beloved genre.

1. Know Your Audience

One rom-com doesn’t fit all. Have a plan for who your ideal market is and write with them in mind. The comedic sexual innuendo and chiseled abs of Hot Frosty, for instance, are not going to play on Hallmark or Great American Family Channel, while some of their stricter faith-based approaches might have trouble finding a home on Netflix. Kiss or no kiss? Sex or no sex? It really depends on what your plans for the project are going forward. Study your target and write accordingly. You may even wish to have several versions of the script.

2. Familiar Originality

Hollywood is famously and tragically risk-averse, and while we love seeing some bonkers, out-of-the-box writing, bear in mind that most studios and production companies are looking for something that threads the needle. It needs to be original enough to feel like a breath of fresh air – but familiar enough that they know what to do with it. Boy Meets Girl (or Boy) is as old as time, but consider new settings, new character takes, and modern adaptations of classic stories wrapped in the familiar framework of the genre. Look at something like Red, White, & Royal Blue, based on the book by Casey McQuiston, which takes the traditional narrative and mixes it up by having the son of the U.S. President fall for a British prince. The possibilities go on and on. But remember, one of the reasons rom-coms flamed out 25 years ago was they had become too formulaic and predictable.

3. Structure is Your Friend

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of our favorite romances, but even with the topsy-turvy nature of the story, there’s a titanium skeleton of structure underneath. The old cliché applies – you can break the rules once you know them, but you’d better have a good reason for doing so. Instead, we recommend making friends with structure rather than fighting against it. The beats of three-act structure are classic in this genre for a reason and can provide a great roadmap for your story from the start. Again, the challenge is remaining original in this framework, but remember that if you’re going to veer from classic structure, everyone you’re submitting the script to knows structure inside and out — and will know when it starts to falter.

4. Chemistry, Baby

There is no romance without chemistry, and honestly, this is a really tricky piece of advice to give because it’s tough to come up with tips on how to strengthen it. Characters either have it or they don’t, and it’s in the dialogue and the way the characters move around the space together, both toward and against each other. Here’s where table reads shine, and reading the script out loud with friends will automatically give you a sense of whether your characters are sparking off each other yet. Buy a pizza, get your friends together and make sure to record the whole thing – you never know when someone’s going to spitball a great idea or improvise a killer line.

5. For Me? You shouldn’t have – The Exchange of Gifts

Another good way to strengthen your characters’ chemistry is to dig into their exchange of emotional gifts. Think about what they fulfill in each other and what they might miss out on if they don’t get together. In When Harry Met Sally, he gets her to lighten up while she gets him to take important things more seriously. In Hot Frosty, she teaches him about the world, and he helps her get past the rut she’s stuck in after losing her husband. Exchange of Gifts is a crucial concept, so make sure your characters bring it.

6. The Rocky Road to Love – Obstacles

Ultimately, all characters are their own worst enemies, but don’t forget to give your lovebirds some actual, concrete plot problems to solve! The simple misunderstanding has become a bit of a trope at this point, and we would say beware of any conflict where no one is at fault that can just be resolved with a simple conversation. Ideally, both of your characters are a little wrong, and the solutions to the problems preventing them from finding their happily ever after have to be rooted in action. There’s nothing more boring for a reader than characters moping around in broody heartbreak for scene after scene when all they have to do is pick up the phone. We want to see what they’re going to do to get what they want and what mountains they’re going to have to climb to reach that Happily Ever After.

7. B-Lines

The B-Line is the rom-com’s secret weapon. A great B-line acts as a counterpoint to the main arc and highlights the story’s themes. This might be a secondary relationship that goes really, really wrong – or one that goes really, really right and shines a light on the main couple’s journey, or it may be a plot thread that emphasizes the characters’ progress or lack thereof. In A Castle for Christmas, the A-line is Brooke Shields making a mess of Cary Elwes’s life (and ultimately falling in love) when she buys his castle, but the B-lines are her finding a way to restore her writing career and the building and community, which then tracks with the way he comes back to life himself.

8. Tropes

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, this is a genre that’s filled with tropes, and as with finding a new spin on the concept, find ways to take the familiar and make it new. These can be tiny changes or major changes. Instead of a meet-cute trapping two characters in an elevator, maybe one character is trapped, and the other is the elevator repair person trying to talk them through fixing it. Instead of two characters bumping into each other in a supermarket, maybe one causes a massive shelf collapse, and the other is the manager coming to chew them out. There are endless ways to take the classic scenarios and twist them up a bit. The more you care aware of the tropes – yet go in the exact opposite direction, the fresher the material will feel. That’s called defying expectations, and it is a beautiful thing.

9. Chit-Chat

This is a dialogue-heavy genre, but we’d caution that less is more. Characters sitting around talking to each other works well on the stage, but too much on the screen is a good way to have audiences checking their phones. Break it up with action, forcing characters to interact while doing. In Romancing the Stone (one of the greatest romantic adventures of all time), our heroes arguing and the breakdown of their relationship is much more interesting as they flee gunfire and go over a waterfall than it would be if they were just standing there yelling at each other. (Go rewatch it. You’ll be glad you did.)

10. HEA

Are there romantic comedies without a happy ending? As with everything in Hollywood, yes and no. At heart, if the story leaves the protagonist happy and gives them closure, that’s happily ever after – look at Waitress, which is a quasi-rom-com. That said, audiences flock to this genre to see the fairy tale ending. There’s a famous anecdote about early screenings of Pretty in Pink where Andie winds up with Duckie, and audiences hated it. Again, break the rules and follow your gut, but if you’re not going to give the audience that Happily Ever After, there had better be a rock-solid reason for it that won’t leave them feeling unsatisfied with their romantic comedy experience.