In my opinion the romantic comedy genre is the MOST IMPORTANT genre for screenwriters to master.

Why?

Well-p, that's because of the transferiblity of its subject matter to all other genres. It's like the undergraduate classes you have to take before your allowed to take higher level classes.

Why do I say this?

Because you can use a romantic comedy subplot in any other genre of writing. Why not accent your action movie with a romatic subpot? Put two progonists falling in love while saving of that zombie carnage of yours. And don't ALL spy movies dab a little romantic tease in there?

HUGE fan of Billy's work. Besides Billy's accomplishment with novels and screenwriting -- he's also got an music album you can buy!!

How many of us can say that? Shoot, I can't even play the triangle!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

These are interesting.

Re: First tip. Part of what I find so totally grating about many current romantic comedies is that this has kind of been reduced to the "she needs to loosen up and he needs to grow up" thing, a la Judd Apatow/every Katherine Heigl movie. I think part of the difficulty of writing romantic comedies is that the entire premise of the genre makes it so, so easy to use gender stereotyping in liu of actual character development, and it becomes Man needs Woman instead of Individual Person needs Other Individual Person.
Genuinely good romantic movies, where the characters are recognizable as real human beings, are so satisfying and they are so, so rare.

@tanialidov: I agree. It's one of the reasons that rom-coms are down on my list of favorite genres.

OTOH, did you like "Sleepless in Seattle"? Granted, it's pretty easy to generate sympathy for a Protagonist character whose young wife has just died. But once you accept that as the start of the story, I found SIS to be a really good story in large part because it was atypical of most rom-coms - and mostly because it was about something: healing, resurrection, communication, connection.

my most hated genre by far because it's just been so dismal for the past 15 years. "my best friend's wedding" and "enchanted" are the only good ones i can think of.

@Scott. The embarassing truth is that I haven't watched this movie since I was really, really young (probably around when it came out) and barely remember it. But I like Nora Ephron, so I should watch it again.

When Harry met Sally is up near the top of my RomCom list even though I think it kind of falls into the loosen up/grow up archetype a little. But it's handled much, much better in that movie than anywhere else, because Nora Ephron is smart, and she really gets it, whatever "it" is.

Also at the top are As Good as it Gets (which you analyzed in depth recently, to my delight) and Pretty Woman, wich I think was carried off entirely by Julia Roberts, who has never been more charismatic. And as far as ridiculous fairy tales go, it's flawless.

@ Eve Montana

"So dismal?!" I guess that's your opinion -- and you're entitled to it, BUT what about these movies from the last 15 years:

"The 40 Year Old Virgin": (for all ye Apatow bashers)
"Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind"
"13 Going on 30"
"How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days"
"Definately, Mabye"
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
"What Women Want"
"As Good as It Gets"

(I was going to add "Enchanted," but I see you got that one)

It depresses me to read that girls such as yourself "hate" the genre. I say that because at its heart, I feel, the genre of romantic comedies exists for women.

@E.C. Henry: Interesting, I've never thought of "Eternal Sunshine" as a RomCom, but I do really like that movie. And "As Good as it Gets" definitely makes my list.

But this: "I feel, the genre of romantic comedies exists for women" is tricky. I think the problem is that most romantic commedies to not exist for women in any real sense, but for an idea of what the "female marketplace" consists of and wants. And it is a very shoddy idea. And its why so many women really don't like most of them, and don't like them with a vengence. But that is a whole other wall for us to go bang our heads against. :)

I want to give a shout out for "Music and Lyrics" which I think was very underrated, plus it had a great cheesy pop video.

" I think the problem is that most romantic commedies to not exist for women in any real sense, but for an idea of what the "female marketplace" consists of and wants.
...excellent point. As a man, I cringe every time I see a commercial for the next romcom to hit the big screen. Even if the movie is good, I dont want to see it because of this pursual of the female audience.
I am actually trying to write a romcom, but I hate that tag and wonder if I should ignore it and just call the script a comedy.
Any advice for how anyone here would pitch a movie with a prominent romantic storyline? If it had a hint of sci-fi, for example, would you ditch the romcom and pitch the sci-fi?

@ tanialiadov,

You should drop by Billy's blogspot. He can explain the inner workings of a romantic comedies way better than I can. In Star Wars terms: I'm like a pad 1 learner; whereas Billy's the Qui-Gon Jinn bad-ass Jedi knight who teaches that cute little kid the ropes.
PLUS if you do and post a response Billy Mernit is a very gracious host and will respond to issues you raise.

What I'm getting at saying romcoms are geared primarily for women comes down to the essence that I believe romance for the woman, NOT for the man. Ever heard of the phrase "chick flick" substited in place of romantic comedy?

You're welcome to split all the hairs you want. AND guys like Judd Apatow have done a GREAT job of expanding the genre and getting more men interested in seeing romantic comedy material. But even what Judd's done, can be traced back to a adolesecent accent on the male perspective of humor. Billy's covered this in GREAT detail in one of earlier posts. Real interesting stuff IF you want to understand one the hottiest frontiers of the romantic comedy genre movie domain today.

Scott, sorry to comment on such an old post, but I've been reading through all of your posts on rom-coms. (I'm a long-time reader of Billy Mernit, too.) I'm looking for an answer and haven't found it yet, so I thought I'd ask: what sort of page length should rom-com spec scripts come in at these days? I have "90 pages optimum / 100 pages max" in my mind, but I can't find that written down anywhere, so I wanted to check.

Shaula, do you mind if I ask that question in tonight's Twitter-Chat session with three Hollywood professionals part of whose gig is to read and cover scripts? They should be able to give you up-to-the-minute feedback on that question. As per me: I would say aim for 100 pages. Conventional wisdom is that a script less than 100 is 'light' on content. Not saying that's a rule or true, rather the perception of readers. But again why don't we ask the folks tonight, get their feedback?

Do I mind? I'd love it! That's very generous of you, Scott. The perception of readers is exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you. And I'm delighted that you're continuing the Twitter chat sessions. I'm really enjoying them and you all cover so much interesting, relevant material. My thanks to your co-chatters, too.