Questionable: About Romantic Comedy
Cate asked:
1. Are romance short stories a thing? As in, have you read ones you loved? Or does romance work better as at least a novella length? If they do work, do you know of anyone publishing them, outside of anthologies?
2. Can you talk about what makes for good in-scene pacing in romantic comedy? I had a lot of literature people tell me to slow down my romcom, and while they were definitely right the first time they said it, I do feel like there’s a point where you slow down so much it’s hard to get the sparks and comedy part right.
3. I’ve got too many subplots, and too many POVs. Any tips for figuring out which subplots + POVs to keep, and which to cut, especially in a story that’s partly about how the couple fit into their community?
4. I am curious about “creative writing teacher” as a profession. You’re such a good one, even just through this blog. Any tips or book recommendations for someone who wants to learn more about how to be a good creative writing teacher, either online or in a classroom setting?
So taking one at a time . . .
1. Are romance short stories a thing? As in, have you read ones you loved? Or does romance work better as at least a novella length? If they do work, do you know of anyone publishing them, outside of anthologies?
The problem is arcing a believable romance in two thousand words. You can write great short stories about a part of that romance–the cute meet, the big fight, the reconciliation–but selling a this-is-forever relationship in that short of a space is really tough. There used to be magazines that did short stories that would take a romance, but I have no idea if any exist any more. Anthologies sometimes take them but they prefer novellas (also difficult to write). The only short story I ever sold was something I’d written for my MFA and my agent sent it to Redbook and they published it. But it was women’s fiction, not romance, about a woman coming to terms with her divorce. I pretty much wrote the short stories I wrote to explore characters in the novel I was writing. When I was researching love, I read that it takes six months to three years to work through infatuation (very fun) to commitment (hard work), so what you have to do in romance is establish that the couple is slated for the long haul, trusts each other, works together, talks through their mistakes, is really committed to not just having a good time. Good luck doing that in two thousand words. Or five thousand. Even twenty-five thousand (novella). Hell, it’s hard in a hundred thousand words. There’s a reason I write novels. I’m lazy.
2. Can you talk about what makes for good in-scene pacing in romantic comedy? I had a lot of literature people tell me to slow down my romcom, and while they were definitely right the first time they said it, I do feel like there’s a point where you slow down so much it’s hard to get the sparks and comedy part right.
Okay, to be clear, we’re talking about arcing a single scene, not a novel, right?
If I’m having trouble with a scene, I fall back on beats, units of conflict. Break the scene down into a series of mini-scenes and then make sure the tension and the stakes get higher in each part. It’s easier than looking at a scene that you know is not working and trying to dope it out as a whole.
The key to scenes in a romantic comedy, or one of the keys, is to not sacrifice emotion for speed. Snappy patter is great–ask me how much I love writing snappy patter–but it does matter why the patter is snappy. If it’s just two people zinging off each other, it gets annoying. What makes patter really snap is what’s underneath.
Using one of my own examples because I’m self-centered, the first dinner scene in Bet Me isn’t just Min zinging off Cal, it’s Min being really angry and burying it under a sharp tongue, and Cal just trying to politely get through dinner to win ten bucks. It’s not the banter, it’s the two conflicting goals underneath the words. Min wants to break his smooth facade and he wants to charm her so she won’t maim him over dessert. If you break the scene down into beats, it’s obvious that his charm is working enough that she decides to play fair and admit she’s angry because of David, and he stops trying to charm her and talks to her, and by the end, the banter isn’t maim-and-charm, it’s two people having fun with words while they start to know each other. I didn’t want the reader thinking, “These are two people who are good with banter” or even “This is funny,” I wanted readers watching the romance happen as they negotiated under the words; I wanted the reader thinking, “I have to see where this goes,” not “I want more funny banter.” It’s the story, not the funny.
3. I’ve got too many subplots, and too many POVs. Any tips for figuring out which subplots + POVs to keep, and which to cut, especially in a story that’s partly about how the couple fit into their community?
Okay, first you pick a main plot. This is something Bob and I work on at the beginning of every book. He writes with me because he wants a wider audience, aka women, so he’s usually good with a romance as the main plot. Except he doesn’t write romance, he writes adventure and suspense, so when he starts plotting, he forgets My Girl is there. And we end up rewriting to pull the book back to the romance. The romance is the main plot. Any time the book spends too much time away from the romance, it drags for some readers. So the scenes we have to concentrate on are the ones where the lovers are together. They don’t have to be romance-y scenes, but they do have to show aspects of the relationship: how they work together, how they settle disagreements, how they come to know each other, etc.
But Bob’s still got his action plot which is important to the story because the stress and tension of the action plot spur adrenalin which makes people fall in love faster. Bob will tell you it’s because at least something is happening in the action plot, but if the romance is the main plot, the action plot is there to serve it by pushing the lovers together. If the action plot is the main plot, the romance is there to serve it by complicating things, adding an emotional level to an intellectual plot.
So to winnow out subplots: Which ones are there to fill in information (cut them and find another way to get the info on the page), which ones are there to support other subplots or supporting characters (cut them or incorporate them as support for the main plot), and which ones support and enhance the main plot (those are the ones you keep).
For example, the famous here’s-the-best-friend’s-romance-too subplot, aka Pair the Spares (thank you, TV Tropes). Unless that subplot echoes, contrasts, supports, illuminates the main plot, you do not need it. And God forbid you throw it in there just to set up a sequel. But if that romance serves the main romance, then you need it. Again, self-centered example: In Bet Me, Min has two friends who have romances with Cal’s best friends. Liza and Tony don’t stay together although they stay friends because great sex and snappy patter are not enough for long term commitment. Bonnie and Roger fall in love pretty fast, but Bonnie is hardheaded, knows what she wants, and accepts that this is the guy and proceeds to a practical commitment, foreshadowing that Roger will always lead with his heart but she’ll be there to keep things strong and practical. Meanwhile, Min and Cal are a mess: they try to leave each other the way Liza and Tony do, no regrets and keep the friendship, but they can’t because they really are made each for each other. It just takes awhile because neither one of them can fall as easily as Roger, and neither one of them has the clear practicality and confidence of Bonnie. So both of those Pair the Spares subplots serve the main romance as a contrast. It’s the reason Tony can yell at Cal when he walks away from Min at the end because he’s never felt about a woman the way Cal feels about Min. And it’s the reason that it’s Bonnie who makes Min break down and admit she wants a life with Cal because she’s clear-sighted and not afraid the way Min is. In the same way, Diana and Greg are set up as the anti-Min-and-Cal, not just a contrast but the opposite, two beautiful people getting married in a beautiful wedding that’s a lie.
If a subplot doesn’t serve the main plot, cut it.
Point of view depends on the kind of story you’re writing. The more PoVs you have, the colder the story will be. That’s because you’re trying to invest the reader in too many people. So obviously you need the PoV of your protagonist/main character. But then who? Depends on the story. If you’re writing a romance, chances are readers want to know what the love interest is thinking/doing, too, because it takes a level of confusion away–the protagonist doesn’t know how the love interest feels but the reader does–and also because it’s fun to see two people begin to change and grow because of a relationship. After that, it’s what does the next PoV do for the story? And a lot of times, it’s not much. A third PoV often powers a subplot, so if the subplot supports the main plot, you may get away with it, but all too often readers hit that third character and just want to get back to the main two. I got grief on Rachel’s subplot in Welcome To Temptation because people wanted to stick with Sophie and Phin. They were right. Rachel’s PoV and subplot weren’t necessary to the main plot, I just liked Rachel. My most popular books have the protagonist and love interest as PoVs; my least popular book has seven PoVs. Every time you add another PoV to a romance novel, you dilute the emotion because you’re taking page real estate away from the main story.
Does that mean you should never have more than two PoV’s in a romance? Of course not, have as many as you want. Just figure out what you want them to do and realize that you’re taking time and emotional investment away from the main plot.
4. I am curious about “creative writing teacher” as a profession. You’re such a good one, even just through this blog. Any tips or book recommendations for someone who wants to learn more about how to be a good creative writing teacher, either online or in a classroom setting?
The big thing to remember about teaching creative writing is to teach craft not content. One of my MFA profs, a very good teacher otherwise, drove me nuts because she considered only literary fiction to be worthy of my time. She actually said, “Jenny, you’re such a good writer, have you ever thought about writing literature?” I said, “No,” because trying to explain to her that romance fiction is literature would have fallen on deaf ears. You never, ever critique content. I did once at McDaniel because the writer had her romance protagonist as an opiate drug dealer who was blackmailing an addict into selling for her. I tried to point out that it was going to be extremely difficult for readers to want this woman in a relationship with a good guy, let alone a drug cop, and she dropped the course. She was right, I was wrong. Her craft was excellent, very good writer, and it was none of my damn business what she was writing about.
In the same vein, if a student is working in a genre you don’t like–say horror–you pull up your socks and critique horror. Because you are not critiquing content, you are trying to help this person write the story they want to write. The reason most people take writing courses is that they know what they want to write, they just don’t know how to do that effectively, so you always teach the how not the what. And that is hard as hell to do. The best way is to figure out the aspects of craft that you want to teach–plot, character, theme, whatever–and present that as theory first–here’s how to structure a plot–and then apply that to the student’s work–here’s how to analyze this specific plot–by having them analyze it using your rubric. Most students will take from your theory the stuff that works for them and leave the rest, and that’s good. You’re trying to help them see their story more clearly, not trying to teach your theory.
And last, if they say, “No, that’s not my story,” believe them. They know their stories better than you do. At that point, you start asking them questions about their stories: “What part can’t be cut from this story, what must you keep?” “What parts aren’t working, can you figure out why? (Not how to fix them, but why they’re not working.)” “How does the beginning foreshadow the ending, what promise does the beginning make and is it fulfilled by the ending?” Not “This would be better with a dog.”
Creative writing courses, IMHO, should be theory which can be incorporated into the writer’s method or ignored, followed by Socratic teaching, questioning the students to help them discover the story they want to tell, to find the best way to tell that story.
Yes, it’s really difficult. Tremendously rewarding, though.
[I just realize I misspelled Cate’s name. I’m sorry, Cate!]
