romance for dummies: chapter one, don't be dumb
I fail at Chapter One; I am clearly the dumbest person alive, because I signed up to write 3 stories this month. It's like Christmas in August! By which I mean, that time of year when I usually sign up for way too many holiday fic exchanges? Yeah, it's like that. Anyway, that's part of why I didn't get around to all the things I was going to talk about here over the last few weeks, and I'm grumpy about that.
I'm also sort of grumpy that I'm going to have to see Knocked Up, because it's gotten to the point where it's enough of a Cultural Moment that I feel like I *have* to have some kind of opinion on it, and preferably not one based on reading ten million reviews and think-pieces. Although those are awfully interesting, if depressing. It's weird, though, because while some people complain about it as a romatic comedy that's sucked utterly dry of anything resembling romance, there's also this whole contingent who are basically saying, "But that's why it's like life! The whole world is Craigslist ads and bar hookups and there's no challenge and no mystery and then you figure, well hell, it's probably time I got married, and then you do, which is why Judd Apatow is a GENIUS!" And what really interests me is that I've seen a lot of commentators (who are obviously writers themselves, of one kind or another) essentially say, well, how is it even possible to write about "romance" in the current context, and should you even, or is it inherently false, and was it always false after all, really?
Which is all kind of odd for me, given how much of my life I spend amidst people who write romance for fun. And I think the fic I read now does have a lot more casual sex in it than what I was reading eight and ten years ago -- I think it's responsive to the Cultural Context in that way, where having sex is not really something you only do after you've decided to spend your lives together, or even something you only do with people you madly love, and that casual sex isn't really dirty or subversive or edgy anymore, but just one type of sex that most people have at one time of their lives or another. The characters don't by and large have any more retrograde expecations about sex and relationships than the readers and writers do (in fact, we often are much closer to the mainstream than our source material is on this point).
And yet, it doesn't seem like any of that is hampering fandom in the slightest bit when it comes to turning out High Classic Romance, so I'm kind of left baffled. Not that mainstream filmmakers should have to write High Classic Romance if they don't want to, but the idea that they *would* if such a thing were even *imaginable* right now, but alas! That's very weird to me. It's not freaking rocket science, you know? High Romance derives from the idea that this experience is different from all the others -- and in cultures where casual sex is more taboo, then part of what's "different" can be the amplification of the sexual tension, but if you're writing in a milieu where there's often not a lot of sexual tension, then something else about the relationship has to be the part that's "different this time." If a million fangirls can figure out what that might be, then surely to God there are professional screenwriters who can crack the code, too.
Free Hint to Baffled Screenwriters: Sexual tension is not the goal. Sexual tension is a tool that you have at your disposal -- and admittedly, a particularly versatile and reliable one. Sexual tension is the claw-hammer of writing romance. But if you feel like you cannot in good conscience find or invent a reason for these people not to have sex with each other (and I maintain that you're the *writer,* and you can proabably think one up if you really want to, but okay, let's say you can't), then use a different tool. The *goal* is to convince your audience that these two people will never, ever manage to be truly happy unless they're together (clarifying note: I'm talking about Classic High Romance, here, not every story ever). If "they really want to have sex, but they're not having sex!" is literally the ONLY thing you can think of to A) convince us of this and 2) complicate the plot long enough to draw it into a 90-minute movie, then no fair blaming your failure on the zeitgeist. You're the writer. Think of something.
Hey, man, I read in a fandom where one of my very favorite Classic High Romance stories has the hero say in the first reel, "Well, we might as well get it out of the way." Don't come to me with your sad story about how sex is too easy to come by for you to write romance. (Also, don't go to the Brian/Justin writers. They'll laugh much harder at you than I will.)
I'm also sort of grumpy that I'm going to have to see Knocked Up, because it's gotten to the point where it's enough of a Cultural Moment that I feel like I *have* to have some kind of opinion on it, and preferably not one based on reading ten million reviews and think-pieces. Although those are awfully interesting, if depressing. It's weird, though, because while some people complain about it as a romatic comedy that's sucked utterly dry of anything resembling romance, there's also this whole contingent who are basically saying, "But that's why it's like life! The whole world is Craigslist ads and bar hookups and there's no challenge and no mystery and then you figure, well hell, it's probably time I got married, and then you do, which is why Judd Apatow is a GENIUS!" And what really interests me is that I've seen a lot of commentators (who are obviously writers themselves, of one kind or another) essentially say, well, how is it even possible to write about "romance" in the current context, and should you even, or is it inherently false, and was it always false after all, really?
Which is all kind of odd for me, given how much of my life I spend amidst people who write romance for fun. And I think the fic I read now does have a lot more casual sex in it than what I was reading eight and ten years ago -- I think it's responsive to the Cultural Context in that way, where having sex is not really something you only do after you've decided to spend your lives together, or even something you only do with people you madly love, and that casual sex isn't really dirty or subversive or edgy anymore, but just one type of sex that most people have at one time of their lives or another. The characters don't by and large have any more retrograde expecations about sex and relationships than the readers and writers do (in fact, we often are much closer to the mainstream than our source material is on this point).
And yet, it doesn't seem like any of that is hampering fandom in the slightest bit when it comes to turning out High Classic Romance, so I'm kind of left baffled. Not that mainstream filmmakers should have to write High Classic Romance if they don't want to, but the idea that they *would* if such a thing were even *imaginable* right now, but alas! That's very weird to me. It's not freaking rocket science, you know? High Romance derives from the idea that this experience is different from all the others -- and in cultures where casual sex is more taboo, then part of what's "different" can be the amplification of the sexual tension, but if you're writing in a milieu where there's often not a lot of sexual tension, then something else about the relationship has to be the part that's "different this time." If a million fangirls can figure out what that might be, then surely to God there are professional screenwriters who can crack the code, too.
Free Hint to Baffled Screenwriters: Sexual tension is not the goal. Sexual tension is a tool that you have at your disposal -- and admittedly, a particularly versatile and reliable one. Sexual tension is the claw-hammer of writing romance. But if you feel like you cannot in good conscience find or invent a reason for these people not to have sex with each other (and I maintain that you're the *writer,* and you can proabably think one up if you really want to, but okay, let's say you can't), then use a different tool. The *goal* is to convince your audience that these two people will never, ever manage to be truly happy unless they're together (clarifying note: I'm talking about Classic High Romance, here, not every story ever). If "they really want to have sex, but they're not having sex!" is literally the ONLY thing you can think of to A) convince us of this and 2) complicate the plot long enough to draw it into a 90-minute movie, then no fair blaming your failure on the zeitgeist. You're the writer. Think of something.
Hey, man, I read in a fandom where one of my very favorite Classic High Romance stories has the hero say in the first reel, "Well, we might as well get it out of the way." Don't come to me with your sad story about how sex is too easy to come by for you to write romance. (Also, don't go to the Brian/Justin writers. They'll laugh much harder at you than I will.)