Romantic comedy

The article by Billy Mernit on writing romantic comedy, published in the Writers' Guild's magazine UK Writer (Spring 2006) is now available on the Guild's website.

Movie producers aren’t interested in scripts that won’t really fill and hold the big screen, so make sure you’ve made your romantic comedy a movie, as opposed to a stillie. Great movies move - and romantic comedy duds talk themselves to death. I know that many of us lovers of the form are drawn to it precisely because it’s often about wonderfully pithy, sharp, delicious repartee. But too much talk can be the difference between a pass (because what you’ve written is more like a play or a TV show) and a green light - because your romantic comedy can really pull people into a multiplex.