Romantic comedy or contemporary with a smile?
| Things have been so crazy in my life that I forgot to mention that I entered the Romance Divas' Best First Scene contest after all. I wasn't sure at first. I wanted to submit something new, but the NaNo challenge kept too busy to come up with something. So after finishing the NaNo challenge, I opened the files and chose the second version of the first scene of the story I'd planned to submit to the Amber Quill Press Contest at the beginning of this year. It is a light romantic comedy. Since the contest started, it has been judged 9 times. On a scale from 1 to 60, it has received from 40 to 57. The scores have been either high or too low. Again, this shows how subjective contests are. Some of the judges clearly stated that they weren't fans of my heroine having her choice career, which I know can affect the score. *chuckles* Now, what I found interesting was the comments to the question "Are the humorous elements a strong component? Do you see hints for a humorous plot and characters?" Those who scored my piece low were quick to point out that it lacked in that department. In other words, it wasn't funny. So I've been thinking about what a romantic comedy is. For me, a romantic comedy has basically a feel good story. Nothing too dramatic or dark. It can present hilarious situations. Some of them border into slapstick comedy, which can make me laugh. Others use sarcasm. Many have a "smart-ass" heroine who can make me laugh when she zinges someone. However, a romantic comedy doesn't necessarily have to make me laugh at every turn. Sometimes the situations presented just make me smile, or maybe chuckle. For example, the movie "You've Got Mail" is a romantic comedy. It didn't make me laugh at all, but it sure brought me a smile and a few chuckles watching these two people, who obviously can't stand each other since they're competitors, fall in love through the Internet. Yet, for what I've read in the comments left for my scene, since it didn't make anyone have a bellyache from laughing, it should be labeled a contemporary with a smile. So here is the second thing I've been pondering. What do readers look for in a romantic comedy? When you see a book label romantic comedy, do you expect it to be hilariously funny, full of "fall-off-your-chair-laughing" situations, lots of comedy errors? Is it necessary for a romantic comedy to be funny all the time, to make you laugh in every single page? Or is it enough that it makes you smile, bringing a "feel good" feeling? |
posted by Silma at 10:32 AM
Comments on "Romantic comedy or contemporary with a smile?"
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Gena Showalter said ... (12:06 PM) :
post a commentI personally dislike slapsticks cuz they tend to make the heroine look f* retarded since the writers can't make the hero look stupid.
To me, romantic comedy is not only feel good but it's funny in that I can relate to the situation and the humor of it. It's really in the voice, the way the author captures the absurdity fo the situation. If you look at NOBODY'S BABY BUT MINE by SEP, the set up is: a brainy scientist seduces a football player for a normal-intelligent baby, but the jock turns out to be smarter than he looks! It could be angsty if SEP was an angsty writer -- she could've focused on the heroine's miserable childhood cuz she was way smarter than everyone, etc. But she didn't. She focused on the strangeness / wackiness of the heroine's idea to have a baby with a dumb man so that her baby will be normal. Then the tone carries the entire story and makes it interesting and funny.
With slapsticks, they're just difficult to sustain humor. For example, you made your heroine slip on banana peels and fall. It was funny....OK. That was enough for one chapter. You still have the rest of the book. You possibly can't repeat such humor for the entire book. It eventually sounds repetitive and the heroine or the clumsy character becomes annoying and caricaturish.
Anyways, it's just my very humble opinion. :)
I'm not a big slapstick fan either. It's either funny or it's not. And my sense of humor to some would be sarcastic or they'd think I was smart@$$. But hey, to each his own. And yes, contests are so judgmental. But good for you on entering. I'd thought about it but decided not to.
I agree with the other posters. Slapstick is just too much. There are degrees of hilarity, and I think that bringing a smile or chuckle to a reader's face every now and then is great. If it's so lighthearted all the way through, it tends to give cavities. It needs some meat somewhere in there.
So don't go OVERBOARD! But I think you can do it!
Grins*
I think they're books that make you smile, much like 'You've Got Mail' and 'French Kiss' (one of my favs). You have moments where you might laugh out loud, but you don't expect it to be funny on every page. That would be rather boring, don't you think? I actually tend to avoid books labeled romantic comedy because humor is SO subjective.
Writing romantic comedy is so difficult, and what one person considers funny might not make another person crack a smile. This is part of the reason why Harlequin haven't been able to sustain a romantic comedy line. American humor is so different from English humor, for example.
Personally, I hate slapstick, and it's hard to make this work in a romance because the characters need to grow during the course of the book. It's hard for them to grow if they're acting like idiots all the way through the story. I like a book that makes me smile, has a few laugh-out loud moments and ends making me feel good about love and the world in general.
I write romantic comedy - usually by mistake. It happens because of the way the characters interact, for example in my Talking Dogs books. They're quirky characters that see life in their own particular way and say things that I'd love to say but never do. They make me smile when I write them and sometimes laugh out loud so I figure that they might appeal to readers.
I agree with Jordan when she says you can't have humor on every page. There's got to be some downtime at some stage!
One of the workshops I went to at the RWA nationals was about comedy. The author makes a living at writing to make people laugh, and even though I've never read her she had all kinds of tips. My favorite scenes tend to put characters in "unexpected" situations. Like an erotic romance where a woman goes to a bar and meets this hunk and has the fling of a lifetime. As a reader I'd expect that was the hero, but the heroine sure didn't and those kind of situations make me smile.
I have to say that I'm not a fan of slapstick comedy either.
Truthfully, I'm the wrong person to answer this question, since I was a miserable failure at romantic comedy. I came across my first rejection letter the other day, and I realized that the editor really must've thought I was a moron. I'm just surprised she took the time to tell me that. And, for the record, it was slapstick, which is my absolute favorite. I still tend toward slapstick,even in real life, and then have to slap myself.
Jennifer Cruise can make me laugh out loud! It's not slapstick, but the humor stems from the characters thoughts and words.