Writing Beyond
Romantic Love
by
Pamela Jaye Smith & Kathie Fong Yoneda
You can meet Pamela Jaye Smith and Kathie Fong
Yoneda by attending their free class, What's Love Got To Do With It,
on Saturday, June 26 at the GAPF! Click HERE
for a full schedule, and to RSVP to all classes.
Dear Writer,
We want to help you look for love in all the
right
places, no matter what the genre or style of your story. We'll be
getting into more specifics in our workshop but here are some things to
look for and some ways to put the love in all your projects. For the
following films we examine the type love in the story, how it is
expressed both visually and in dialogue, and then some techniques you
can use in your own writing.
***** 
There's a type of love that scales mountains,
moves
rivers, and changes worlds. This sort of love often breaks up families,
ruins careers, and ends in destitution and death. Yet it keeps drawing
people into its lure, offering rewards beyond compare in emotional
satisfaction, lifelong relationships, and worldly riches. This love is
the Love of Adventure. Since the first hominids dropped down from the
trees to explore the savannahs, we humans have distinguished ourselves
by a desire to know what's around the corner, over the hill, and beyond
the stars.
The most recent Star Trek movie offers
an
excellent example of the Love of Adventure at work in a number of
characters, most vividly in that of young James Tiberius Kirk. The
first time we see this character (other than as a newborn) he's a cocky
ten-year-old racing a Corvette across the Iowa prairies with a space
center in the background and a cop in hot pursuit. This visual
expression of derring-do sets the tone for Kirk's bravado and deep
desire to race off into the Final Frontier.
A line of dialogue that well expresses this
Love of
Adventure is inherent in all the Star Treks -- "To boldly go where no
one has gone before".
Up is another Love of Adventure story
that also
includes familial love. A widowed septuagenarian and a young latchkey
Wilderness Scout take an adventure of a lifetime when the widower
attaches thousands of helium balloons onto his old home and heads for
Paradise Falls in South America, hoping to fulfill his late
wife’s
dream.
The balloons are an imaginative and colorful
representation of hope… perfect for an animated film. The fact
that
they are attached to the century-old home that belonged to Carl and his
late wife, is the perfect visual pairing to represent the old
man’s
desire to break free from his grief and to finally fulfill the dream of
adventure that he and his wife once shared.
Like Star Trek, this movie also has a
brief line
of dialogue that captures the spirit of most of the characters, from
Carl and his wife Ellie, to the boy Russell, the disgraced adventurer
Muntz, and even the dog Dug and the bird Kevin - “Adventure is
out
there!”
Especially in animation, it’s important
to bring more
visuals into your writing to enable the reader (agent/producer/exec) to
really “see” your vision as an animated property and not as
live
action. You can do this using color as well as sounds (remember to put
sounds in CAPS). However, be careful not to become so involved in your
descriptions that it overwhelms the reader and you lose the pacing and
focus on the story and its characters. Animated movies which are
especially adept in combining visuals and dialogue as well as
heart-felt stories include Toy Story, The Incredibles, Shrek,
Happy Feet, Ratatouille, 9,
and WALL-E.
By its very nature a story about the Love of
Adventure is
big. Wide vistas, far horizons, dangerous heights, gloomy corridors,
raucous jungles. The environment is often the object of the
protagonist's affections, so its descriptions should be strong and
compelling. Using words like "draw in", "vast", "frontier", "vista",
"challenge", "breath-taking", "daring", "dangerous", etc. will give
your reader a sense of how the characters feel when they are in the
settings you describe.
A story about the Love of Adventure should
inspire us to
dust off our passports, pack our pith helmets, and set out for the vast
unknown.
**************
Just as there are all sorts of love besides
Romantic
Love, there are many variations of Romantic Love itself. Two
interesting versions of this type of Romantic Passion are those that
strike early, burn strong, and last forever and those that strike late
but burn high and hot. The former is explored in The Notebook and the
latter in Something's Gotta Give.
Romantic Passion is by its very nature not
Romantic
without obstacles and the painful but delicious yearning that striving
to overcome them creates. What makes these stories interesting is the
nature of the obstacles. In The Notebook the obstacles are
class differences and familial expectations. Romeo and Juliet is the
most famous of these star-crossed couples; others include Tristan and
Isolde, Gatsby and Daisy, and Viola and Will in Shakespeare in Love.
There are also shades of the Beauty and the Beast theme here in that
two people who seemingly do not belong together overcome societal and
cultural barriers via love. 
The visual technique in this film is the use of
the house
as a metaphor for the love between Noah and Allie. Just as Noah
transforms the big old house by his craft and attention, so too does
love transform both Allie and him.
In dialogue Noah well expresses the
transformative
power of love: "The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and
makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings
peace to our minds."
A technique you can use is to find a metaphor
for the Romantic Love of your characters. It could be a house like in The
Notebook, a play like in Shakespeare in Love, a political
cause as in Reds and The Way We Were, or a big cultural clash
as in Avatar.
As humans live longer, romance and sex are not
just
relegated to youth anymore. Not that they ever were, but the media
focus on youth that has held sway for some time is dissolving as
millions of mature people continue to have vibrant, passionate
relationships. And they want to see stories about themselves, so we'll
probably see even more of this type of Romance.
In Something's Gotta Give the obstacle
is one
character's immaturity and the other's aloofness. 60-something Harry is
dating Marin (30 years younger). Hoping to consummate their
relationship, they drive to Marin’s mom’s beach house .
Their plans are
interrupted when Erica (Marin’s mom) and her sister Zoe arrive.
Attempting to be “civil”, the four decide the beach house
is large
enough for all to “do their own thing”. While in the throes
of foreplay
with Marin, Harry has a heart attack and Erica gives him CPR. While
recovering at Erica's house, they settle into a surprisingly easy
truce, both realizing they may have met their match since both seem to
“get” each other.
Stones become a clever visual of opposites
co-existing.
Walking along the beach, Erica picks up a white stone and Harry notices
she collects entire jars of white stones. He picks up a brown one and
gives it to her: “Something to remember me by.” Later,
Harry spots a
jar of white stones with his brown stone on top. When Harry returns to
NYC, Erica hands him a jar of brown stones with a white one on top
signaling the parallel idea of each of them stepping into the other's
lives.
Dialogue reveals Harry's arc when he admits,
“Turns out
the heart attack was easy to get over…you were somethin’
else. I
finally get what it’s all about…I’m 63 and I’m
in love for the first
time in my life.”
Sex and lust can certainly be powerful, but
real
Romantic Passion is transformative, dissolving the barriers of the
individual self and giving us glimpses of paradise. Whether in a drama
or a comedy, you will serve a story of Romantic Passion well if you
reveal in both images and dialogue this sometimes seemingly magical
transformation of character.
*****
A popular theme in comedies these days is the
BFF – Best Friends Forever. This relationship can be among guys,
girls, or a mix. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood features girls, My
Best Friend's Wedding mixes genders, and The Hangover
has at its core a group of guys. The characteristics of BFF Love tested
by the chaos in the story are typically personal loyalty and the
longevity of the relationship.
In The Hangover Groom-to-be Doug and
his friends
Phil (married, 2 kids, teacher), Stu (dentist, with a controlling
girlfriend) and Alan (Doug’s future brother-in-law) head to Las
Vegas
for a Bachelor Party at Caesar’s Palace. They awaken the next
morning
to find the suite has been trashed, there’s a live tiger in the
bathroom, a baby in the closet, Doug is missing, Stu has a cheap
wedding ring on his finger, and no one can remember what happened. They
have 13 hours to retrace their steps, find Doug, and get back to LA in
time for the wedding.
The City of Las Vegas acts as a visual metaphor
with
its sense of wild chaos, bright lights, and promises of non-stop fun.
Vegas acts as a “prison” as Phil, Stu and Alan attempt to
find out what
happened to them in the previous 10 hours and to locate Doug before
they can leave Sin City.
In a fun twist of using dialogue from the
outside, in an
almost narrative form, mocking them is Vegas’ motto: “What
happens in
Vegas, Stays in Vegas” – if only they knew what did happen
in Vegas,
then they could actually leave Vegas!
An effective technique in this kind of ensemble
story is
to really play up the contrasts amongst the characters using dialogue,
clothing, background/culture. If your characters have known each other
for awhile, think of ways you can bring up backstory in a comedic, but
telling way. Check out movies like Pineapple Express, Bad
Boys, Men in Black, Rush Hour, Tango & Cash,
and 48 Hours.
Comedy is often funniest when it's poking fun
at things we take seriously. The entire movie Tropic Thunder
pokes good fun at the excessive movie-making process, the ginormous
egos, the artistic pretensions, the false bonhomie of film set
friendships. Mostly it pokes fun at the often blind Love of the Muse,
in this case acting. Many actors (as well as writers, musicians,
dancers, and other artists) liken their dedication to the Muse of their
profession to the obsessions of a passionate love affair.
From the very beginning the difference between
Robert
Downey Jr's Award-winning, deep, serious actor and Ben Stiller's
shallow robotic box-office movie star is played up. Yet both have a
gripping love of acting. Stiller's character is the desperately
courting would-be lover striving to become worthy of his beloved yet
elusive Muse. Downey's character is so wrapped up in his tempestuous
affair with a role he brags that he doesn't break character until after
he's done the DVD commentary.
The visual expression of Downey's Love of
Acting is his
physical appearance. He plays a blue-eyed, blond-haired Australian
actor playing a black soldier, so he's had his skin dyed, wears dark
contacts and an Afro wig. His character affects a 1970s "street"
dialogue, much to the disdain of an actual black actor on the cast.
His dialogue reflects his total mutual embrace
of the
Muse in his defiant affirmation, "I know what dude I am. I'm the dude
playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!"
The payoff of this setup is when he takes off
the wig,
removes the contacts, breaks into Aussie slang, and reveals himself as
the vulnerable actor who actually supports other actors on the show,
even in the midst of severe physical danger.
A technique you can use is to show your
character
totally embracing their Muse in their wardrobe, hair, style of
movement, style of dialogue. Watch other films about artists to see how
the art itself affects their lifestyle from their very core to their
interactions with the rest of the world. Stage Beauty, Shakespeare
in Love, Pollock, and Adaptation are good examples
of characters totally transformed by the Love of the Muse.
*****
In this article we've looked at just a few of
the many
answers to the question of "What's Love Got To Do With It?" Join us in
our GAPF class on Saturday June 26th from 9-10:30am to learn more about
how to put the Love in your plotline, how to bring the Love out in your
characters, and how to seduce your audience to Love your stories.
PAMELA JAYE SMITH
is an Author, Consultant, Speaker, and award-winning Producer/Director.
She is the author of THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE, INNER
DRIVES, and SYMBOLS, IMAGES & CODES.
Pamela is the founder of MYTHWORKS and co-founder of Alpha Babe
Academy. Her story consulting covers all the standards plus
specialities in mythology, the military, metaphysics, and Masonry. www.pamelajayesmith.com.
KATHIE FONG
YONEDA is a consultant, workshop leader and author of THE
SCRIPT-SELLING GAME: A Hollywood Insider’s Look at Getting Your
Script Sold and Produced,
2nd edition to be published in early 2011. A former studio exec, Kathie
has worked with several award-winning writers and has given workshops
in over a dozen countries worldwide. She also teaches an online class
for Writers University and co-exec produced the cable series Beyond
the Break. www.kathiefongyoneda.com
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