Ep180: (B)Romance: How Dumb & Dumber and When Harry Met Sally are the Same Screenplay

Writer Craft Podcast

Bromance: How Dumb & Dumber and When Harry Met Sally are the Same Screenplay (21:42)

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Segment 1 (Announcements/Author Updates):

• Unlocking the Hearth of Your Memoir (Wordcrafters)
• Aligned Author: A Workshop in Intuitive Planning and Strategy (last weekend on Anderson Island)

• (Erick) Spring Break, busy, marketing, When can I slot in phone calls?, less writing

What are you reading?

• Valerie: In the Dream House (Carmen Maria Machado) The Girl from the Grand Hotel (Camille Aubray)
• (Not ready to give up on them, but struggling to finish them:) Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman; The Year of the Puppy (Alexandra Horowitz) ; The Teller of Small Fortunes Julie Leong
• Erick: Stephen Brust's The Book of Jhereg (Vlad Taltos)

• Segment 2 (Resources/Tips/Tidbits):

• Tidbit #1: simplyscripts.com to read screenplays (not the bound screenplays in bookstores); Drew's Script-o-Rama; Scott Myers' Go Into the Story (Read scripts you've watched before and ones you haven't.)
• Tidbit #2:
• Segment 3 (Mindset-Craft-Biz Check):

Segment 4 (Main Topic):

Romcom 90-100 pages

Same beats in every story (might take longer to reach the beat.)

Buddy comedies and romantic comedies reach beats at the same time.

1) Characters always odd couple. (Internal push/pull.) Emotional bonding early on.

D&Dumber (Harry and Lloyd)

WHMS (Harry and Sally)

2) Meet Cute (sparks the long term relationship/Will they survive as friends? Will they/Won't they tension at beginning of the movie--by page 5 (within 5-8 minutes) when the theme of the story is stated.

3) Page 12 is where story diverges and real problem starts. 12-25 emotional bonding is depicted. Quirky side characters introduced (opposite of main characters).

4) Page 25 is start of Act II. (25-30 central theme is tested. Page 30-55 Fun and Games, tested in fun ways (with minimal risk)

5) Midpoint (something happens and fun and games has more risk, stakes are different). Now antics are pointed towards each other. (Pages 55-70)

6) Page 75 (the dark night of the soul sequence starts here) characters hit rock bottom, how do the characters deal with it.

7) Ending (emotional payoff and repair what's broken).

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Next episode: Guest H.H. Rune on Letting Your Story Go Out into the World.