Mate, spawn and die

Dealing with love interests without all the romance novel crap.

Onscreen characters in Hollywood motion pictures have the world's shortest lifespan of any living thing: about 90 minutes. If they don't reproduce before the credits, no sequel. As a result, they tend to get tunnel vision when it comes to falling in love. First person they see. Bam! Works out great. Sixty minutes left. Oh no! They got in fight! Okay, they made up, now they're back together. Thirty minutes left. Time to get married. Oh s**t, five minutes left! Quick, make a baby! Score! We're gonna have a sequel!

So what you get is the cliche, Boy meets Girl, happy forever. What you don't see so often is Boy meets Girl, Boy digs Girl but Girl has a boyfriend, Boy gets over it because Boy isn't a creepy stalker, Boy meets Stripper, Boy gets stripper for a while, stripper starts doing heroin, Boy feels it's best to move on, Boy runs into ex-girlfriend from high school and they end up getting drunk and sleeping together but it's not weird the next day and they manage to stay good friends even though they're not really dating, Boy gets dressed and returns to the task of furthering the plot of the story, which was actually about robbing a bank secretly run by illuminati vampires and had nothing to do with falling in love at all.

Now if you ARE writing a love story or something where the love element is part of the plot, is it focused on just two people? Is it a love triangle? A lust pentagram? An octagon of platonic fondness? And more importantly, what else is going on? Is it the apocalypse? Are they partners in crime? Are they porn stars with raging coke habits and serious jealousy issues that become violent arguements? Is there ANYTHING else going on, or is just a big orgy of feelings? 

As a guy I tend to like guy things. Mainly tits, beer, and fire. Okay granted, most girls like those things too...at least the girls I hang out with do. I don't know about your friends. So when I think of great love stories the first movie that comes to mind is True Romance. If you've never seen it, don't be thrown by the title. Tarintino wrote the screenplay so it's still a bloodbath. It's a love story between a hooker and guy that hallucinates Elvis. And it's full of machine guns. But you know what? By the end of the film you know they're completely in love. You can feel it. And that's powerful.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, good love stories need machine guns. 

Comments

Virtue Jackson

Posted 6 Years Ago I guess I need to watch a movie.

KristenMaye

Posted 13 Years Ago "Octagon of platonic fondness" I freaking love you. This is one of the first lessons that i have actualy enjoyed on this site, and not just for the sarcasm.

Jenna Tarrington

Posted 14 Years Ago "As a guy I tend to like guy things. Mainly tits, beer, and fire." You just described my boyfriend. I have to say, I have enjoyed reading this lesson more than most of the prose here.

roarke

Posted 14 Years Ago ..................."It's love story between a hooker and guy that hallucinates Elvis. And it's full of machine guns." everyone should quit writing now. Just put the paper and laptops away and go sell insurance. Mike, you're not related to Sam Kineson by any chance are you? Oh, and that first scenario, I think Frank Miller did that one sketched on the back of a strip joint napkin... so it's rumored anyway. and.... I got so distracted, I think I'm going to have to take this class over again.......