Everyone knows it’s hard for men to make it as screenwriters in today’s Hollywood. Over the last twenty years, the percentage of studio movies written by women has exploded from eleven per cent to almost thirteen per cent. With the deck so stacked against us, it’s more important than ever to show that male screenwriters can do everything that female screenwritresses can do, and there’s no better example than writing love stories.
You probably feel that your movie is perfect without a love story. But, these days, writing a screenplay without a love story is like giving a fat monkey half a banana—even though he’d be better off without the rest of the banana, if you don’t give it to him, he’s going to scream and throw his feces at you, until you say, Fine, here’s the rest of the banana, you stupid monkey. The point is, even if it hurts the second act of your perfect but mysteriously unsold movie about a time-travelling assassin, you’ve got to put a love story in your script.
The first and most important step in constructing any love story is to come up with two great characters, so you should always base the male character completely on yourself, because, hello, now you’ve only got to think of one character. If you’re writing a gay love story, you can base both characters on you, and you won’t have to think of any characters at all. Lesbian love stories will require you to construct two characters who are not based on you, so those should be avoided at all costs.
When creating a great female character to fall in love with the You character, there are several important questions to ask. How hot is she? How can you artfully describe her hotness in the stage directions? What’s the best place to have a meet-cute with a large-breasted single mom who has a sensuous mouth and animal sexuality? And remember: don’t fall into the same trap as so many young male writers by writing one-dimensional female characters. The women in your script should be sexy without trying and another thing.
Now that you’ve created your characters, there needs to be an almost insurmountable obstacle to their love. Something that comes between them that threatens to drive them apart during the crucial “all is lost” moment in the second act. Something like a time-travelling assassin, but not that, because apparently “that sounds a lot like ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Assassin’s Creed’ ” even if your assassin isn’t a robot and, unlike Michael Fassbender, is bald.
Be sure not to break the reality of your characters’ universe just to serve your love story. If your characters stop to have sex while a time-travelling assassin is chasing them (for example, but not that), it will seem wedged in and superfluous. A more realistic time would be right after the female lead’s only child is kidnapped and she is holed up with the You character in a cheap motel. All they’re doing is waiting for the phone to ring, so nothing is stopping them from passing the time fully nude and lit only by the flickering neon motel sign outside.
Every great love story has a turning point—that moment when the accessible knockout realizes that You have saved her from a (non) time-travelling (not) assassin and that You are also the best thing that’s ever happened to her. There are no shortcuts here—you have to make this moment utterly believable. It could happen when she sees You punch out her no-good, alcoholic, cheating boyfriend; it could be when You explain to her the history and cultural significance of a musical genre/seventies cult movie/obscure comic book. It could even be a third thing that nobody has ever done before.
Finally, you need a happy ending. Every one of your instincts will tell you that the happiest possible ending is for the You character to avoid the long-term romantic commitment that the female lead wants while You maintain an open door with her sexually. But, in today’s female-dominated Hollywood, studio execs want something more traditionally romantic. One good fix is for him to promise to love her forever while she’s dying in his arms, because that counts as romantic, but we also know she’ll be dead soon, freeing him up long-term.
So you’ve made great characters, they’ve met cute, had their turning point, had sex in a motel, overcome their insurmountable obstacle, and you’ve nailed your feel-good ending. Congratulations! Your script is as good as sold! You’ve broken through the female stranglehold on screenwriting and struck a blow against the Matriarchy, but this is just the beginning. You could write a new “Star Wars” that finally has a male lead; you could re-reboot “Ghostbusters” to be male again; you might even find yourself wanting to help other struggling male screenwriters by using your newfound clout to get Mark Wahlberg to read more scripts by men, like one in which he protects a busty single mom from a time-travelling assassin. Or he could play the time-travelling assassin. Whatever he’s into.