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Tag Archives: Romantic Comedy

LOVE ~ Fiction’s Greatest Common Denominator

14 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Love, Story, Writing

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Blake Snyder, Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire, Elizabeth Fais, Fiction, Hallmark, Hamlet, Harry Potter, Hollywood, Jane Austen, Katherine Applegate, Love, Macbeth, Mortal Instruments, opera, Othello, Rom-Com, Romantic Comedy, Romeo and Juliet, Rossini, Save the Cat!, Severus Snape, Shadowhunter Chronicles, Shakespeare, The One And Only Ivan, Valentine's Day

I love you heart❤️ It’s Valentine’s Day ❤️ 

Love is in the air, whether you adore the holiday or not.

Many bemoan the grandiose expectations the holiday puts on…well…everyone.

Don’t blame Hallmark.

Instead, look to fiction for insights into why this holiday has become a national obsession.

Love … Has Everything to Do With It

As Blake Snyder, Mr. Save the Cat!, used to say, “The motivating force of a story has color heart lightto be primal.” And nothing is more primal than love. I’d go so far as to say that love is fiction’s greatest common denominator, that the roots of every story are based in love.

Whether it’s seeking love, giving love, protecting love, grieving for love, or the ugliness that springs from lack of love or unrequited love.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is one of the most popular stories of all time, because it resonates with humanity’s innermost core. Love.

Love’s Joyful Eccentricities

The romantic comedy (rom-com) is the popular love story of today. Shakespeare was the first to make that particular story type popular, though. Shakespeare wrote a total of 16 romantic comedies, earning him the title as the original Rom-Com King. Rossini, and other composers, carried the romantic comedy into the opera houses with great success. Later, Hollywood was quick to spin the romantic comedy into a film genre.

In children’s literature, the net of love stretches to include other species. For example, TheOneAndOnlyIvan_coverin The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, a young girl’s compassionate love for Ivan, the shopping mall gorilla, is the catalyst for his freedom.

Likewise, Ivan’s love for the elephants who are also trapped in the roadside shopping mall attraction sparks his imagination and fuels his actions that provide the means for the young girl to help them.

Spanning centuries, artistic mediums, and species…the love story has touched the hearts of audiences everywhere. To such a great extent, it has permeated the fabric of our consciousness. Such is the power of love. Because it’s primal.

Love’s Darker Faces

The primal motivating force of a character always comes back to love. “Even the villain?” you ask. Yes. Severus Snape, in J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series, is a perfect example of denied love giving the character a villainous face.

City of Heavenly Fire coverShakespeare’s dramatic plays reflect the darker facets of love, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. Jane Austen, thought by many to be the Queen of Romance in fiction, touches the sadder sides of love in her works, such as Persuasion.

Cassandra Clare‘s Mortal Instruments series is woven through with characters’ experiences and expressions of the grimmer facets of love, that sometimes grow so dark as to perpetuate murder. However, the main theme revolving throughout the series is self-acceptance.

The characters come to see and understand that the choices they make and the consequences that follow are a reflection of their level of self-love. This realization leads some through their darkness, to where they can embrace the healing power of love.


“The Santa Drag” ~ This Santa has a secret only true love can reveal!

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Fiction, Rom-Com, Romance

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Christmas, Fiction, Holiday, Liv Rancourt, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Santa, Short Story, The Santa Drag

This season the biggest surprise isn’t under the tree…

The Santa Drag coverMackenzie’s an out-of-work actress who takes a job as a shopping mall Santa to pay the rent. She fools everyone with her Santa drag, until the day Joe McBride walks into the mall. Joseph Timothy McBride – the real-life, got a soap opera gig and you saw him in Scream II actor. The only guy she ever really loved.

Can Mack stay in character, or is it time to strip off the red coat and peel off the beard for good?

The Santa Drag is a 6,000 word short story about a Santa with a secret, stressed out parents in the mall, and one very handsome actor.

Black Friday FREEBIE! ~ Nov. 28-30

Don’t miss out on this delicious holiday treat! From 11/28 – 11/30/14, The Santa Drag is FREE from Amazon [Kindle Edition]!

Reviewers have called this story charming and funny. Want a quick holiday pick-me-up? Get it here with one-click: The Santa Drag.

The Santa Drag is available exclusively from Amazon [Kindle Edition]. After November 30th, you can buy it here.

Read an Excerpt:

A kid in my lap threatened to throw up, taking my full attention for several moments, and when I looked up again it was Joe’s turn. Maya gave him a way-too-friendly smile, which he returned with his standard, ‘yep, I’m handsome,’ grin. His kids stood behind him. The boy clearly thought he was too old for all this nonsense, and his sister was trapped in between the excitement of seeing Santa and her brother’s ennui.

“Come on, guys,” Joe said, tugging the boy forward with an arm around the shoulders. I paid strict attention to the kids. I did not want to look at his face or see the dimple in his chin.  He turned around to say something to Maya. I really didn’t want to look at his ass.

“Uncle Joe, this is so stupid,” the boy said. Uncle Joe. I almost jumped out of my chair. They must be his sister Kelly’s kids.

“Get over there, Saxton. We’re taking pictures for your mother’s Christmas present. Mabyn, you too.” Joe pushed his nephew in my direction. Saxton and Mabyn? Wow, Kelly must be seriously into her Irish heritage. Or something.

Saxton was dressed in a red and green striped soccer jersey and jeans, his longish brown hair slicked back behind his ears. Mabyn wore a green sweater and jeans, with her hair pulled back in a thick red braid. Joe had jeans on, too. I tried really hard not to notice how well they fit across his thighs.

“Uncle Joe, will you get us some ice cream after this?” Mabyn asked.

“If you smile pretty for the camera.”  Joe gave her a shadow of the grin that I remembered. She gave him a pretty decent grin in return, though her big front teeth overlapped and there was a gap where one eye tooth should have been. Braces must be coming soon.

“She wishes she could smile pretty,” Saxton sneered. Mabyn smacked him on the arm. “Ow, she hit me. She should get in trouble.”

I would have hit him harder.

With Joe standing so close, it was hard to remember that I was supposed to be Santa. I gave a half-assed “Ho-ho-ho,” which sounded strangled, even to me. He glanced over at me, and I accidentally met his eyes. I looked away immediately, but not before I saw the flash. Not recognition, exactly, but interest. I could feel him watching me. “Ho-ho-ho.” It came out heartier this time. I was so not going to give myself away.

Meet Liv:

I write romance: m/f, m/m, and v/h, where the h is for human and the v is for vampire…or sometimes demon. I write funny. I don’t write angst. When I’m not writing I take care of tiny premature babies or teenagers, depending on whether I’m at home or at work. My husband is a soul of patience, my dog is the cutest thing evah(!), and we’re up to three ferrets.

I can be found on-line at all hours of the day and night:

  • My website & blog: livrancourt.com
  • Facebook: liv.rancourt
  • Twitter: @LivRancourt

Stop by. We’ll have fun!


Shakespeare: The Rom-Com King

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Elizabeth Fais in Humor, Rom-Com, Shakespeare

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Bardacious, comedies, Elizabeth Fais, Reduced Shakespeare Company, Rom-Com, Romantic Comedy, Shakespeare

Happy Bardacious Birthday!

Fireworks heartsToday is Shakespeare’s 449th birthday! If you missed last year’s Bardacious Birthday post on YA-spin adaptations of his plays, you can read it here.

This year I wanted to do a celebratory shout out for Shakespeare’s happy plays … the romantic comedies. Rom-coms, in the current vernacular

Shakespeare’s comedies are my favorites, shallow (but happily so) as that may be. Though I’m not alone, if you consider how long they’ve been hits … 400+ years!

When I was researching my post, Rom-Coms ~The Lighter Side of Love, I came across an article that claimed “Shakespeare was the first [author] to make rom-coms popular.” I don’t know if that’s true. But it sounds true, so I’m going to roll with it seeing how it’s his birthday and all.

The following is a list of Shakespeare’s comedies. I’m sure you’ve heard of at least a few, and maybe even seen a movie of one or two:

  • All’s Well That Ends WellMidsummer's Nigh Dream movie poster
  • As You Like It
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Measure for Measure
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Tempest
  • Twelfth Night
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen
  • The Winter’s Tale

Forsooth! Formulaic or Fantastic?

I may be a huge Shakespeare comedy fan, but there are some who insist his comedies are formulaic. That he even “borrowed” the formula and used it over, and over, and over again. Whatever.

I love Shakespeare’s comedies for what they are — witty and fun. In their time, they entertained nobility and the uneducated common folk. In the same theater. No small feat, breaching a target audience gap that wide.

How now! A 16 Play Mashup!

Shakespeare was a man of his time, and if he were alive today he’d embrace the humor and whimsy of our modern world. Enter the mashup. It’s popular in today’s music, why not plays? The following mashup of Shakespeare’s 16 comedies was contrived by none other than the raucously irreverent Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC), creators of the Othello Rap…

The Comedy of Two Well Measured Gentlemen Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer’s-Twelfth Night in Winter; or Cymbeline Taming Pericles the Merchant in the Tempest of Love as Much as you like it for Nothing; or Four Weddings and a Transvestite

Trust me. You don’t want to miss the performance of the comedy mashup…

Reduced Shakespeare Company ~ 16 Comedies in 4 Minutes!


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