Top 10 Structurally Awesome Romance Movies

Screenwriter and author Alexandra Sokoloff spoke at the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers meeting this weekend on Screenwriting Tips for Authors (and Screenwriters). It was amazing! Thanks, Alex!

One of her first tips was to come up with 10 movies to study. Here, I’ll just paste it from her blog:

To teach yourself story structure, you start by making a list of 10 movies and books in the genre you’re writing in and/or that you feel are similar in structure to the story you want to write. From this list you are going to develop your own personalized story structure workbook.

This, to me, is brilliant. I have taken apart books in my genre before, but it takes hours upon hours and it’s a little painful, unless you’ve just recently read the book, because you have to go back and reread everything to figure out what’s going on. But with a movie? 2 hours and you’re done, plus you get to watch an awesome movie while you’re working on it.

So here are the movies on my list, and my attempt at log lines for those:

**SPOILER ALERT**

These log lines are spoilers, so skip down past the list if you don’t want to see.

1. Return to Me: A widower falls in love with a heart transplant patient, only to discover that his deceased wife was the organ donor.

2. Runaway Bride: A big-city divorce exposes a small-town heart-breaker for what she is on the verge of her next doomed wedding, and then falls in love with her himself.

3. When Harry Met Sally: Longtime platonic friends end up traveling to New York City together, and dance around their deeper feelings for one another for years.

4. The Holiday: Two women swap houses to reassess their love lives, and end up falling into new relationships.

5. While You Were Sleeping: A lonely woman saves the unknowing object of her affection from certain death… and then falls in love with his family.

6. Pretty Woman: A billionaire sweeps a hooker with a heart of gold off her feet.

7. Sleepless in Seattle: Two people living across the country from each other are drawn together by destiny (and a little bit of help from a young boy).

8. The Wedding Singer: Two people, already engaged to two other people, meet and fall in love, making their own engagements seem even worse.

9. Kate & Leopold: A chivalrous hero of yesteryear (literally) sweeps a modern, independent woman off her feet.

10. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: A web of lies ensnares a couple into an unlikely relationship, but they find that it’s a relationship worth pursuing.

I’ve begun to watch the first ones on my list and notate them out in the Three Act Structure  (which I’ll share on the blog if there’s any interest in it). I’m a structure girl, so this really appeals to me.

So how about you? What are your Top 10 Movies (based on whatever you want– your genre, Best Movies Ever, or your favorite nerdy structure movies if you’re like me)? Tell me in the comments!

Related posts:

1. My Top 10 Action Movies
2. #10 Cancel Satellite TV: DONE!
3. Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Try a Romance Novel
4. Premise Lines