Screenwriting : Too cliché/stereotypical by Brian McAndrew

*Rocker

If you write a compelling story around them, of course not.

A rocket would be awesome. Nothing is too cliched if rendered in an interesting way. I mean, you could mix it up... she's the worldly one, he's the virgin (of course, that's Footlose). He's a complete a*hole who beats her, and her Dad rescues her and she ends up rededicating herself to chastity and Jesus. You could tell any number of stories with that configuration that aren't exactly what we've seen before. What's your STORY, exactly? Is that a cliche?

Yeah, I'd have to agree with Kathryn -- it is a bit cliché. Perhaps flip it, preacher's son falls for a rocker girl. :)

For the folks crying "cliche": help me out. Obviously "odd couple"-type pairings are a cliche in general, but is there a well-known movie with, specifically, a rocker and preacher's daughter hooking up that I'm not thinking of? Or are we just generalizing this to the bad boy/good girl dynamic? If we are, who's to say the rocker in question is a bad boy? What if it was a Christian rocker, and the preacher Dad was thrilled with the pairing? Then it turned out that the rocker was an abusive, patriarchal shit. There's a story there that's not necessarily cliche. Point being: what's the STORY? The character pairing -- based on sketchy info provided -- is not guaranteed to lead to a cliched story. IMHO.

Why not hve the Preacher fall for the Rocker, skip the daughter.

This is more being paranoid.

Kerry, yup, it's bad boy/good girl at its basic concept level -- and that's been done to death. I really don't feel the need to list examples, there are too many. Hell, every romance novel has some sort of version of this core idea. However, you are absolutely right, we have not been given enough information about this particular story so we are all defaulting to stereotypes -- rocker = bad boy; PK = good girl. If Brian would share the full concept and storyline perhaps we could be of better service. :)

I like that idea, Anthony! Just a side story; one church in my small provincial home town recently had a pastor who was a red-headed, middle-aged woman who drove around on a Harley. She'd pull up to the church with the roar of her motorcycle, in her leather bike gear, pull off her helmet, go inside the church and then reappear in her pastor garb. Now that sounds like a character, yes?

Brian, paranoid? I think you may need to share more so we have a better sense of the story. Perhaps, it's a little dark?

@Beth - sounds like a fun Pastor, and a great example of something that subverts our expectations of what 'normal' would be... Machine Gun Preacher is another example.

Lisa, she was a doctor's daughter. :)

Footloose much? yea, its been done. though that Rocket idea sounds promising...

Lisa, are you saying the town in Dirty Dancing was run by bible thumpers?? Are you confusing Dirty Dancing and Footloose? Footloose takes place in a town run by bible thumpers. Dirty Dancing takes place at a Jewish resort in the Catskills. There might be a few Torah kissers around, but no bible thumpers. Also, Danny, I brought up Footloose as an interesting variation. Because although she's the preachers daughter, she's also a "bad girl". He's the virgin in that case, not she.

I liked it better with the rocket. I've never seen that before. One thing you need to consider is scope of the story: is this big enough to fill the screen? This concept seems small. Something like SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is about advances in communications creating situations where people from opposite ends of the country might start a relationship having never met each other. YOU'VE GOT MAIL looked at the idea of online romances before it was really a thing. These films take something that is different about our modern life and uses it as the core of the romcom. It becomes more than just a love story, but a look at our changing world.

Most everything has already been done. The trick is to be creative in the delivery.

How about having a preacher's son fall for an astronaut? During take-off, the preacher's son gets locked into the capsule, sees the heavens, realizes the scientific community does not accept the Old Testament, and tries to convert the astronaut. Then while they are taking a walk on the moon, suddenly they meet the creatures who really run the universe. Romantic-comedy.

Actually mind is a same sex relationship, but I just that whether it was a straight or gay relationship was irrelevant.

A same sex relationship would be a fresh take -- whether friendship or romantic. :)

What if a female long distance bicyclist from out of town becomes a calming influence on the preacher's wild daughter?