Where is the line between drama and melodrama?

porneia

porneia

Really Experienced
When do you know you have pushed the drama of a story too far and gone into melodrama?

I just finished a pretty emotional chapter and I can't tell if it was very dramatic (children dying, medical drama, tear-jerking marriage proposals) or has gone too far into the silliness of melodrama.

This is such a fine line. You want to pull on the readers heart-strings, but if you go too far it turns into really, really, bad comedy (I dare anyone to fully watch "The Room" from 2003).

I would think this would apply to any emotional scene, whether romantic, sexual, martial, horror, etc. I would like to explore these areas of writing. Can you scare the reader? Can you make them get fully invested in a tense action sequence? Can you make them fall in like with one of your characters? Or, does someone with their partner take your grand dramatic prose and read them with heavy Slavic accents for a good mocking laugh. (Which I am personally okay with.)

I have no educational or professional background in writing fiction so I am curious if there are any guidelines.

Thank you.
 
First off, I watched "The Room", in theaters, and that was about as unfunny as it gets. 90% of what you saw in that movie was a dramatization of true events, that shit HAPPENED. The one thing I think they shouldn't have included was him asking to nurse, because they didn't explain why he was still nursing.

It was birth control, the only kind she had. You are some huge percentage (can't remember the exact number) less likely to become pregnant if you are still nursing. Look it up, it's a fact.


Now, on to your chapter.

No, I don't think it veers into melodrama, though it toes the line like a soldier. Especially the last three stanzas get way too close.
 
Nemo of Utopia said:
First off, I watched "The Room", in theaters, and that was about as unfunny as it gets.
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Wow, respect for that endurance. I like some "so bad their good" movies, especially if there are wise-cracking robots watching with me. But "The Room" is just in the bad category, at least for me.

Nemo of Utopia said:
Now, on to your chapter . .
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Thank you very much for reading my chapter and your constructive criticism. It is greatly appreciated. I plan to let that chapter sit for a few days and then see if the ending can be improved.
 
Nemo of Utopia said:
First off, I watched "The Room", in theaters, and that was about as unfunny as it gets. 90% of what you saw in that movie was a dramatization of true events, that shit HAPPENED. The one thing I think they shouldn't have included was him asking to nurse, because they didn't explain why he was still nursing.

It was birth control, the only kind she had. You are some huge percentage (can't remember the exact number) less likely to become pregnant if you are still nursing. Look it up, it's a fact.
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Cool fact, but are you talking about the film "Room" from 2015 starring Brie Larson?
 
porneia said:
I was talking about the infamous "The Room" from 2003, which is considered one of the worst movies of all time.
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The one written, directed and produced by an alien? (according to Captain Marvel)
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I think Nemo was talking about "Room." Of course, I'm not to familiar with whatever that thing Tommy Wiseau did, so if you said Tommy was nursing in that film I would believe you.
 
As a confessed Slavic accent reader... Mels and I have watched “The Room” many, many times. Including riffed and unriffed, and as part of Rifftrax Live. And whether or not it’s a drama or melodrama is probably secondary to the issues with the writing, acting, directing, editing, scoring, cinematography, and post production involved. It was kind of a perfect storm of “What?”

I think for me the better example of melodrama is the traditional soap opera or — even more so, the Telenovela. Part of a soap’s job is to build investment to keep the audience coming back day after day, and after a few dozen episodes it runs the risk of falling into “what horrible thing can we do next” to keep engagement up.

So, you may start with a love triangle or murder mystery, and down the line you watch as the plucky heroine Maria, having lost her memory, is forced to wander the streets begging for alms while dressed as a filthy clown.

That was not a made up example. And yes, they were trying to be serious.

Tell me that’s not begging for a slavic accent.
 
(Also, often the quality of a piece has little to do with the potential humor value of Russo-Finnish intonation. Hamlet as done by Londo Mollari would be a triumph of comedy.)
 
Rubicon said:
“The Room” . . . It was kind of a perfect storm of “What?”
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Yeah, I would put it in the "so bad it's good" category. I read one place that what makes something "so bad it's good" is when a film is made with great passionate by people who have no idea what they are doing.

Rubicon said:
I think for me the better example of melodrama is the traditional soap opera or — even more so, the Telenovela.
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Good point. I loath that stuff, thus my desire to avoid sounding like a soap opera. (Hmm, maybe David & Kyle will have a verbal fight and get locked in a closet for a day.) The only thing funny I have ever seen come from that stuff is a biography of Susan Lucci's character, now that was hilarious.

Rubicon said:
Hamlet as done by Londo Mollari would be a triumph of comedy.
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This must be a thing!!! But ugghh, don't get me started on Babylon 5, one of two shows in my life I actually scream in rage at the TV about.

I assume you're a "Shakespeare in Love" and/or "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" fan?
 
More Rosencrantz and Guildenstern than SiL, though I liked SiL fine. And I'm a B5 nut, but I accept not all agree. (And deep down I want Vir and Lennier to have just gone off and gotten a little house somewhere and cooked for each other and had passive aggressive arguments, but I'm alone in that, I think.)
 
Rubicon said:
(And deep down I want Vir and Lennier to have just gone off and gotten a little house somewhere and cooked for each other and had passive-aggressive arguments, but I'm alone in that, I think.)
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Not quite alone, though I wish they got couples counseling instead of having passive-aggressive arguments.
 
ok after looking at your chapter it follows closer to classical melodrama,which is usuallly mistaken for more lighthearted drama.....its pretty good for a melodramatic piece,as it seems to follow more than anything a good show of what real melodrama is.(this is what my training is in, so I can definently tell you it's written quite well)
 
Rubicon said:
And I'm a B5 nut
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Originally, I was a huge fan. I loved the fact that it wasn't Star Trek, especially with the great over arching story of good vs evil and that the enemies were actually demons that every culture had some custom about; so not Star Trek. The episode where Kosh revealed himself to be an angel was one of the best single SciFi episodes I have ever watched. But then, they destroyed years of build up and sold out to the inane (in my opinion) Star Trek cliche of "we've evolved beyond good and evil." When that idiotic line was uttered I actually screamed at the television (and I am not one prone to anger) and never watched the show again. I never felt so betrayed by a TV show. It started out by inspiring to be Shakespeare and instead decided to be the Teletubbies.
(Wow, sorry if that was too blunt, but I still get frustrated after all these years. If you loved the show, I can get that. As always, ty for the comments.)
 
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BladeGod said:
ok after looking at your chapter it follows closer to classical melodrama,which is usuallly mistaken for more lighthearted drama.....its pretty good for a melodramatic piece,as it seems to follow more than anything a good show of what real melodrama is.(this is what my training is in, so I can definently tell you it's written quite well)
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Okay, thank you for reading the chapter and your comments. You are using "melodrama," I believe in the classical sense, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I was using it in the more pejorative sense, of something being "melodramatic."
 
porneia said:
Okay, thank you for reading the chapter and your comments. You are using "melodrama," I believe in the classical sense, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I was using it in the more pejorative sense, of something being "melodramatic."
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yea I did....just letting you know. drama's have more of a tendecy to be "melodramatic" whereas melodrama is typically "dramatic" yours falls under the second
 
BladeGod said:
melodrama is typically "dramatic" yours falls under the second
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Again, you're right and very helpful, thank you. I should have been more careful in how I originally phrased my question.

There is something inherently comic about the whole thing. After all, I am writing a fanfic based on comic book characters that centers around "true love" on a porn-site, all the while having no academic or professional background in writing fiction. That in itself is funny.

To put it simply, I wanted to make sure in a chapter I wrote which was suppose to be tender, romantic and sweet, didn't turn out to be unintentionally silly and comic. At least, for the majority of readers.
 
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