48 pages • 1 hour read
The Rom-Commers
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Symbols & Motifs
The Screenplay
Throughout the novel, Emma and Charlie struggle to revise the rom-com screenplay while they simultaneously grapple with their feelings about love and the romance building between them. In this way, the screenplay serves as a symbol for Charlie and Emma’s relationship and how their feelings about love and themselves must evolve for them to have their happily ever after. The screenplay starts as a farce of a rom-com, using all the clichés of the genre but none of the heart. Emma describes how Charlie didn’t include any romance in the original draft, and the things he did include were not at all romantic. She suggests that they research romance to put some real feeling into the script, so they mimic many of Charlie’s original scenes by going line dancing and falling on one another to see whether these things are romantic. Though Emma tries to show Charlie how his first draft is not romantic, all these things only seem to bring them closer together.
As they revise the screenplay, Charlie and Emma start to get in sync with one another, and Emma says, “Maybe writing was our shared love language. [...] We liked the process” (137). Not only does writing the screenplay help their relationship to grow, but it also helps Charlie and Emma grow as individuals. Both characters are fiercely self-reliant, but by collaborating, they begin to recognize how their characteristics complement one another. Writing the screenplay also gets Charlie out of his years-long writer's block, and the edits he makes to the final draft are particularly symbolic of how his views on love have changed throughout the novel. Though Charlie didn’t believe in love before he met Emma, his changing the script to be about two writers and naming the screenplay after a joke she made shows how much she has influenced him. Perhaps most significantly, Charlie’s final draft of the script is sincere, showing how he has come to see love as something real and meaningful. As such, the screenplay and its revision illustrate Charlie and Emma’s changing perspectives and relationship.
The High Dive
Charlie’s mansion was previously owned by a famous diver, so it has a pool with a high dive. However, after a near-fatal drowning when he was a child, Charlie is terrified of swimming and has never gone into the pool. Emma, however, swims every day at home and makes it her mission to help Charlie get over his fears. The pool and its high dive, in particular, symbolize the overcoming of fears—just like jumping off the diving board, Charlie has to take a leap of faith to face what he is afraid of. When Emma is trying to get in the pool, she realizes something important about Charlie: “When Charlie Yates is scared of something, he pretends it doesn’t matter” (94). Charlie acts like her interest in jumping from the high dive doesn’t matter, though he had spent the previous few minutes explaining how she could die from it, and he wouldn’t be able to save her. This is a key moment in their relationship, but it also highlights an important factor about Charlie’s fears. Swimming isn’t the only thing Charlie fears in the novel. Toward the end, it is revealed that he also fears falling in love and the possible disappointment that could come with it. As such, it is especially symbolic that when Emma actually does fall from the diving board, Charlie faces his fears and jumps in to save her. Despite previously telling her that he did not care for her, Charlie shows his love for Emma by doing the thing that scares him most to save her life.
Storytelling
Storytelling is a recurring motif in The Rom-Commers and appears in different ways throughout the novel. Storytelling is particularly apparent in Emma and Charlie’s revising of the rom-com screenplay, as it is their job, in this case, to tell a story. They disagree over whether the story they are to tell is worth telling despite their shared belief that they should only write worthwhile screenplays. Emma’s narration of the novel is also reminiscent of a story being told, and she frequently conceals or includes facts about her life to make for a better story. In particular, Emma keeps details about her family’s camping accident from her reader, saying things like “that’s the long story short. I’m leaving out a lot here [...]. But that’s enough for now” (15). Yet while she is telling a specific story to her audience about the camping accident, Emma is also telling a story to herself about how it happened, continually convincing herself that she is at fault for her mother’s death. This motif of storytelling points to the major theme of Selective Truth Telling and the moral of the story as a whole. At the end of the novel, when Emma says that the story of life is “not just how you live it—but how you choose to tell it” (270), she reveals how much of an impact the way you tell stories can have on your life.
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By Katherine Center
