In the past few years, quite a few film critics and commentators have written about the demise of the romantic comedy. The latest volley is Christopher Orr’s article in The Atlantic, bemoaning the quality of the genre. His main argument is that it’s played out because none of the traditional obstacles to romance exist any longer: class conflict, parental disapproval, money problems, etc. Since I’ve been thinking about this topic for many years now, I was all set to write a post about the only obstacle that’s left in modern love that DOES keep people apart: internal conflict. But Slate’s Alyssa Rosenberg beat me to it, penning a great post about how modern romance has changed, but modern romcoms haven’t. I’m not going to rehash her insights, so I’ll come at the same idea from a different angle: How can screenwriters improve the modern crop of romcoms?