I have a number of legitimate excuses for watching The Bachelor regularly: I really did start watching several years ago because I had to cover it at Entertainment Weekly. I write about television, particularly gender on television, and it is certainly some very gendered (and heteronormative, and white) television. I’m also very interested in the biology and psychology of attraction, and it’s full of that as well. But as I sat and watched two hours of it last night, about 90 minutes longer than I had intended, and past my bedtime, I was more aware than I normally am that The Bachelor is, at its core, just damn good storytelling. Professionally manipulative storytelling, lacking in all subtlety and art. But if you want to know how to tell a good story (then, hopefully, add your own subtlety and art), you can learn some things from The Bachelor:
Add some competition. At its heart, The Bachelor is a sport. Every week is one game, and the overall arc is that of a bracket elimination. We love it in sports, we love it on dating shows. It satisfies our human desire for order and sorting the good from the bad from the best. If you can give your story some sense of competition leading to a final showdown, you have a good story. This is among the many reasons sports movies like The Karate Kid are so compelling.
Plant revelations along the way. The Bachelor always involves some major revelations at some point. A number of the women vying for the bachelor’s affections inevitably have secrets they must eventually tell him. Traumatic past relationships are big; we had two widows this season. So are secrets that may cause some judgement, like Jade’s Playboy past this season. Secrets cause tension, and their revelation always leads to some kind of resolution.
Make heroes and villains. We love rooting for an against people. The Bachelor will always have at least one villain per season. Once, in a fun twist, the bachelor himself (Juan Pablo) became the villain.
Pull characters out of their element. This season has the advantage of a farmer from a teeny Iowa town as its title star. This inherently means that at some point, the women — most of them model/actress/waitress types from places like Los Angeles — have to decide whether they can live on a farm. This discussion began with a trip to bachelor Chris’ hometown this week; the expected explosions did ensue. Other seasons contain this element, too, even if it’s just giving the bungee-jumping date to the girl who obviously said on her pre-show questionnaire that she was afraid of heights.