"Ding, dong. You're dead." Let me just start by saying when I was a kid, this movie scared the crap out of me. But it also made me laugh, and that's the one-two punch of most great horror flicks. Set you up, then get your good. That said, I think it's also the mark of great films about authors. Distract you with something or someone (or both) interesting to watch, and then slip a little something meaningful about the craft and/or the writing life into the mix.
And House certainly does that before it goes full-on adventure and excitement in the second act. But just what does it actually say? I'm glad you asked.
First, we as writers don't get to define our audience. Sure, we can write to a target type and we can visualize our ideal reader as we create, but ultimately we have very little say in who reads, likes, dislikes, goes super-fan, or loses their shit about out work. Once the story is out there, it's out there, and it's fair game for anyone to react to.
Roger (William Katt) learns that at a signing early in the film. There's a long line of "weirdos" played for laughs whom the more serious Roger really, really can't identify with and he asked his agent, "Who are these people?" The agent responds, "They're your fans."
The trouble is they don't look like he imagined. They don't act like he imagined. They are as "cool" as he imagined. Or they are way too mainstream to be "real" fans. The whys and what-nots don't matter. Only the preconceived perception does.
The lesson? Don't think you're better than your fans and readers. They're the reason you can do what you do professionally, whether as a side gig or as a main career. In the words of The Human League, "[they] picked you up, [they] shook up, and turned you around, and [they] can put you back there too."
But wait! There's more!
Our poor Roger also learns the terrifying lesson that there are some stories that are so important to who we are, so crucial to our growth as not just writers but often human beings as well, that they will stymie us to no end and simply refuse to spill out of our brains onto the page.
Roger believes that his story is about his time in Viet Nam, but it's not. That's just the red herring, the false Moby Dick he's chasing. His real story is the mystery of what happened to his son. Sure, the two tales, the surface story and the deeper one, end up coinciding, as they often do, but he can't move forward until he wraps his mind around the deeper one.
Most of us, I feel, can relate. We all have that "white whale" story we chase that just doesn't want to come out, and we don't know how to figure out why it refuses to get with the program like all the other stories. Sometimes when you can't get that werewolf story to work it may have nothing to do with lycanthropy -- it may be more about your relationships at work. Sometimes that stubborn detective mystery that doesn't flow might be more about an ailing parent. The trouble is there's often no way to know until you're on the other side of it.
Deep, right? Sadly so, and also sadly true. So endure. Take care of yourself. Work on a different story until things loosen up and you can dig deeper at your own pace.
And to think, we can learn that lesson courtesy of the Greatest American Hero.
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