Surprise! It's another movie based on a Stephen King story with (gasp!) a writer as the main character. I know. Something we've never seen before, right?!
All kidding aside, this is my second favorite King movie about a writer (behind The Shining). It's also a pretty solid movie that doesn't fall apart in the third act like a lot of films based on King's work. Mike Enslin is a writer with a pretty compelling novel behind him, but after some hinted-at family trauma/drama with his dad, he puts that world behind him and begins to write travel guides/debunking books for haunted hotels. After his daughter Katie's tragic death, he can't handle life and he disappears on the road, leaving his wife without a word.
Enter The Dolphin, a haunted hotel that may truly be haunted. (If only haunted by the presence of Samuel Jackson's overacting, but I digress.) After receiving a postcard with a photo of The Dolphin and a note that says "Don't stay in 1408," Mike's goal is set. Come hell or high water, he's going to bebunk room 1408.
But, on the way there, he has a stop for a reading and book signing, where he is met by a store employee who would rather be anywhere else but at work, and this happens:
Mike: How's it going?
Employee: Can I help you?
Mike: Yeah, I'm here for the big event.
Employee: All right.
Mike: Cool. I'm Mike Enslin.
Employee: Sorry?
Mike: Book signing.
Employee: Oh, right. Oh, that's you, yeah. I see the resemblance, yeah. That's a good picture.
Employee: Thanks, man.
Employee: All right, hold on. Um... attention, book lovers. Tonight we have noted occult writer Michael Enslin at the Author's Corner tonight. He's the writer of the best-selling ghost survival guides, um... with such titles as "10 Haunted Hotels," "10 Haunted Graveyards," "10 Haunted Lighthouses." That's tonight, 7:00 pm.
Clearly, of the three screenwriters (Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander, and Larry Karaszewski) one of them remembers what it's like to be an author doing a signing, particularly in an out-of-the-way location. The tell-tale signs are all there: disinterested store worker, not being recognized, being treated as an afterthought, the same questions asked over and over again about your work, etc.
But the part that hits home for me here is the clearly marketing-driven titles of Mike's work: 10 Haunted Graveyards, 10 Haunted Lighthouses, 10 Haunted Hotels. They might as well say "You won't believe this place is haunted! Click here for the 10 creepiest haunts" and have an unrelated photo for the clickbait ad. It's this kind of marketing-think that (1) sells books because it understands why sheep need shepherds and (2) drives me up the wall because it dislocated the selling from the story and makes the writer barely more than a supplier of stock, no more than a sweatshop providing off-brand clothing.
After the reading, during the signing, Mike asks often, "What name?" and then signs like an automaton, further reducing the creative role to that of robot (A.I. anyway?) -- at least until one nervous female fan, Anna, puts a copy of his hardcover novel from his previous writing life on the table for him to sign.
Mike is astonished to see anyone even cares about that old thing from another life.
Mike: What rock did you find that under?
Anna: Um, eBay.
Mike: eBay, huh? How much did it go for?
Anna: Well, there weren't many bidders.
Mike: I would think not. Wow.
Anna: But it's, um... an amazing book.
Mike: Oh.
Anna: Um, so... unique and inspirational and honest.
Mike: Thanks. What's your name?
Anna: Um, Anna.
Mike: Okay, Anna.
Anna: Are you gonna write another one like this one?
Mike: Nah, it's a different guy.
I don't know about you, but I often feel that way. I feel like my writing life is a series of phases.
The literary phase right after college.
The super hero phase during Cyber Age Adventure/iHero Entertainment magazine.
The comic book years.
The New Pulp Years.
Honestly, I only feel like now, when I'm blurring the lines more and more between all those previous "lives" that I'm finally coming into my own as a writer. But there are times when I get emails. "When are you going to write another..." And, like Mike, I often want to respond, "Nah, it's a different guy."
The woman continues to ask about the old book. She's a detective, looking for clues to back up the theory she is seeking to prove.
Anna: Um... can I ask you a question?
Mike: Sure.
Anna: Um, the relationship in the book with the father and the son... it's probably too personal, but, um, it's so authentic and...
Mike: Mm-hm.
Anna: ...well-constructed, and... is it true?
There's no denying that she's found the truth, but only to a sort of cursory degree. I get asked often at conventions how much of my writing comes from real life, and I always answer, "All of it, just not how you think."
What I mean by that is that my characters have traits I've seen in people I know or encountered on a bus or at the grocery store or in traffic. But I haven't picked up a person I know, whole kit and kaboodle, and dropped them into my work. No, I've taken this bit, that bit, this motivation, this description, etc., and mixed them all up in a blender. The same goes for my plots.
So, while there may be something of my relationship with my mother in a certain work, there's also something of other people's relationships with their mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles. It's never a 1-to-1 correlation.
Eventually though, Mike arrives at the Dolphin and tries to get the key to room 1408. At that point, Mr. Olin, the hotel manager played by Samuel Jackson, appears and takes him to his office. No spoilers, but there is a wonderful bit where Olin offers Mike a cigar and Mike says, "I don't smoke." Olin motioned to a single cigarette sitting on his ear.
Mike says: "It's part habit, part superstition. It's, you know, a writer thing."
I love this bit because I know so many writers who have our habits and superstitions regarding our writing. Certain music. Certain places. Certain arrangements of the knick-knacks on our desk or the resources near us at the table. Particularly the most OCD of us. You should watch me straighten the papers and line up the pens I keep handy (and my phone too).
At this point, the ghost story really kicks in, and in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll skip to the end, when the horror is over (Or is it?) and Mike is putting his experience to paper for his final ghost guidebook.
Lily: I never saw him writing so fast.
Mike: It is easy, I already wrote this book before.
Isn't it the truth? I don't know about you, but before I even start to write a scene (sometimes a full story), I've already written it in my head. It's done. It's just a matter of somehow getting it out of my head through my fingers and into my laptop.
But it's not alone up there in my head. It lives with all the others that haven't been allowed to come out and hit the real world yet. Someday...
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